Unsurprisingly, the shrine wasn't on any of Gethra's maps.
Not fully.
Merry had found it encoded into an old rite circle—etched in grief-thread instead of ink—beneath a warded logbook in her Hollow's library. Lucian followed the directions on foot, descending a hill that bled with moss and dry salt into the ruin of an old chapel half-swallowed by time.
The moment he crossed the broken archway, the Grimoire flickered and resisted.
[WARNING: INCOMPLETE RITUAL SIGNATURE DETECTED]
Localization:Bellkeeper Vault - Atraeum Annex: Redacted
Stabilization:Failed
DO NOT CAST.
Terror gripped his heart, but he stepped through anyway.
The vault was cracked open like a forgotten tomb. The air inside wasn't foul—it was dry. Still. Like a place where sound itself refused to echo.
In the center, beneath a domed skylight warped by time, stood a half-ruined altar. The stone bore etchings: lines carved with precision, but faded with age. Like his legend, it persisted.
Alaric's signature.
Lucian ran his fingers over it. It still had the traces of a man's conviction--to protect himself, no matter the cost. He considered what the future could have been if Alaric hadn't disappeared.
Because of you, the Queen grieved for a hundred years. If you had stuck around, I might have had a mentor. But I think I still would have rung that bell.
He assumed that, like himself, most morticians were meticulous. And Alaric was no different. It was carefully written, but incomplete.
"This is the rite he didn't finish," Lucian murmured.
Alice stood behind him in silence.
"What was it for?"
He looked at the opening glyph and sounded the words out. As he did, the meaning came to him.
"Grief Separation. He was trying to remove the emotional burden from mourning rites. A pure and dispassionate ritual."
He glanced up, eyes heavy.
"He wanted to sever feeling from duty."
Alice looked at him sideways. "But Lucian...isn't that what the Queen wants too?"
Lucian didn't answer. Instead, he contemplated on how intentional the glyphs were.
Even in his etchings--he finished all of the parts that signify suppressing or removing emotion...the execution is missing here.
He opened the Grimoire again. One of the pages lit up with fading ink:
"I began this to end my sorrow. But sorrow will not be unmade. It only finds new names."
– Alaric Montegeau
Lucian closed the book.
"So he stopped mid-rite. He didn't fail—he stopped because he realized it would work."
Alice's hand reached for his coat, and Lucian suppressed the urge to shake it off. She was sweet, but he wanted to concentrate on what he was saying.
"So...he was afraid of who--or what--he'd become if he finished?" she asked, her voice small.
Lucian nodded.
Even Alaric had his limits. I wonder if the Queen knows about this...or if he was ever allowed to express it to her.
He recalled how she'd acted in anger when he questioned what would happen if he failed, and seriously doubted it. In that regard, he couldn't blame Alaric.
Alaric was your trusted advisor, Queen Marguerite...why didn't you let him vent his feelings to you?
+
Just as Merry's note had instructed, they found a secondary tunnel behind the altar.
"This passage used to lead to a filed sanctuary," she'd written. "No one goes there anymore. Some say it swallowed one of its own."
As they wandered through the tunnel, the hallway narrowed. Roots had grown down the ceiling like scars. The Grimoire appeared then, its glow dimmed.
[Proximity Warning: Echo Rites Detected]
[Origin: Unknown Mortician Class]
They emerged into a crumbling stone antechamber lined with fractured pews. A single warding circle still pulsed near the far wall, flickering like a dying star.
Inside it sat a man in old monk's robes, hunched forward and whispering into his hands.
"Don't close the lid… don't close the lid… the bell already rang…"
He didn't look up.
Lucian moved cautiously.
"Sir?"
The man jerked upright, eyes wild, and flung a candle stub like a blade.
"NO! I'm still alive—I was MID-RITE—don't bury me again!"
Lucian raised a hand, but Alice was faster. She stepped into the warded space without triggering its collapse and crouched beside the man.
"No one's burying you," she said gently.
"But I heard the bell."
"There's no bell here."
The man stared through her, trembling.
"They left me. The rest of the unit—gone. Burned. My rite collapsed. All I did was hold a soldier's name in the wrong order."
Lucian stepped closer.
"Who are you?"
The man blinked. His voice cracked.
"Brother Cadrel. Field Confessor. Moving Grief Chapel. Unit Six-Bell West."
Lucian's mouth opened in recognition.
He hadn't even heard about morticians acting in units before. Lucian could only assume those units hadn't existed in decades--especially since, to his knowledge, he was the only mortician summoned to this world.
"You survived the loop rupture?"
"S-survived?" Cadrel choked. "I was...forgotten. My Grimoire shut down. My bell rank was revoked. No reassignment. No rites...no rest."
Alice knelt beside him again and placed her hand on his wrist.
"You're not forgotten now."
The ward shimmered once—then failed.
Cadrel slumped forward, completely exhausted.
His shoulders shook as he wept. Alice kept her hand on his wrist, completely focused on Brother Cadrel now. Lucian couldn't help smiling a little bit.
"Will she understand the urge to protect?"
+
They brought him back to the Hollow.
Not to treat him. But to witness him.
That night, Cadrel lay beneath a woven blanket while Alice watched his sleep from across the hearth.
Lucian stirred crushed sage into a cup of tea and set it onto a low table, easily within Brother Cadrel's reach.
Hopefully it will ease his anxious heart.
It was mostly done out of instinct, and even he was a little surprised. Usually Lucian questioned his intuition.
Meanwhile, Alice hadn't moved.
"I didn't know I could feel this," she said.
"What?"
"This pull. Not of sympathy. Not even empathy. Just—this need to protect someone who's already been shattered."
Lucian passed her the tea and sat beside her.
"Then you understand him."
She looked toward Cadrel.
"He's not useful. He's afraid. But something in me said: No one should stay that way."
Lucian nodded.
"You're not just feeling. You're choosing."
The Grimoire opened softly behind them.
[THREAD UPDATE: Alice]
New Path Detected: Compassion. Guarding Thread Initialized.
Anchor Option:Free will confirmed. She is no longer occupying a vessel.
Lucian smiled, faintly, and said with pride:
"You've stopped echoing Rosa."
Instead of a girl in a vessel, she was now gaining an identity.
Alice looked down at her fingers like she was seeing them for the first time.
"She was a voice I carried. But now… I think I'm beginning to grow one of my own."