The path ahead was dense with fog—not the lazy morning kind, but the type that clung to your ankles like guilt. It didn't drift. It stalked.
Clive moved carefully, the Wyrmstone around his neck pulsing colder with each step. The forest knew he was coming. The trees didn't whisper; they listened. And something deep in the roots remembered his name.
He came to the clearing slowly, where the fog broke like torn fabric. In its heart stood a statue, carved of black stone and tall as a man. Its surface wept streams of red—thick, steady, endless. Not quite blood, but not anything else either.
Clive recognized the face instantly.
It was his own. Younger. Untouched by fire, war, or the shadow of betrayal. This was the version of him Maedra had stolen, before the screams, before the forest.
Another soul-fragment.
For the first time in hours, Grimpel—the ever-chattering skull bound to Clive's shoulder—was silent. And that silence felt heavier than any insult.
Clive took a step forward. The statue's eyes followed him.
Then, a voice slithered into his skull, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once.
"Why did you let them die?"
He froze.
The voice was his mother's.
He clenched his fists, knuckles white. "Not now," he whispered.
"You watched. You knew. And still you let her take them."
Clive moved closer, reaching for the blood-red shard embedded in the statue's chest.
"You are what's left," it said. "A hollow boy with broken teeth and borrowed fire."
His fingers brushed the stone and the world shattered.
Visions sliced through him like shards of obsidian: his father howling beneath a curse; his mother sobbing in a doorway of flame; Maedra, pale and grinning, as she unraveled his soul like thread from a tapestry.
And beneath it all, faint, but unmistakable:
Laughter.
Not Maedra's.
Someone else's.
Clive dropped to his knees, gasping.
Grimpel finally spoke. "That one hit deep, huh? Told you—memories are best left buried under two tons of regret."
Clive looked up, searching the skull's single glowing eye. There was no sympathy there. No concern.
Only... interest.
The fog began to recede as the statue crumbled behind them. The fragment in Clive's hand glowed faintly, warm to the touch.
"How many more?" he asked.
Grimpel tilted ever so slightly. "Four. Maybe five, if one of 'em grew legs and wandered off."
Clive didn't respond. He simply turned and walked deeper into the forest.
But the doubt had taken root.
How does Grimpel know so much?
He shoved the thought aside. For now.
The forest thickened, the trees pressing in as though trying to keep him out—or hold him in. Roots twisted like sleeping snakes, and every step echoed as if the earth were hollow beneath.
Then came the sound.
Chanting. Low, melodic, and wrong.
Clive ducked behind a fallen tree. Through the moss-choked branches, he saw a grove bathed in sickly moonlight. A black lake sat in the middle, and around it danced shadows—Maedra's children—lurching, twitching, never fully formed.
And above them, floating barefoot over the water, was Maedra herself.
She hadn't aged. She didn't need to. Her hair shimmered silver-blue, drifting like smoke. Her eyes—wide, unblinking—glowed faintly beneath the Loud Moon's stare.
Grimpel leaned closer. "Well. If it isn't Lady Trauma herself."
Clive said nothing. His hands were trembling again.
Maedra held a mask in her hands—shaped like a wolf, woven of gold and bone. She dipped it slowly into the lake.
The water hissed.
The soul inside Clive screamed.
"That's one of mine," he muttered.
"Was," Grimpel replied with irritating ease. "You gave it up, remember?"
Clive rose to his feet.
He didn't have a spell prepared. He didn't care.
Maedra turned before he stepped into the clearing.
She shouldn't have seen him. She shouldn't have known.
But her smile was already waiting.
"Come closer, little bear," she cooed. "You've come for the pieces, haven't you? You don't even know what you are without the breaks."
Clive stepped forward. "I came to take back what's mine."
Her laugh rang like broken bells. Not cruel. Regretful.
"No, little one. You came to wake it."
The lake behind her began to boil. The shadows around her hissed and split apart, crawling up the trees.
And above them, the Loud Moon laughed louder than before.