The mirror that stood where the ash lake once whispered now reflected a world without stars.
Elías stared into it for hours. It did not show his face—only flickers of things he had not done. Roads not taken. Betrayals not yet chosen.
Aleya was the first to speak.
"We should move. Whatever dried this lake will return to drink again."
Rae nodded, still silent, but the black threads around her mouth had vanished. Now, a mark pulsed on her throat: a spiral made of runes that bent the eye away. She had been touched by something in that cathedral—and it had claimed a piece of her.
They walked west, through the Vale of Hushed Thorns.
No wind passed there.
No birds.
Only the smell—metallic, like blood and rust.
And beneath the soil, bones breathed.
Not moved—breathed.
The group came across a ruined chapel, swallowed by the roots of blackened trees. Inside, they found a priest still praying, though his flesh had long rotted. His voice came from a throat made of woven ash, repeating the same words again and again:
"We are his marrow. We are his hunger. We are his skin."
No name. Just his.
Elías stepped forward, feeling the weight of the Scythe respond.
The chapel darkened, though no clouds had passed above. A presence moved behind the stone.
Not seen. Not heard.
Felt.
Aleya whispered, "There's something in the walls."
Rae bled ink from her nose, her knees trembling.
Then the altar cracked open, and from it rose a mask—not like the last. This one was alive. It blinked.
It whispered:
"You have entered the shadow of Mordeus."
Elías did not recognize the name. But the Scythe did. It trembled in his hands, and a line of black fire crawled down the blade's edge.
"What is Mordeus?" he asked.
The mask laughed—a wet, layered sound like lungs drowning.
"Not a god. Not anymore. He is the silence between names. He is the god that kept eating long after his worshippers died."
Aleya tried to destroy it, but her blade struck the mask and froze. Time around her fractured—her arm repeating the motion again and again, stuck in a second that would not move on.
Only Elías could move.
Only Elías could hear the true voice.
"Little heir of breath and bone… Do you wish to unmake what made you?"
"No," Elías said, voice shaking. "I want to understand."
The mask's eyes opened fully. Inside, he saw a city—not ruins, but a living city. Towers shaped like ribs. Streets made of folded tongues. People walking blindfolded, chanting.
A religion that still breathed.
Still killed.
Still offered hearts still beating.
Elías blinked.
He was back in the chapel.
The mask was gone.
Aleya had dropped to her knees, panting.
Rae had collapsed, unconscious.
And the Scythe was whispering again.
But this time, the voice was not Elías's.
It was Mordeus's.
A name that tasted like rot when thought aloud.
---
They carried Rae through the dead woods.
Every tree leaned inward, as if to listen.
That night, the sky peeled open.
A starless void bled down, and from it came a herald. Not quite a man, not quite a beast—wrapped in papyrus skin, stitched with prayers that moved on their own.
It had no mouth, only a scroll where its face should be.
And the scroll read:
"You were seen. He awakens."
Aleya cut it down, but it bled light—blinding and cold. The wounds it left on her skin spelled words, but none they could read.
When dawn came, there was no sun.
Only a red echo in the sky.
And behind that red: eyes.
Watching.
Waiting.
Wanting.
---
They did not sleep again that night.
And from that day on, Elías could no longer hear silence.
Only the sound of breathing—from the ground, from the air, from within his own heart.
Mordeus had seen him.
And when a god sees, it is never just sight.
It is claim.
---
Question for the Reader:If a god whispered your name in the dark, promising power and answers—but demanded your soul in return—would you ask the question anyway?