Lord of the Foresaken

The square still rang with the echo of the first tap when the crack deepened.

At first, it was only a hairline fracture beneath Lio's boots, as though the cobbles were remembering how to break. But the memory spread. The ground sighed and bent, and from that wound, a second finger began to rise.

This one was thicker than the first, its surface darker, its patterns sharper. Where the first had tested, this one pressed forward with certainty.

The four Narrativeless bent lower. Their breaths tangled into a chord that was not sound. Loop. Hollow. Time. Wait. All exhaled at once, braiding themselves around the second finger as if crowning it.

Lio stood, chest heaving. His claws dripped ink that the cobbles absorbed instead of rejecting. His thin shadow lay at his feet, trembling but present, a proof he refused to surrender.

Shia's voice reached him, tight as bowstring. "Do not let it mark you again. The first wrote itself into you. A second might finish the page."

He bared his teeth. "Then I'll tear the page."

The Memory Council shivered. Jars rattled on their shelves, light sloshing inside them like water in storm. Reed leaned forward, his outline jagged. "That thing isn't just asking. It's claiming. It's trying to rewrite us all through him."

The soldier-memory growled. "Then stop him! Break the bridge before the flood crosses!"

Shia turned, eyes bright and steady. "No. If we break him, the flood comes without shape. With him, at least, there is resistance."

The council murmured, divided, fear pressing every word.

The second finger pushed higher. Its patterns gleamed brighter than the first. They weren't random—they twisted like lines of story written backward. Lio's vision swam. Every line he read in those patterns erased a piece of his memory.

He stumbled.

Kito's laugh slipped away. Maren's scolding turned to mist. The baker's song cracked in half and vanished.

"No!" Lio slammed his claws into the ground, carving trenches. Ink surged out and boiled. He forced the memories back into place. They returned—crooked, weaker, but alive.

The finger twitched. It didn't like resistance.

Then it tapped.

The air folded. Five minutes of Arden Gate collapsed like wet paper. People screamed silently, trapped in their own broken echoes.

The Narrativeless exhaled time, dragging the loops tighter, weaving them with the finger's weight.

Lio gasped, clutching his chest. The door in him rattled, the beam of hunger splintering. His silence spark flickered.

Shia's voice steadied him. "Do not fight it with strength. Fight it with sequence."

He clenched his teeth. He projected again. Not death. Not cost. Not choice.

This time he pushed memory.

The taste of stolen bread. The sound of a mother's tired laugh. The cut of winter wind across cracked lips. The ache of scars that no one else remembers.

He hurled memory into the second finger.

The patterns stuttered. They rewrote themselves crooked. For a heartbeat, the finger paused, confused.

The Narrativeless above hissed together, their breaths shaking. One bent wrong, another warped sideways, as though their shapes were forced to carry weight they had never practiced before.

Lio grinned, sharp and bloody. "Good. Feel that. That's weight you don't get to erase."

In the chamber of Eleven, Zara's voice cut sharp. "He's teaching them memory! He's binding them to sequence by forcing them to remember!"

The storm-haired Originless frowned. "And if the second finger remembers us instead?"

No one answered.

The finger tapped again.

This time, it didn't strike his chest. It pressed against his shadow.

The thin outline at his feet screamed like iron in fire. It tore sideways, splitting into two trembling shapes. One clung to his boots. The other slid toward the crack.

Lio roared, slamming both claws into the cobbles. He projected seen again—the state of being witnessed, the weight of existing in others' eyes. He wrapped it around both shadows like chains.

The second finger pulsed. The stolen shadow twitched and writhed, pulled halfway into the crack.

"No!" His voice broke. Ink poured from his mouth, his veins. His knees buckled.

The beam of hunger screamed in his chest, begging to be unleashed.

He almost let it go.

Almost.

Instead, he pulled harder on silence. The tiny spark burned bright, stabbing through the dark like a nail through skin.

The shadow stopped sliding.

But the finger pressed again.

Shia raised her arms in the Memory Council, her voice rising. "All of you! Give him your echoes! Bind him with memory!"

The jars burst. Light streamed into the hall, rushing toward her, pouring into her hands. Faces blurred into lines, voices into threads, moments into sparks. She hurled them all into the square.

Lio gasped as memories not his own filled him—laughter of strangers, deaths he had never mourned, triumphs he had not earned. The weight staggered him, but it held his shadow firm.

The second finger twitched. For the first time, it recoiled slightly, as though confused.

The Narrativeless shrieked in silence, their breaths unraveling.

But then the patterns shifted again.

The finger was learning.

It rewrote the memories he had projected. Faces turned blank. Laughter warped into static. Triumphs dulled.

The council's light dimmed.

Lio gasped. "No! You don't get to eat this too!"

He slammed his claws into his chest. The beam of hunger howled. He pried it loose. Splinters stabbed his ribs.

He lifted it like a spear and drove it into the finger.

The impact rang like worlds colliding. The square split, buildings toppling. Loops shattered.

The second finger cracked down its length. Its patterns bled white fire.

The Narrativeless reeled, their breaths stuttering.

But the beam shattered too.

It collapsed into dust inside him, leaving only pain and silence.

He staggered, coughing black. His shadow flickered, then steadied. The finger froze, trembling. Its crack glowed brighter.

And then, with a sound like a page tearing in half, it drew back into the wound.

The fissure pulsed, wider than before.

The four Narrativeless bent lower, their breaths wild, chaotic. Loop. Hollow. Time. Wait. All warped into something new.

Shia's voice whispered in horror. "They're merging."

Lio fell to one knee. His chest burned. The beam was gone. His hunger was gone.

And yet he felt stronger, sharper. His silence spark blazed inside him, bigger than before.

He looked up at the four shadows. They weren't four anymore.

They were one.

A single vast shape stretched across the fissure, its breath heavy enough to bend the square. It exhaled not before, not loop, not hollow.

It exhaled storyless.

The ground shook. Time buckled. The crack spread wider.

Lio spat blood and ink. He forced himself to his feet, claws raised.

"Fine," he rasped. "If you want storyless—then let me show you what story costs."

The merged shadow bent lower, its breath pressing against him like the weight of an unfinished book.

And in the depths of the crack, a third finger twitched.