The shrine sat beneath the Ophirein estate like something the world forgot.
Cold stone walls loomed close, carved with sigils no scholar had managed to decode. Blue soul-crystals pulsed between the cracks, faint and steady, like veins beneath skin. The air was warm, not with fire—but with memory. Old memory.
At the center stood the statue.
A knight carved from white marble streaked with gold. His stance was upright, blade raised toward the ceiling, vanishing into shadow. One hand held a shield, worn and chipped. His armor was flawless. Eternal.
But it was the serpents that drew the eye.
Not one. Dozens.
Black, obsidian-bodied snakes wound around his limbs, his torso, his blade. Each was different—some coiled in prayer, others bearing their fangs. A few slept. One, just above his chest, was caught mid-shed.
They weren't just decoration.
They were the message.
These weren't chains. They weren't curses. They were companions. Guardians. Wounds and burdens turned inward, protecting something most men wouldn't understand.
And beneath them, at the statue's base, sat the man the world had forgotten.
Caldus.
No title. No heralds. Just a name. And a ruin of a body.
His arms and legs were gone—burned off long ago by something no healer could touch. His eyes were gone too, sockets sealed with scar tissue, blackened and smooth. But he sat upright, back straight, unmoved by time.
A thin trail of incense curled around him as he breathed it in.
"Still here," he muttered, voice rough as rusted steel.
Verran, his soul-bound servant, knelt close by. Silent. Always nearby.
"The household is waking," Verran said.
Caldus tilted his head. "I heard the statue again. The snakes moved."
"…Of course, my lord."
A dry smile cracked across the old man's face. "Don't patronize me."
Verran didn't respond. He moved instead, helping Caldus onto the hover-chair with quiet, practiced ease.
"They're waiting upstairs," he said. "The youngest made sugar bread again."
Caldus sighed. "I was hoping for worse."
The chair rose with a quiet hum as they turned toward the corridor, incense smoke trailing behind like a shadow.
As they passed the statue, Caldus didn't look back—he couldn't. But he spoke, barely audible.
"You still remember, don't you my god?" he whispered. "You haven't let go. Neither have I."
The shrine said nothing.
But something stirred. Just enough to make you wonder.