The fog crept like a living creature, winding around the golden bars of the Eisenhart family cemetery gate, as if the breaths of the dead were still seeking a way to return.
The ground was wet, silent except for a faint creak from the old iron hinges stirred by the wind. [The scent of rust mingled with the smell of freshly turned earth.]
The four of them stood in an uneven line:
Castor laughed in a hysterical voice, Lagryta stared with questioning eyes, Ignis weighed everything with a cold gaze, and Ancaues clasped his hands behind his back as if preparing to pass judgment. Before them all, the driver sat, shoulders slumped, still gently touching the necks of his dead horses as if they might rise again with a little more care.
Suddenly, Castor spoke, his tone dripping with shock laced with mockery:
"Simon?!"
Then he burst into a high, fractured laugh, more like a howl than a joy.
"Ah, the irony of fate... such an unexpected turn of events."
Lagryta hesitated, her lips trembling:
"Simon?! But he's just one of the Dolans… how is that possible?"
Ignis didn't turn to her. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the driver and ordered coldly:
"Tell them what you told me."
The driver tilted his head slowly, barely visible through the fog, then his voice came, quivering and broken:
"Yes… it was my master. He was the one who opened the family tomb. He was the one who killed Lord Athcalis… My master Simon met the lord that night… to purchase a slave."
Ancaues raised an eyebrow in heavy surprise:
"To buy a slave? Was it… a little fairy?"
"Yes… a fairy. I believe her name was… Fayet."
His words came in fragments, as if each name cut his throat.
Ancaues stepped closer:
— "And why would he buy her?"
The driver drew a short breath, then replied:
— "She claimed to know something my master needed… Unfortunately, I was outside during their conversation. But I heard a strange name repeated more than once. It sounded like… 'Clonmaaz' or 'Clonkmez'…"
Silence fell. The four exchanged heavy glances until Castor spoke with lethal coldness:
"The Clonmacnoise."
The driver shivered, then whispered:
"Yes… that's it." Then he continued:
"When we left the palace, Mr. Mogan, by Simon's order, killed Athcalis… then commanded the palace to be burned. I don't know why… Afterwards, he led me to the cemetery."
Lagryta bit her lip until it almost drew blood:
"But… why? And he got what he wanted?"
Castor let out a dry laugh:
"Simon knew Athcalis was no longer an active member of the Rosenfeuer family. He resorted to selling slaves to make a living. A simple cleansing, nothing more."
Lagryta gritted her teeth, her eyes flashing with anger:
"And who is he to decide this? Isn't he the one who abandoned his family willingly?! How dare he decide who deserves to live and who should be erased?!"
Ignis replied coldly, his voice like rain on stone:
"Simon left the family officially, yes. But his action reflects only himself… his vision is clear: he needs no permission to wipe dust from his desk."
"But…" Lagryta tried to object, only for Ancaues to cut her off firmly:
"Enough. We haven't asked questions in a long time… and that's why we've lost the ability to prioritize. Athcalis is no longer the issue. The problem now… is that Simon took something from the tomb. And we must retrieve it."
Lagryta lowered her head, silent as if slapped.
Ignis then turned to the driver again, his voice slower than before:
"Tell them about the forest."
The driver's whole body trembled, his eyes widening as if the scene had come alive before him. His teeth chattered, and his voice broke:
"It was indescribable… it was a shadow… a black shadow. The shadow of death… the shadow of doom. He… did something to my master… drove us madly toward the cemetery, until the horses died from exhaustion."
Ancaues said, with cold skepticism:
"Something in the forest, then?"
"I searched his memory just now," Ignis remarked, staring at the driver, "There's a clear gap. Everything cuts off the moment he enters the forest and returns only when he arrives here."
Ancaues stepped closer, placing his hand over the man's head, and a small, cold-white magical circle appeared. After a short moment, it vanished.
He stepped back and said:
"The same with me. Memory is broken… there's no way to know what happened to Simon in the forest."
The fog grew heavier, as if the very air knew that the truth had yet to be spoken.
Then—
a sudden metallic snap, coming from within the cemetery.
A short sentence. A wound in the silence.
The fog still wrapped around the golden gate, as if refusing to give way to any light. The sounds of the dead horses had not yet vanished from their ears, nor had the scent of ash.
They stood for a moment, silent, until Ignis broke the wall:
"Do you think Simon actually got the ship?"
Ancaues answered after a hesitation they were unaccustomed to:
"I do not know…"
It was a heavy sentence, for Ancaues had not known "non-knowledge" for ages. He who had drawn from the Oris every thread, every note, every tremor in the fabric of reality. From cosmic quakes to the whims of gods, nothing escaped his insight.
But now? To be baffled by a lowly human like Simon… this was a fracture in an equation he had never known.
He raised his voice slightly, as if confessing a sin:
"Stranger than the ship, Ignis… is that this world does not exist."
Breaths froze. Ignis turned to him quickly:
"What do you mean, my lord?"
Ancaues replied in a calm, steady voice, like a hammer:
"I have indexed every story of the Uris. Every path, every possibility. Not one mentions that Athcalis acquired a fairy named Fayet to sell to Simon. Not one mentions that Simon—or anyone—could open the Eisenhart family tomb. What we are experiencing now… is unrecorded. Nonexistent. We stand inside the impossible."
Ignis gasped:
"But… this is impossible!"
Ancaues gave a dry smile:
"Yes. It is."
Silence fell, until Ignis shifted his gaze toward the driver.
"And you… why haven't you returned home?"
The driver lifted his wandering eyes, then murmured as if answering a self-evident question:
"I… am still waiting for my master. He has not left yet."
The four exchanged glances, then Castor's voice rang out angrily:
"Are you sure you didn't see him leave?!"
The driver trembled:
"Y-yes, my lord… I am certain."
Lagryta whispered, biting her lip:
"Perhaps he hides somewhere…"
Ancaues interrupted sharply:
"Impossible. I have examined the place with magic. There is no trace of him here."
Lagryta raised an eyebrow, defiant:
"And we searched the tomb from within, and no one was there."
Castor interjected coldly:
"Could he really be capable of hiding from our spells?"
Ancaues averted his face:
"It is not impossible…"
Ignis stepped forward, his voice heavy:
"Then… what is to be done?"
Ancaues studied the golden gate for a moment, as if reading a text written upon it that no one else could see. Then he said:
"Command the knights to sweep the area. If he could have escaped without us noticing, he would have done so long ago."
Ignis nodded slowly. But when he turned to his companions, his voice had changed:
"As for the three of us… we will visit his palace."
The last sentence fell upon the fog like the edge of a sword, before silence swallowed them once more.