Cade's breath hitched.
Those three…
Maya was obviously talking about the trio— Sunny, Nephis, and Cassie— who were still stranded atop the Ashen Barrow, enthralled by the abominable Soul Devourer.
Things had been going so well that Cade had almost forgotten why the two of them were staying at the Bone Ridge in the first place. They were trying to keep an eye on the trio as the three of them made their way to the Dark City, but somewhere along the way, he had grown complacent. He had let the real reason for their stay slip through the cracks of his mind.
Maya, thankfully, had not. She had noticed something. Something bad.
Cade steadied himself, his expression turning sharp.
"What're you getting at, Maya?" he asked. "What about them?"
Maya remained silent for a moment, staring at the distant Ashen Barrow. Then, she spoke in a worried tone. "Do you remember how many Shadow Fragments Sunny had when they first reached the Ashen Barrow in the original story?"
Cade frowned. The question seemed unrelated, but he answered anyway. "Yeah. Ninety-six. Why?"
Maya exhaled softly. "And when he checked his counter after killing the Vile Thieving Bird's Spawn?"
Cade opened his mouth to reply, but the words caught in his throat. A slow, creeping realization settled over him.
"... A hundred and ninety-six," he murmured, more to himself than to Maya.
"Exactly, Cade," Maya said, her tone measured but more urgent than before. "If we take into account that Sunny ate one fruit a day— which we know he did— and that each fruit gave him a single Shadow Fragment, then that means the trio was stranded at the Barrow for about thirty-six days, give or take."
Cade turned to her, his eyes widening. "You're not saying—"
"That's exactly what I'm saying," Maya cut him off, her mask of calm cracking just a little. "We've been watching them for more than forty..."
Maya's words hit like a jolt. Cade stiffened and slowly pushed himself into a standing position. His mind was racing.
What the hell is she talking about...? he thought in disbelief, turning to face the Ashen Barrow. The abominable Soul Devourer loomed in the distance, an ancient monolith of unspoken doom.
Cassie... Cade's thoughts swirled as he thought about the blind girl. The weight of the revelation settled in and he found his throat turning dry. He turned back to Maya, the shock of the news apparent in his eyes.
"She's gotta be mistaken..." he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. Then, stronger, more desperate— "No, Maya. Are you sure you haven't made a mistake? Are you absolutely sure?"
Maya stood as well. The harsh afternoon sun cast sharp shadows across the ridge. She turned her gaze toward the distant Ashen Barrow, her expression dark.
"I wasn't completely sure at first," she admitted. "I thought maybe I miscounted, or my numbers were mixed up. But you've just confirmed it. There's no mistake. They've been there longer than they were originally supposed to."
Cade felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. This was bad. This was really bad. No wonder Maya had been so distant lately.
"Why didn't you tell me the moment you suspected something?" he inquired, his voice sharper than he'd intended.
Maya hesitated for a moment.
"After all that we've been through, Cade, we finally found a moment of respite," she said in a suppressed tone. "And we earned it; we've been through absolute hell. I didn't want to ruin that based on nothing more than a hunch. At first, I thought that the author had mentioned the fruits being inconsistent. Not all of them gave Sunny Shadow Fragments, and I guessed they were actually meant to stay there longer."
She turned to look at him, her icy blue eyes filled with quiet concern. "But it's been over a week past the day that they were supposedly meant to leave. I've taken a few looks around the Barrow, but nothing has changed. They're slowly falling deeper under that tree's control."
She exhaled sharply, frustration lacing her voice. "Yesterday was especially bad. Nephis doesn't even stay at the western edge anymore. She used to look toward the Dark City, but now she and Cassie just huddle together at the base of the tree. Sunny still seems a little better off, but that doesn't mean much. He climbs the tree, brings them fruit, they eat, and then they sleep. Over and over again. They're showing no signs of resisting the enthrallment. I don't even know if Sunny has acquired Blood Weave yet."
Her fingers tightened around her arm, as if grounding herself. "If we don't do something, Cade, they might never leave that place."
Cade ground his teeth as he pressed his fingers against his temples, trying to steady the storm brewing in his mind. This was… too much.
What had changed? Why hadn't Sunny realized what was happening? That their minds were slowly being chipped away, piece by piece? That they were slipping into oblivion?
He turned to Maya, his voice quieter now, but no less urgent. "You know what this means?"
Maya exhaled sharply, her lips pressing into a thin line.
"Yeah," she murmured. "I know you're against the idea. I'm not too stoked to go through with it myself. But we no longer have a choice. We're gonna have to reveal ourselves."
Cade clenched his jaw. If only it were that simple. If it were just about swooping in and saving them, he wouldn't have hesitated for a second. But that wasn't how this was supposed to go.
Sunny had to be the one to do it.
That was the moment that had solidified Changing Star's trust in him. The moment that had set everything in motion. If Cade took that away, if he forced a different path— what would happen then?
Cade exhaled slowly, his mind racing as he sat back down atop the bone.
"Let's think about this," he muttered. Then, he turned to Maya. "Can you take another look? While I figure out what we're going to do."
Maya crossed her arms, her expression tight.
"What's there to look for?" she shot back. "We already know how far this has gone. I don't think they'll last more than a few days."
Cade gritted his teeth, frustration clawing at his chest. I knew everything was just going too damn well…
"Still," he insisted, forcing himself to stay level-headed, "gather as much information as you can. At least figure out if Sunny has acquired Blood Weave or not. We need to know exactly what we're dealing with."
Maya hesitated for a moment, clearly torn, but in the end, she relented with a nod. Without another word, she turned and dropped down into the spine tunnel below, disappearing into the shadows.
***
Maya moved through the tunnel carved into the ancient leviathan's spine, a hollow space where its colossal spinal cord had once been. Now, after thousands of years, even the nerves of the mystical being had long since withered into nothingness, leaving behind only the empty husk of its bones.
She moved with practiced ease. Her footsteps were light as she neared the opening at the base of the creature's skull. Without slowing, she slipped outside and descended the Bone Ridge in swift and precise motions.
Ahead lay the Ashen Barrow, separated from the Bone Ridge by a bleak and desolate stretch of land that she had grown accustomed to crossing over for the past few weeks. The moment she set foot on the lifeless expanse, a familiar sensation washed over her— a deep, unsettling quiet, as if the very air here refused to stir.
The ashen wasteland felt like the grave of a once-thriving world.
Maya didn't need to wonder if that was true. After all, she knew it was.
The ancient Soul Devourer had drained this entire stretch of the labyrinth of life, leaving behind nothing but barren silence. No creatures stirred, no signs of movement disrupted the sea of ash. It was a dead land, cursed to remain that way forever.
Nothing moved... except for Maya. Veil of Ashes moving through a sea of ash— it had a certain ring to it.
She was an anomaly— an existence outside the Soul Devourer's grasp. Immune to mind attacks, and not in possession of a soul, she was like an antidote to the ancient horror. The fiend had no power over her. She could walk through its dominion without fear, spend eternity here if she wished, living off its cursed fruits and never wanting for anything.
Not that she had any intention of doing so, of course.
Cade, on the other hand, refused to go anywhere near the Soul Devourer. Unlike Maya, he wasn't immune to mind attacks, and he wasn't about to test his resistance against an ancient abomination that had spent millennia perfecting the art of enthrallment.
Maya had tried to convince him a few times, insisting that since he didn't have a soul like her, there was nothing for the Soul Devourer to consume. She had thought that that would reassure him, that maybe he'd consider the logic and relent.
But Cade, ever the pessimist, had only grown more unsettled. His response had been immediate, voice laced with grim certainty:
"That makes me its natural victim. Think about it. All of its thralls eventually die because it consumes their souls. But since I don't have one, I'll be turned into its puppet for all eternity— unable to die, unable to escape. And excuse me if I don't wanna become some loathsome tree's eternal plaything."
That had been the end of that conversation.
Shaking her head, Maya pressed forward. Her footsteps were silent against the lifeless expanse of ash. Hours passed as she traversed the barren wasteland, the Bone Ridge shrinking behind her. When she finally neared the Ashen Barrow, she veered northward, where the trio rarely lingered.
The climb to the top was effortless. Her body moved with practiced ease. As she reached the summit, her gaze lifted to the abominable entity that loomed above. Maya clenched her fists, ice crackling faintly around her knuckles.
The Soul Devourer was a monolith of darkness. It was a towering nightmare that defied reason. For those who couldn't truly see it, its sheer scale was almost impossible to grasp.
The trunk, a behemoth of onyx bark that gleamed like polished metal, stretched hundreds of meters wide. Its countless branches sprawled outward, blotting out the sky and casting an endless, oppressive shadow over the Barrow. Considering the Barrow itself spanned several kilometers in diameter, that was no small feat.
The blood-red leaves shimmered with an unnatural, mesmerizing beauty. Hundreds— no, thousands— of its accursed fruits dangled from its boughs. They glistened like rubies in the dim light. It was breathtaking in the worst possible way. Its elegance almost managed to mask the horror that lurked beneath.
Maya reached the base of the tree, boots sinking slightly into the thick carpet of ash. Above her, the leaves began to tremble— not from wind, but from unease. The ancient fiend could always sense her presence, could always feel its influence failing against her.
She smirked bitterly.
But the Soul Devourer did nothing. No thralls stirred, no monsters rose from the ground. It didn't attack because it didn't need to. To this abomination, Maya was nothing. An insect. A speck too insignificant to warrant its attention.
That was fine. She preferred it that way.
"You know," Maya muttered, her voice laced with dry amusement, "when I found out Sunny burned you to the ground... I gotta say, that was one of the most satisfying things I've ever read in my life."
Talking to a tree— especially one as loathsome as this one— was strange, but she did it anyway. If nothing else, it made her feel slightly better.
Not that she was here to trade insults with a mind-shattering abomination.
She stepped lightly, shifting along the edge of the colossal trunk until she reached a vantage point. Crouching low, she peered ahead.
The three Sleepers hadn't moved. If anything, they looked worse than before. Every day spent under this cursed tree chipped away at their minds. It was breaking them down piece by piece. Their souls were being drained, consumed, and dissolved into nothingness.
Maya clenched her fists. The urge to storm over and snap them out of it was overwhelming. But she couldn't. Not yet.
She took a slow breath, forcing herself to trust Cade.
It's alright. He'll figure something out... she thought. He has to.
Cassie sat huddled some distance from the tree's base, her sea-wave cloak draped over her small frame like a shield against a cold that only she could feel. She clutched her knees to her chest, curled in on herself as if trying to disappear. The way she held herself made her seem even smaller, fragile— like the slightest touch might shatter her.
Her lifeless blue eyes looked blind. Maya didn't know her as well as Cade did, but she could tell that her eyes were truly blind for the first time. Empty. Dull.
Her skin was so pale, it seemed almost translucent, as if the Soul Devourer had already drained most of the life out of her.
Nephis, by contrast, still sat upright, though the rigidness of her posture had begun to wane. The white plates of her Starlight Legion Armor gleamed in the rare sunlight that managed to pierce the crimson canopy above.
When Maya had first started these visits, Nephis had spent most of her time on the western edge of the Barrow, staring toward the Dark City. Back then, there had been something in her clear gray eyes— tiny motes, white glimmers of defiance, of her Soul Flames. That fire was gone now, though. It had been replaced by something… uncertain. Confused.
Changing Star had never known hesitation. Never known doubt.
But now, she was drowning in both.
Still, she was doing better than Cassie. Cassie was already little more than a breathing corpse. Nephis was… just slightly more alive. But that wasn't saying much.
If they stayed here a few more days, it wouldn't matter. They'd both be lost.
Then, there was Sunny.
The tiny, pale-skinned boy was faring better than both Changing Star and Cassie— not by much, but enough to be noticeable. Maybe it was the Puppeteer's Shroud giving him some meagre resistance to mind-attacks. Maybe it was his True Name, Lost from Light, anchoring him just enough to keep his mind from slipping entirely.
Unlike the other two, he rarely sat still. If he wasn't climbing the cursed tree to gather its poisonous bounty, he was wielding Midnight Shard in slow, methodical swings. His movements were practiced yet… absent. Detached. Like he was going through the motions, not out of intent, but because something in him still remembered how to fight.
His shadow, however, told a different story. It writhed frantically, flickering with restless, almost manic energy, as if it were on the verge of breaking free and fleeing altogether. The Gloomy shadow was a reflection of Sunny's soul— so, it knew exactly how dire the situation was.
But under the Soul Devourer's influence, Sunny ignored it.
Maya took a slow breath, steadying herself.
Summoning the Dreadful Sorrow, she cast a sharp glance at the two girls. They weren't looking. They weren't even aware. Nephis and Cassie were too far gone. Their thoughts were tangled in the unnatural stupor of enthrallment. They wouldn't notice her.
Not that it mattered.
Lifting the ice-clad dagger to her lips, she kissed the long blade of the rondel dagger. Then with effortless grace, she hurled it— aimed directly at Sunny's head.
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[No thoughts today. Hope you liked it! Until next time... ]