Morning came without ceremony. Just the hush of a world holding its breath. No birdsong reached the infirmary garden. Just the low whisper of wind curling through cracked tiles and the slow creak of Kaiden's fingers as he held the mana sponge husk in his lap like it might vanish if he blinked.
Nik hadn't spoken yet. He didn't need to. Kaiden had changed.
The boy's eyes no longer darted in frantic curiosity. They lingered. Thoughtfully. It was as if the world itself was now a puzzle worth solving piece by piece instead of being conquered.
He traced the curve of the husk with one finger, then placed it beside his notebook. Another page filled. Another measurement logged.
Then he asked the question he'd been holding all night.
[ Kaiden ]
"…Why was this discarded?"
Nik looked up slowly from his seat by the window. He took a sip from a chipped porcelain cup — some bitter blend Kaiden had once mistaken for medicine — and nodded.
[ Niklaus ]
"Saint Talia the Merciful..."
"Ever heard of the name?"
[ Kaiden (blinked) ]
"Of course not."
[ Niklaus (smirking) ]
"She was a war-cleric."
"Beautiful, brilliant, mad as a sky full of bees."
"Her miracles saved thousands..."
"She once healed a man by whispering to the bones beneath his skin."
Kaiden waited, eyes wide.
[ Niklaus ]
"But there's a reason she's called 'the Merciful' and not 'the Victorious'..."
[ Kaiden ]
"And why is that?"
[ Niklaus ]
"One day, she tried to heal a dying city."
"She poured all her magic into a spell."
"Woven..."
"From tears and silk."
"And the names of the dead."
He paused.
"And when it was over, not one soul survived..."
"Not even her."
Kaiden frowned.
[ Kaiden ]
"So… it backfired?"
[ Niklaus ]
"No. It worked."
"It worked too well."
He leaned forward, tapping the husk with a long, pale finger.
"This thing absorbs mana like a grave swallows names."
"They made it to test limits."
"But it didn't break because it failed."
[ Niklaus (quietly) ]
"It broke because no one could hold what it gave."
Kaiden stared at the husk in a new light.
Not trash.
It was just… too much for the world to carry.
He nodded once and slid it into his storage. He'd learn how to carry it. He'd learn how to carry everything.
◈◈◈
Later that day, Nik led him to the outer compound.
Beyond the infirmary, beyond the merchant stalls, where the grounds grew wilder, cluttered with storage sheds and broken constructs half-sunk in moss.
A scavenger's paradise.
[ Niklaus ]
"This is the Bone Orchard..."
Nik said, gesturing at the twisted remains of arcane machines and failed golems.
Kaiden's breath caught.
To most, it was junk.
To him, it was scripture.
He darted toward a heap of brass limbs and scorched crystal nodes, hands already outstretched.
Nik watched him for a long time before speaking again.
[ Niklaus ]
"There was once a girl named Elsanthra."
Kaiden glanced up.
[ Kaiden ]
"Fairy tales again, Pops?"
[ Niklaus ]
"Hahaha..."
"History, actually."
"She was a scribe."
"Couldn't cast a single spell."
"Couldn't even read her own heartbeat spell right."
"But she copied forbidden tomes by memory."
"Perfectly. Backwards. In the rain."
Kaiden's jaw dropped.
[ Niklaus ]
"She died in obscurity."
"Starved during a siege."
"But when the Concordium reclaimed the ruins, they found her notes."
"One of them was the basis for the Stabilization Array that holds the very campus in place."
[ Kaiden ]
"So… forgotten, but important?"
[ Niklaus (nod) ]
"Like all great truths..."
"They don't shout."
"They survive."
Kaiden didn't say anything. He just bent back to his work.
As the sun dipped low, he cataloged dozens of items. Each one barely shifted his stats. Some gave him nothing at all.
But Kaiden had stopped measuring by numbers.
Now, he listened for resonance.
He heard it in the broken keening of a shattered enchantment core. He felt it in the cold tug of a bent mana conduit.
Each time he touched a piece of wreckage, he didn't ask, "What can you give me?"
He asked:
[ Kaiden ]
"What were you, before they gave up on you?"
And piece by piece, the ruins answered.
◈◈◈
That night, the infirmary was silent but not still.
Kaiden sat by candlelight with his notebook open, cross-legged between three levitating items: a melted lens, a cracked crystal, and a claw half-fused with iron.
They orbited lazily in the Void Drift.
[ HEART ]
[ Void Affinity Sync: 7.83% ]
He didn't cheer. He didn't smile.
He just exhaled. Softly.
Then Nik stirred.
[ Niklaus ]
"You're building something, aren't you?"
Kaiden nodded.
[ Kaiden ]
"A map."
"Of everything people threw away."
Nik stared at him for a long time. Then he stood, stepped close, and laid a hand on Kaiden's head.
[ Niklaus ]
"Then let me tell you one last tale before you cross that next line."
Kaiden looked up.
[ Kaiden ]
"Really, Pops?"
"Not another one of your stories..."
Nik's voice dropped low.
[ Niklaus ]
"There was once a prince born without a name."
"The midwives couldn't hear it, you see."
"It was stolen the moment he came into the world."
"Some said it was the wind that took it."
"Others swore it was the dark below the cradle."
Kaiden leaned forward. Reluctantly.
"Everyone pitied him."
"Said he'd never be anyone."
"But the prince smiled."
"He knew something no one else did."
He knelt, so their eyes were level.
"'If I have no name,' he said, 'then I can become the name they fear most.'"
He stood again, back to the window, where moonlight painted silver bars across the room.
"You may feel small now, Kaiden."
"But when you build from ash and dust, no one can take it from you."
"You're not walking a cursed path."
"You're forging one."
Kaiden's whisper was almost lost in the wind.
[ Kaiden ]
"I'm not done yet."
And from the shadows of the room, the remnants of a forgotten world answered. Not in the form of words, but in the way they moved, just a little closer to him.
By the time the moon had crossed its zenith, Kaiden was still awake.
Not from restlessness, but from need.
The void inside him didn't hunger. It didn't scream. It pulled — like a tide under his skin. With every new item he cataloged, the pull became clearer. Not louder. Just… truer.
Kaiden fell asleep, the air damp with the scent of wet bark and iron. In front of him: a spread of his most resonant finds.
A shattered lens from a basilisk sentinel's eye. A bent bracket from a defunct mana pressurizer. A harpy talon worn smooth with decay. And the mana sponge husk, silent but awake.
And when dawn came again, it wasn't light that woke him.
It was the silence itself — leaning close, pen in hand, ready to become memory.