The scent of incense clung to the air like an old ghost—thick, unshaken, and unwilling to leave.
I stood at the threshold of the Ashram. Behind me stretched the rotting bones of Slamanta's slums; before me, something older, quieter, and deeply coiled. Karasa and her enforcers moved ahead, boots clicking on polished stone. The moment with Elias still pulsed in my chest—the fragile gratitude in his voice, and the strange echo of pain I'd glimpsed in Karasa's soul.
Now this place.
It hummed, but not with life. It vibrated like a machine cloaked in prayer.
The Essentia here didn't breathe—it flowed, tight and narrow, like sacred blood forced through sealed veins. Not dead. Not wild. But tamed. Chained. Somewhere in that rhythm was a warning I couldn't name.
The corridor around us was flanked by brass lanterns and faded prayer scrolls, the walls etched with weathered reliefs of forgotten gods. The Ashram bore a kind of grandeur, but it wore it like costume jewelry—shiny, oversized, and desperate to impress.
We passed a chamber with no name, only a cracked symbol above its walls. Karasa didn't pause. But I did.
And that's when I saw him.
Leaning half in shadow beside a carved pillar stood a man who did not belong to silence.
He wore layered white-gold robes, the outer fabric swept back to reveal a loose black tunic beneath. His dark brown hair fell in unkempt waves to his shoulders, catching flecks of lanternlight like polished wood. His face was sharp—handsome not by nature but by decision, as though sculpted through years of perfected smirks and knowing glances.
But it was his honey-brown eyes that held me. Liquid amber. Warm, alert, and constantly shifting—like they were always seconds away from laughter or betrayal.
A casual hand rested on his hip. The other played with a silver ring, twisting it over one knuckle as though he didn't know what to do with stillness.
Then he saw us.
"Karasa," he said, pushing off the pillar. "If I'd known you were coming, I'd have cleaned up the place... or at least warned the scrollkeepers. Last time you visited, they almost chewed through their last prayer sheet trying to keep up."
He spoke like someone stepping into a play halfway through.
Karasa audibly grumbled and rolled her eyes but didn't even pause. Just exhaled through her nose.
"Turas," she muttered under her breath. "Of course."
He grinned.
"Every day is 'of course,' dear Karasa."
"Still pretending sarcasm counts as scholarship, Turas?"
"It counts when it comes from me."
Then he noticed me—his gaze lingering, measuring, amused.
"Now this is interesting," he said. "Karasa, since when do you bring guests? Or is this one of your new recruits, fresh from the slum theaters?"
"He's not mine," she said, already walking past. "Outsider. Not from here. Helped a slum rat escape. Stubborn. Glows like Essentia, but doesn't speak much. I figured he might as well see the mess he's stepped into."
Turas's amber eye sparkled. They lingered on me, unreadable.
"Well then. Let me give the tour. It's not every day a stranger walks into the house of God unburned."
"I am Turas Halorian," he said. "Lorekeeper. Sometimes priest. Occasional disappointment. Welcome to the house of what remains."
His presence was strange—half jester, half scholar. But underneath his flippancy, I sensed something else. A thread of tension. Not fear. Not power.
Curiosity.
---
He guided us into the central atrium. A cavernous space under a stained-glass dome that bled fractured moonlight over polished stone.
At the heart of the chamber rose a mural three times the height of a man.
It depicted a god with four heads, each turned to a different direction—one to the east, one to the west, one bowed downward, and one gazing skyward. In its many hands, it held a single black fruit, offering it to a kneeling, hollow-eyed man. Around them swirled celestial rings, coiling stars, and strange glyphs that suggested both birth and burial.
Turas stepped forward. His voice lowered, no longer theatrical.
"This," Turas intoned, voice now dipped in ceremony, "is Thalos, God of Time, Cycles, and Rebirth. Master of Fate's Flow."
He stepped closer to the mural, arms wide.
"Joy. Grief. Ignorance. Silence. The four truths. Thalos holds all of them. He gives not what you want, but what you must face. His gift is Becoming. Or Oblivion. Depending on the flavor."
"They say the fruit of Thalos gives remembrance of all your past lives... and all your future deaths."
He turned, winking.
"Most of us aren't worthy to even chew it."
His words carried the weight of mockery and devotion in equal parts.
"They say his four heads represent Rebirth, Memory, Grief, and Death."
He glanced over his shoulder at me.
"But doctrine is like wine. The best drink too much, the rest pretend they don't, and somewhere in between we forget what sober feels like."
I studied the mural. The god's eyes—each set—seemed to follow you differently. The head that looked upward showed awe. The one looking down, regret.
"You sound like someone who's halfway to belief," I said.
"Halfway's more honest than the cliff," Turas replied. "I don't kneel. But I listen. Sometimes that's enough."
He held out his hand. His eyes started glowing—changing to a lighter color—then a soft blue-white glow bloomed in his palm—Essentia, carefully controlled, layered and calm.
But under that light, just for a second—I saw something else.
A flicker of ink. A pulse of shadow beneath the glow.
Not corruption. Not decay.
Something inquisitive. Experimental.
I didn't say anything. Neither did he.
But his expression shifted—almost impressed.
"You see it, don't you?" he murmured. "Most don't. Or pretend they don't. I study the edges. The threads between forbidden and forgotten. Not to break the world… just to understand it."
From the back, Karasa scoffed.
"Last priest who said that ended up whispering Void prayers into the temple well. Screamed until his tongue bled."
"Yes, yes," Turas waved her off. "Poor bastard couldn't hold his wine. Or his sanity."
Then, to me:
"Don't mistake curiosity for madness. Madness only matters when you stop asking who benefits."
His honey-brown eyes fixed on me again—sharper now.
"You glow like someone out of place. Like someone trying not to be noticed by the thing already watching him."
I said nothing.
But something passed between us.
Not recognition.
Resonance.
---
We moved deeper into the Ashram. Chanting rose from the lower chambers, low and hollow, more rhythm than meaning. Children chanted quietly, faces pale. Their Essentia flickered with each word, dimming slowly like candles losing air.
"They're cleansing," Turas said. "Releasing their burdens. The soul must be emptied before it can be recycled."
One boy collapsed mid-chant.
No one moved to help him.
"We feed them," Karasa muttered. "We heal them. They pay what they can."
"Faith isn't a currency," I said.
"Here," Turas murmured, "everything is currency. Even faith."
Karasa led. Silent. Focused. Her guard's armor clinked behind her like dull bells.
Turas walked beside me, hands tucked behind his back, voice dropped to a murmur.
"They'll test you soon," he said. "This place doesn't tolerate unmeasured pieces. Say little. Be useful."
Then, with that ever-present smirk:
"And if you happen to find any scrolls that bleed ink or whisper your name when no one's watching… save me a copy."
Behind us, the mural of Thalos still watched. The kneeling man—hollow-eyed, mouth open, hands outstretched—lingered in my thoughts.
I wondered if he had been receiving a blessing.
Or surrendering something far more permanent.
---
Later, Karasa showed me to a small chamber in the Ashram's west wing. The room was quiet, its stone walls smooth and pale, with a narrow slit for a window up on one side. A small cot lay beneath it, barely more than a plank softened with folded cloth. There was a pitcher of water, a flickering lamp, and a square rug inked with faded sigils.
Karasa stopped at the door.
"I'll come for you at dawn," she said. "Rest if you can. We're meeting the Overseer tomorrow, and she doesn't like surprises."
She paused at the threshold. For a moment, she seemed to want to say something more. Then she just nodded once and left, the sound of her boots fading into the corridor beyond.
She didn't wait for my reply—just turned and left, armor whispering against the floor.
I stood alone in the space.
I didn't need sleep. Not truly. Not with the way Orivem flowed through me.
But I would sleep.
Not to rest.
To understand.
To step closer to what they felt—these people drowning in ritual and rhythm. Not to pretend I was like them, but to better see the seams of the mask they wore.
The cot groaned beneath me. The lamp flickered. I closed my eyes.
But before sleep could find me, something shifted.
A presence.
I sat up silently, Essentia pulsing in my veins.
By the window, a silhouette stood. Half crouched. Half ready to run.
Elias.
He wore the same torn cloak as before, the hem muddied, the hood drawn. But his face was bare—smeared with dirt, sweat, and something deeper: fear that had settled into the hollows of his cheeks like a second skin.
"You shouldn't be here," he hissed.
I didn't move.
He glanced over his shoulder toward the hallway, then back at me.
"They felt you," he whispered. "The moment you walked in. Like a fire they hadn't seen in years. They'll come for you."
His eyes darted around the room—nervous, wild. He pressed a hand against the stone wall, steadying himself.
"You think this place is safe, but it's not. The Ashram... it's not what it looks like. They don't heal people. They... measure them. Weigh them. Then decide who's worth keeping."
I sat up.
"Why come back?"
Elias hesitated. His voice broke, small and raw.
"Because you gave me something," he said. "That... light. I don't know what it was. But it made the hunger stop—for a while. No one's ever done that."
He took a shaky breath.
"I owe you. And if I leave you here, they'll strip that light out of you piece by piece. Make you forget it ever came from you."
I looked at him closely.
His Essentia was flickering again—wild, unsteady. He hadn't eaten. Hadn't slept. But beneath the desperation, I saw it: resolve. The same thing I'd seen when he held back tears on that street, when he reached for the bread with shaking fingers and refused to beg.
"I don't know why you glow," Elias continued. "But they do. And that scares them. Scared people do worse things than hungry ones."
He took a step back, eyes pleading.
"If you're staying... watch everything. Don't trust their smiles. And if they ask you to kneel, lie."
He hesitated once more at the window. Then he was gone—vanished into the shadows like a breath that never fully exhaled.