The storm did not rage; it howled, a chorus of mourning voices that clawed at Royce's ears as he trudged toward the spire. Each drop of blood-rain hissed against his skin, soaking into the wounds and feeding the sigils branded across his body, as if the storm itself recognized and claimed him.
The woman he carried barely stirred, her fragile weight a grim reminder of everything he could not save.
Ahead, the spire rose like a splinter driven into the heart of the world—crooked, broken, alive with a sickly pulsating glow that oozed through the cracked stone. It was a shrine to forgotten sins, and as Royce approached, the air grew thicker, the ground softer, until every step was a struggle against unseen hands trying to drag him under.
He pushed through the iron gates, which groaned open like a dying beast.
Inside, the world changed.
The interior was a labyrinth of ruined corridors and melted archways, the walls stitched together from flesh and stone. Faces were trapped within the structure—mouths open in silent screams, eyes weeping endless black tears. Whispers scraped against his mind, tearing at the stitches that barely held his sanity together.
"Welcome home, O Bearer of the Last Sorrow..."
The voice was not human.
It came from everywhere and nowhere, coiling around Royce like a serpent.
"Do you seek redemption?" it crooned. "Or do you crave the final oblivion?"
Royce did not answer. His grip tightened around the unconscious woman, her head lolling weakly against his chest.
Step after step, he plunged deeper into the shrine.
The walls shifted subtly, leading him downward, spiraling into a place where light itself dared not enter. The sigils on his body flared again, casting a sickly green illumination around him—revealing horrors best left unseen.
Pale figures hung from the ceiling, their mouths sewn shut with threads of silver. Some twitched; others wept blood from hollowed eyes. Beneath their dangling bodies, a circle was carved into the stone—an altar, smeared with ancient sacrifices and fresh sorrow.
At the center of the altar stood a mirror, taller than any man, framed by broken bones fused together with rusted iron.
It did not reflect Royce.
It reflected another.
A figure draped in a cloak of thorns, its face hidden behind a crown of barbed wire. In its arms, it cradled a corpse—the same woman Royce now held.
And it was smiling.
A horrible, knowing smile.
Royce staggered backward, but the shadows tightened around him, anchoring him in place. The voice returned, no longer seductive but commanding, ancient, starved:
"Choose."
"Save her... and bear her sorrow as your own."
"Or leave her... and let her soul be devoured by the Endless Grief."
The weight of the choice crushed the air from Royce's lungs. He could barely think through the agony clawing at his mind.
The woman stirred weakly in his arms, her cracked lips moving soundlessly. Her eyes fluttered open—hollow, pleading.
Tears, hot and bitter, burned Royce's eyes.
He was already damned. Already broken beyond repair.
What was one more sin to carry?
He set her gently upon the altar.
The sigils on his arms writhed and burned as he pressed his bloodied hand against her chest. A surge of agony ripped through him—a connection deeper than flesh or soul—as the shrine drank from his suffering.
The woman gasped, color flooding back into her cheeks.
Royce fell to his knees, choking on the grief now shackled inside his heart. Every sorrow she had known, every agony she had borne, now screamed inside his veins.
The mirror shattered.
The cloaked figure was gone.
But Royce knew the truth: he had just become something far worse than he had ever imagined.
Not merely a Bearer... but a Warden.
A cursed soul bound to carry the weight of others, to walk forever among ruins and broken dreams, until his own name was dust in the mouths of the dead.
The woman, barely conscious, whispered a name:
"Eryndra..."
Royce didn't know if it was her name—or the name of whatever hell he now belonged to.
The walls around them trembled, and deep beneath the shrine, something stirred.
Something ancient.
Something hungry.
The real nightmare was only beginning.
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