They headed for the inn Gio had found earlier. Eyes quietly watched them from alleyways and behind shuttered windows, suspicion thick in the air. The sun was dipping fast beyond the rust-colored rooftops, casting long shadows through the streets of Yspa.
The inn was barely standing — the wooden sign out front swung on a single nail, and half the windows were cracked or boarded. But shelter was shelter, and in Neuraleth, that meant more than comfort. It meant survival.
Inside, there was only one room available — a cramped space with two beds, musty linens, and creaking floorboards. Not ideal, but they'd manage. They agreed on a rotating watch: Azriel first, then Gio, then Lysara. The nights in Neuraleth weren't just cold — they were hunted. No one slept soundly under Velmira's sky.
The night passed slowly. Gio's shift came. He sat by the window, pistol in hand — the one he stole back in Reigo. His real weapon was long lost, but instincts honed by war and ruin didn't need much. His golden eyes caught the faintest movement outside the door — no sound, no creak, just a breath in the wrong place. And that was enough.
He crossed the room silently and nudged Azriel and Lysara awake.
"Don't make a sound. There are two men right outside."
Azriel slid his dagger from beneath the bedroll. Lysara, staff in hand, moved into position, ready to cast at a moment's notice. Azriel pressed his back to the door, blade low, waiting.
Then—BANG.
The door burst open with force, and two figures stormed in — not bandits, but armed civilians, eyes glazed, faces blank. Controlled.
Velmira's doing.
Unlike the Grace of Minds, who could puppet thoughts, Velmira didn't need permission — she could snatch your senses clean. And now her human drones had found them. She might not know who Azriel truly was yet… but this would make them look like dissidents. Rebels.
The first attacker lunged for Lysara — Azriel swept low and tripped him, then brought a knee crashing into his chin as the body thudded against the floor.
The second charged Gio with a raised axe. Lysara struck him with a pulse from her staff, dazing him just enough — Gio stepped in and cracked a solid punch across the man's jaw. He crumpled. Gio caught the axe mid-fall.
"Ooh," he grinned. "Finally, a proper weapon."
But the fight wasn't over. A tremor passed through the floorboards — Lysara's eyes widened.
"That wasn't quiet," she muttered. "They're coming."
The rhythmic stomps of dozens of feet echoed from the streets below. More controlled civilians — the hive had heard.
They ran.
Through the narrow halls, down the stairwell, Lysara blasting open the back exit with a wave of her staff. Outside, they were met with a wave of confused, charging figures.
She rose into the air, a swirling current carrying her up as she sent out blasts of wind to scatter the drones — aiming to disarm, never kill. They were innocent, after all. Just victims.
Gio and Azriel carved a path forward on foot, ducking into alleyways, leaping over debris, the city groaning around them with alarm bells and echoing yells.
They reached the border gate — but their luck had dried up.
The two guards who let them in earlier were still posted. This time, they looked sharp. Weapons drawn. No more foolishness in their eyes. No more gullibility.
They knew something was wrong.
And this time, they were ready.
"What if." Azriel muttered.
"Are you insane?!" Lysara hissed. "If she has human drones, she's probably already sent word to those monsters at the gate!"
Before she could stop him, Azriel was gone — a blur of movement, already standing in front of the two guards before either Gio or Lysara could blink. His sudden appearance alone startled the guards, but not enough to stop them from raising their weapons.
"Hey! You two!" Azriel called out, voice brimming with forced authority. "It's me, Hilton! Yeah — the Hilton. Heir to the Grace of Life, remember? Those people you saw? Total rebels. Found me out here mid-inspection, figured you two should teach them a les—"
He didn't get to finish.
"WE KNOW YOU'RE A FAKE!" one of the guards barked, puffing out his chest.
"THE DRONES TOLD US YOU WEREN'T WHO YOU SAID YOU WERE!"
Azriel paused. Blinked once.
"…Wrong guy?"
The other guard tilted his head. "Oh. That makes sense."
Azriel gave a casual shrug and waved his hand. "Right, I'll just… show myself out."
And just like that, they opened the gates.
Lysara and Gio emerged slowly from the shadows, eyes wide, jaws clenched.
"That worked?!" Lysara whispered.
Azriel didn't answer. He just smirked and adjusted his coat like a man who'd been born under a lucky star. Gio shook his head and muttered something about divine stupidity.
But they didn't stop walking.
The trio left the crumbling city of Yspa behind, stepping out into the unknown lands beyond the border. Neuraleth stretched ahead — vast, quiet, and brimming with danger. There were no more enforcers, no cities, no lights. Just forest. Deep, thick forest.
They traveled for a few more hours, sticking close to the treeline. Eventually, they made camp beneath a cliffside knoll wrapped in gnarled trees. The wind howled, but it carried no scent of enemies. For now.
Lysara sat by the fire, still baffled.
"I'm going to say it again: how. Did. That. Work?"
"I'm charismatic," Azriel replied, poking the flames with a stick.
"You're deranged," Gio grunted, now sharpening the axe he'd liberated. "But... I'll take results."
Azriel smiled to himself but didn't say much more.
That night, while the others slept, he stayed awake staring at the stars — a sky untouched by Velmira's watching eye.
And in the silence, he thought of the figure in the void.
The voice that called him Saviour.
Something was changing in him. He didn't understand it yet — didn't want to. But the dream, the void, the figure that wore every face he'd ever known...
Something had awakened. And it hadn't left.
It was Lysara's turn to take the night watch. As Azriel drifted into sleep beneath the pale silver light of the moon, a familiar emptiness returned.
But something was different this time.
The void no longer felt like the vacuum of nothingness — it pulsed with sound.
Faint at first, like a whisper carried on fog, then growing louder — the elegant rise of strings, the slow, creeping swell of a distant orchestra. All around him, mirrors began to shimmer into existence, one after another. They didn't reflect him. They reflected moments.
Then they shattered.
Glass exploded like starlight, and when it cleared, Azriel was no longer in the void. He stood in a dim room with two chairs.
In one chair sat the man who'd ended his first life — the warrior with the bloodstained hands and dead eyes. In the other sat… himself. Bruised, bones broken, face pale. The Azriel who had died.
His stomach twisted.
"What the hell is this?" he whispered. A chill swept over him.
But then the warrior lifted his head and spoke — in that same overwhelming, otherworldly tongue that once echoed from the moonlit sky.
"Rm9yZ2l2ZSBtZS4="
Azriel couldn't decipher it — not yet. But the sound struck something in his soul like a tuning fork. As he turned toward his broken mirror-self, that version of him only smiled — a slow, bitter smile with blood tears running down its cheeks.
Azriel stepped back toward the warrior, drawn by instinct.
"If this is what I think it is..."
He reached out, fingers trembling, and touched the bullet wound in the man's skull.
The world exploded into white.
Pain. Chaos. Fire. Laughter. Sorrow. The weight of countless lives — the warrior's memories — surged into him like a tidal wave. Azriel gasped, body convulsing in the dream. He saw the man's sins, the innocents lost in his rage, the lives he'd saved, the nights he cried alone, the final moment when Azriel had met his death at his hands.
And then... silence.
He woke with a jolt, drenched in sweat.
Lysara, now beside him, nudged his shoulder gently. "Azriel… your turn to take watch."
He nodded numbly and sat up, heart still pounding, clothes clinging to his back. She rolled over, eyes already closing in exhaustion.
But Azriel didn't move.
He sat still for a long time, staring at the moon — full and clear, untouched by the smoke and grime of steampunk cities. Neuraleth's skies were pure, and right now, they seemed to be watching him.
"What was that?" he whispered to himself. "Can I... really enter the memories of those who killed me?"
The idea chilled him. What had happened in the void wasn't just a dream. It felt too real. Too heavy. Too painful to be imagination.
What haunted him more was the copy of himself — the one crying blood. What would I see... if I touched my own wounds?
His mind spiraled with questions. But he forced himself to refocus. They were still in danger. No matter what strange power lingered in his blood, it wouldn't matter if they didn't survive long enough to understand it.
He slapped his cheeks lightly and scanned the treeline. The night wore on. No signs of Velmira's drones. No suspicious figures.
At dawn, they packed their things and headed out.
To their surprise, Gio had managed to buy a map the previous day while searching for the inn.
"Next city's called Seight," he said, marking it on the crumpled parchment. "Should be about six hours east."
They moved at a steady pace, cutting through dense woods and patches of broken road. Seight was their next stop, but Azriel's mind remained trapped in the white room — and the question that haunted him now more than ever:
What am I becoming?