Chapter 2 – The Glow Beneath the Skin
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The people of Drear's Hollow did not speak often. They sang.
Not in melody—just vibration. Tones, hums, chants layered one atop the next, like a hive made of breath and belief. There was no choir master. No conductor. Each person sang only what they felt, and somehow it fit. A harmony built not from direction, but from shared memory.
Anterz hated it.
Not because it was ugly.
Because it was beautiful.
Too beautiful.
Like a dream that had lived too long.
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They were guests now—welcomed, watched, unchallenged but never unshadowed. The villagers gave them a house. Gave them food. Gave them the kind of peace that felt just a hair too tight, like a noose woven of kindness.
Elaria sat at a wide, low window, staring at the flowers that lined the edges of the town square. Not Solkiss—these were white roots, pulsing faintly beneath the surface like veins. They hadn't been planted. They grew up from the ground itself.
"Do you see it?" she asked.
Anterz looked.
Then nodded.
"They're not plants."
"No."
"They're memory."
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The woman who glowed—her name was Arieth.
She didn't command the town. She didn't rule it. But when she walked, people followed. When she spoke, people stopped moving. Not because she was feared. Because she was respected. Revered.
Even by Anterz, if he let himself.
And that was the danger.
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Arieth visited them the next morning.
She brought bread. Warm, fresh, dusted with what smelled like rosemary and salt. The kind of offering too intimate to refuse without insult.
Elaria didn't touch it.
Anterz did.
He took a bite, slowly.
"It's real," he said.
Arieth smiled. "Of course. Nothing here is false."
"Just made of ghosts," Elaria muttered.
Arieth didn't bristle. She simply sat beside the fire pit in the center of the room and folded her hands.
She wore no jewelry. No crown. Just robes. And yet, she looked more radiant than any god Anterz had ever seen.
He said nothing.
Arieth spoke first.
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"Do you know what this place was before?" she asked.
Anterz shook his head.
"A camp," she said. "Then a prison mine. Then it burned. A hundred years ago. Then it burned again. And again. The land here… hated itself."
She traced a finger in the ash at her feet.
"Until the fracture came. It fell from the sky—like a shard of sunset. It landed in the old well. And the next day…"
She paused.
"I remembered."
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Elaria's voice was sharp.
"What did you remember?"
Arieth turned her eyes on her.
"They were never gods. Not like we thought. They were voices. Ideas. Thoughts so loud they echoed into form. And when they died, their memories stayed."
She tapped her chest.
"I'm just… near one. I'm not divine. I'm adjacent to remembrance. That's all."
"You float," Anterz said.
Arieth nodded. "So did ashes."
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They walked with her that afternoon.
Drear's Hollow was not large. No more than thirty buildings, most no taller than two stories, built from reclaimed stone and faith. But the land beneath was changing.
The soil was warm. Even in autumn.
The trees grew straight, never twisted.
The animals—goats, dogs, sparrows—followed people as if called.
Everything pulsed with order.
Not control.
Agreement.
"This place isn't being ruled," Elaria whispered as they passed a group of children painting their hands with crushed petals. "It's being… aligned."
Anterz felt it too.
Like the world had chosen to behave.
And the deeper into the village they walked, the stronger it grew.
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Arieth led them to the well.
It wasn't a well anymore. Not truly. It was a pit of light. Not bright—not glowing—but dense. Like gravity made of memory.
"You feel it," Arieth said.
Anterz stepped close.
The ground under his boots hummed.
It was deeper than sound. More primal than emotion. A sensation without name, a familiarity without shape.
The kind of feeling that made you want to kneel—not from reverence, but from bone-deep instinct.
He didn't kneel.
He stepped back.
Arieth smiled again.
---
"This fracture was from a god called Anach, I think," she said. "They were the first to see time sideways."
She tilted her head.
"I don't know what that means. I only know that when I touched the shard, I remembered a life that wasn't mine."
Elaria whispered, "That's not a gift. That's a parasite."
Arieth didn't deny it.
But she didn't agree either.
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Later, they sat beneath the white-barked tree on the hill above the town. The leaves didn't rustle, even in wind.
Elaria rested her chin on her knees.
"They're not trying to bring back the gods," she said.
"No," Anterz replied. "They're trying to wear them."
"Like stories."
"Like skins."
She looked at him.
"You felt it too, didn't you?"
He nodded slowly.
"Yes."
"When we stood near the well?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"I wanted to say yes."
Elaria flinched.
Anterz looked at his hands.
"It felt… easy."
---
They spent the night outside.
Neither could sleep.
The stars above Drear's Hollow were too bright. Too many. Like the sky was remembering too much.
Elaria pointed toward a constellation—one Anterz didn't recognize.
"That wasn't there before," she said. "That's Thaleon's Rest. A god of gravity, worshiped by the cloud-city of Selmira."
"Selmira fell four hundred years ago."
"Exactly."
She looked at him.
"It's not just people. The sky is remembering."
Anterz's jaw clenched.
"How far will it go?"
Elaria looked at the stars again.
"All the way."
---
At dawn, they were summoned.
Not by a bell. Not by a messenger.
Just… a feeling.
They walked to the square. Others gathered too. Even children.
Arieth stood at the well.
She held something.
A fragment.
A glowing shard of red-orange crystal, shot through with silver veins.
"This," she said, holding it high, "is an Echo Fracture. Not a weapon. Not a relic. A truth."
She looked at Anterz.
"I offer it to you."
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Silence.
The whole town watched.
Elaria stiffened.
"Don't," she whispered.
Anterz didn't move.
Arieth waited, hand outstretched.
"This is not control," she said. "This is choice."
And in that moment, Anterz felt something new:
The memory in the shard wasn't his.
But it wanted him.
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He stepped forward.
Just one pace.
Enough to feel the heat of the shard.
Then he stopped.
And turned to the crowd.
"Who else has touched this?"
No one spoke.
So he asked again.
Arieth's eyes narrowed, just slightly.
"This was saved for you."
Anterz's voice dropped.
"Then who did it touch first?"
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A boy stepped forward.
Young. Pale. No older than ten.
He held up his hand.
It was glowing faintly.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
Anterz stepped back.
Then looked at Arieth.
"You lied."
She didn't deny it.
"I offered. That's all."
"You let a child be possessed."
"I let him remember," she said calmly.
Anterz's hand twitched toward Valteris.
Still sheathed.
Still silent.
Still there.
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Elaria stepped beside him.
"What now?" she asked softly.
Anterz looked out at the crowd.
At Arieth.
At the fracture.
At the child.
And then up—toward the stars that should not be there.
He whispered:
> "Now we stop the remembering before it becomes religion."
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End of Chapter 2 – The Glow Beneath the Skin
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