Kraft sat alone beneath the royal library's lofty shelves. Books covered in dust loomed above him like silent judges. The boy—who was he? There were no files, no face matches, no leads. Only a sick girl, a path of ash, and a partner who had not checked in for hours.
Then his glyph buzzed.
He opened it blindly.
"Lindsay here. I'm safe."
That was all.
Kraft froze.
Then rushed—out of the library, down the corridor, past startled servants. He did not stop until he was at the gate of the castle. And there he waited.
### Ten minutes passed. Then thirty. Then an hour.
Noon crept across the sky, but he remained—arms folded, foot tapping restlessly, eyes fixed on the horizon.
"You're going to wear a hole in the ground," a voice said.
He looked up, and everything dropped. "Lindsay—!"
She barely had time to react before he launched himself at her, pulling her into a fierce embrace. "I thought you were—" His voice cracked.
Then he exhaled, stepped back, rubbing his face as though he might be able to scrub the relief away.
"I know."
"A hundred questions—"
"And no time for answers. The Chief is waiting."
They rushed through the palace, footsteps echoing off the marble walls. Lindsay led them to the Chief's chambers and burst the door open.
Empty.
"Where."
Then she spotted it. A piece of parchment on the desk, edges blackened by heat.
She stepped in, frowning harder as she read:
"Experiment: [REDACTED]
Status: Terminated
Cause: Subject Interference
Result: Irrecoverable Loss"
And below it, scribbled in a hurry:
"All involved are to be questioned. No exceptions."
Lindsay barely heard the steps behind her until a quiet cough broke the silence. She turned—Chief Ivers stood in the doorway, impassive as ever.
"You're back," he said.
She straightened up, putting the note back on the table. "Sir."
"Come with me."
They walked in silence. Lindsay matched his stride but not his tension—his jaw was tight, his hands uncharacteristically still.
She was the one who broke the silence. "The boy. Who is he?"
"I don't know," Ivers admitted. "But there's someone who might."
They descended to the lower levels—The iron door groaned open, hinges protesting after decades of disuse. The air stank of decay, mold, and something older—something buried.
Chief Ivers led the way, cane banging with deliberate emphasis on the stone floor. Lindsay followed, uneasy. They stopped before the last cell in the hallway.
Inside was a man curled in a corner, shackled at wrists and ankles. Sunken eyes, hollow face—more corpse than captive.
Ivers struck the bars with the tip of his cane with a loud rap.
CLANG.
The prisoner spasmed violently, groaning as he fought awake.
"Get up," said Ivers, his voice sharp. "You're going to answer some questions."
The man blinked in the dim light, confused, half-aware. "W-what.?"
Ivers didn't wait.
"The experiments. The ones in facility seventeen. Who was involved. Who authorized them. And the test subjects—the boy especially."
When he mentioned boy, the prisoner's eyes widened. He tried to press back into the corner, as if it would protect him.
"No… no, not him. You don't understand. We weren't supposed to touch him."
Lindsay stepped forward, horrified. "Chief… he's terrified. What the hell did they do in that lab?"
Ivers didn't say anything, but he looked at her. He turned back to the prisoner.
"You're not going anywhere. Whatever you're afraid of, it's already out there. So tell us."
The prisoner's head shook frantically back and forth.
"It wasn't an experiment. Not with him. We didn't realize he was different. He was an orphan, we thought. He wasn't. The scans—nothing matched up. No mana signature. No baseline psyche imprint. He was a hole in our data."
Lindsay frowned. "What does that mean?"
The man laughed bitterly, a rasping sound that bordered on a sob.
"He didn't have a soul. Or maybe… maybe he had too many."
Ivers narrowed his eyes.
"Results. Give me results. What did he do to the other researchers?"
The man froze. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"They died. Not because he touched them. Not because he moved. They just. knew. Something inside of them broke. One of the lead scientists began screaming about eyes that weren't there. Another apologized for things he hadn't done."
He paused, trembling.
"One of them—Dr. Malthe—he just stopped breathing. No cause of death. No trauma. Just. nothing. Like he chose to stop being alive."
Lindsay's eyes were wide. "You're saying he killed them with fear?"
The prisoner met her gaze—eyes red, trembling.
"No. Not fear. Truth. Something in him strips away the lies we tell ourselves just to stay sane. We weren't prepared for that."
Ivers' jaw tightened.
"What is he?"
The prisoner slowly shook his head, voice cracking again.
"He doesn't belong in this world. Or any world. You think he's a kid. But he isn't. He's a… mistake. An echo of something older. Something that slipped through.".
He rested against the wall again, exhausted. There was a long silence.
Then, barely audible:
"We shouldn't have tried to shape him. He doesn't fit in the pattern."
And louder, almost a sob:
"He is the end of order."
With that, he passed out—whether from fear or exhaustion, no one could say.
Lindsay stared at Ivers, stunned.
He didn't speak right away. Just looked at the broken man in the cell.
Then finally:
"I need to tell the King about this."
She swallowed. "And the boy?"
"If you ever see him again… you do nothing."
The stone steps groaned underfoot as Lindsay and Kraft climbed up from the dungeon. It was nighttime; the sky hemorrhaged red over the towers. Bells rang the change of guard somewhere in the distance, but the weight of Lindsay's heart made it feel like the whole world had grown quiet.
Kraft walked beside her, arms folded close. He had said nothing since they left the cell.
"I don't get it," he finally muttered. "They were scientists. Mages. Professionals. You don't die just because you're scared.
Lindsay didn't say anything.
"I mean—what the hell was that? 'No soul'? 'Too many'? That guy downstairs is insane."
"Maybe," Lindsay said, gently. "Or maybe he's just seen something you and I haven't. "
Kraft stopped pacing. "Lindsay. You saw the kid. He's thirteen. He fried eggs and smiled like everything's okay.
She faced him again, her eyes colder than usual. "You're assuming that's his real face."
Kraft frowned. "You're not seriously buying that he's. some kind of eldritch aberration, are you?"
She didn't answer right away.
"I'm saying I've never seen a soldier shake like that. And I've fought men who were possessed."
Kraft turned away, his jaw tight. "This isn't our job. We're guards. Patrol, report, arrest thieves. Not hunt ghosts from derelict laboratories."
"No one's asking you to hunt anything," she said. "Just—don't be stupid."
He turned to her. "And if he is a danger?"
Her voice dropped, barely a whisper. "Then we do nothing. We let the people in charge deal with it. We stay alive."
Kraft exhaled through his nose. "So we pretend we didn't hear any of that?"
She looked past his shoulder, up at the tower spires blacking out against the sky.
"No. We remember it. Every word."
There was a long silence between them.
Then she continued, more to herself than to him:
"There's something wrong with him. Not evil. Just. wrong. Like something got constructed out of parts that don't fit together."
Kraft said nothing.
He didn't need to.
A week had passed. The girl was nearly completely recovered, and Reinhard had stayed longer than he intended.
He watched the boy prepare food silently, his actions spare and almost mechanical in their elegance. When the girl was out of earshot, Reinhard finally asked:
"She means a lot to you, doesn't she?"
The boy didn't look up.
"She's someone I need to protect."
Reinhard nodded slowly.
"And you?" he went on after a moment. "Who are you, anyway?"
There was a long pause. Then the boy finally responded:
"I'm no one. A child of no one. An orphan born from nothing."
Reinhard tilted his head. "That's not the entire truth, is it?"
The boy presented a weak, bitter smile.
"It's the part that matters."
At that moment, there came the noise of little footsteps in the hallway. Marie appeared, yawning sleepily.
"Where's big brother…?"
Reinhard looked at her, confused.
"Big brother?"
She looked around the room, then pointed right at the boy.
He blinked, startled—almost as though he'd forgotten she spoke to him so.
Reinhard watched him, then smiled gently.
"She's lucky to have you."
The boy didn't respond.
Later, when Reinhard was gathering his things, the boy offered to teleport him back to Regin.
Reinhard stalled, surprised.
"You can do that?"
The boy nodded once.
"Then… thank you."
They stood in the doorway.
Reinhard looked at Marie and smiled, kneeling down to her height.
"And what do they call you, little one?"
She grinned, eyes sparkling.
"Marie!"
He patted her head gently.
"A pretty name."
Then he nodded to the boy, gave a final nod, and both of them vanished.