We buried the dead in silence.
Not beneath earth, but inside our breath.
Grief walks beside us now, barefoot.
It does not scream. It does not weep.
It waits.
For what we build.
For who we break.
For what we dare to become.
The room held its breath. Or maybe that was Noah.
He stayed there—forehead pressed to Abel's, hands slick and trembling around a makeshift bandage that wasn't enough. Was never going to be enough. The world outside groaned like it was trying to breathe through ash. The smell of it clung to his skin: burnt marrow, dusted blood, scorched silk. It was in his mouth too, behind his teeth, where prayers usually died.
Abel didn't speak. He just breathed in shallow, stubborn cuts. One at a time.
Noah didn't dare count them.
Cassian sat on the far side of the room, knees pulled up, eyes glassy. Not crying. Just… stopped. Like someone had blown out the light behind his ribs and left the wick smoking.
"Hey," Noah said. Quiet. Too quiet. "Cass."
No answer.
He looked back down at Abel. His shirt was damp with blood. Too much. Noah hated how warm it was, hated how some part of him still felt grateful it hadn't gone cold yet.
A strip of cloth stuck to his palm. His stomach rolled. "You're not allowed to die," he muttered, not even trying to sound brave. "Not after all the moody sword flirting and 'I'll protect you' bullshit. You're in this now. Bleed later."
Abel made a sound. Not a word, not quite. But it wasn't silence.
That alone almost made Noah cry.
He pressed down a little harder. "Okay. That's a yes. I'll take it."
Cassian still hadn't moved.
Noah glanced at him again. Same posture. Same haunted face. Blood on his cheek, dried now. A slash across his forearm, mostly superficial. But his expression—
Dead. Just enough alive to watch it happen again.
Noah swallowed and said his name louder. "Cassian."
Nothing.
He stood. Wobbled. Stepped over to him on legs that weren't convinced they had bones anymore. Crouched. Touched his shoulder.
Cassian flinched like a kicked dog.
Noah pulled his hand back. "We need heat. We need water. He's still bleeding."
Cassian blinked. Once. Twice.
Then finally, as if from a mile away: "There's… a storeroom. Next to the shrine."
"Good," Noah said. "Perfect. We'll go together."
"I can't carry him."
"You don't have to."
Cassian rose like someone else was moving his body for him. Like he'd left part of himself in the square and wasn't sure he wanted it back.
Noah knelt beside Abel again. "I'll lift. You guide."
Cassian didn't answer. But he moved.
The shrine had collapsed in on itself—stone ribs cracked like old teeth—but the side passage still held. Barely.
The storeroom was choked with dust and a spilled jar of dried roots. One wall had partially caved, letting in flickers of the false sun like light through old scars.
There were cloths. A basin. A water jug cracked but usable. A rusted blade someone had tried to hide behind a broken shelf.
Cassian grabbed the cloths. Noah knelt again, fingers already moving—mechanical, frantic, too fast and too useless.
"Boil the water," he muttered. "Fire. Fuck. I don't have matches. I don't have anything."
The deck pulsed once against his ribs. Warm. Listening.
He didn't dare draw. Not now. Not here. Maybe even not ever again.
He found some stones that where used for making fire and began to hit them together.
It took some time until sparks flew, at the wood and grass and ingnited it. Heat bloomed in the air like a soft breath. The basin cracked again from the shift, but it held.
Cassian watched from the corner, unmoving.
"Give me the cloth."
Cassian tossed it. Didn't speak. Didn't blink.
Noah dipped it. Cleaned around the wound. Bit the inside of his cheek when Abel flinched.
He worked in silence. The kind that builds tension, not peace.
Later—minutes or hours, Noah didn't know—they sat.
Abel propped up, wound bound tight. Breathing rough but steadier. Cassian slumped against the wall, arms over his knees. Noah sat by the doorway, watching the square through a crack where bone had shattered.
He didn't realize what he was seeing at first.
It looked like dust. Like flecks of light caught in a draft.
But they moved wrong. They… lingered.
Tiny gold threads. Floating.
Zorya.
Human Zorya.
His breath hitched.
There were so many. Too many.
They drifted like fireflies made of memory, slow and soft, slipping through the air between ribs and ruin. Some clung to the bones of the dead. Others hovered above scorched ground. A few flickered through the open cracks of the shrine like they didn't know where to land.
And then—
He inhaled.
And they moved.
Not all. But enough.
Enough to see the way they bent toward him. Enough to feel the warmth bloom in his chest like a second heartbeat.
No.
They sank into him like he was the last gravity left in this place. A gentle flood. Liquid gold folding under his skin.
He opened his mouth to scream and heard them first.
Not voices. Not clear words. Just—
Screams.
Fragmented. Ripped. A child. A priest. A woman singing before her throat tore open. Flashes of lives. A moment. A name. A feeling.
Pain.
He clawed at his own chest. "No—no—stop—"
He stumbled back into the shrine wall and gasped like something had punched through his spine. Abel stirred. Cassian looked up, alarm starting to break the fog.
"Noah?" Cassian said.
More Zorya drifted in. The room was full of them now. Beautiful. Horrifying.
"I can't—" Noah's hands trembled. He felt power—hot, bright, potent—slam through his veins like lightning given skin.
This wasn't silver. This wasn't beast-stuff.
This was human soul.
And it wanted to be used.
"Noah!"
He bolted.
He didn't know how far he ran.
The corridors twisted. Bone, stone, flesh. He slipped in blood once. Didn't stop.
The golden light chased him. Or maybe it lived in him now. He didn't know which was worse.
He burst through a cracked rib-gate and into the edge of the ruined square. The ashes stirred.
They followed him.
The Zorya.
They trailed behind like guilt given wings.
He doubled over and vomited.
The starlight danced anyway.
He couldn't stop absorbing them. Couldn't stop the hunger in him that hadn't asked to be fed.
His body had decided. His divinity had decided.
He didn't get a vote.
"Noah!"
Cassian's voice. Close now.
He turned. Face pale, clothes scorched, Cassian grabbed him by the shoulder.
"What the fuck is happening?"
"I don't—" Noah choked. "I didn't—"
And then Abel was there too, limping, clutching his side, fury in his eyes and fear beneath it.
"Noah," Abel said. "What is happening?"
Noah looked down at his hands.
Glowing faintly. Gold dust in his veins.
"I think I… I think I'm eating them," he whispered. "I didn't mean to."
Silence.
Then Cassian said, very quietly: "You're absorbing them. Their souls."
Noah flinched.
"How do you know?" he asked.
"I don't," Cassian said. "I just guessed. You look… holy. And terrified."
He was both.
Abel sat down hard. Breathing rough. "You're not bleeding anymore," he said.
Noah blinked.
He wasn't.
Power. That's what it was.
But the cost—
He curled his arms around himself and rocked once, like that would shake the voices out.
It didn't.
They didn't talk much after that.
There wasn't anything left to say.
Noah wouldn't meet their eyes, and Cassian wouldn't meet his. Abel was the only one who looked at him—really looked—but not with blame.
That made it worse.
They gathered what they could. Water. Cloth. One rusty blade. A single pouch of something that might've been healing dust if it hadn't expired fifty years ago. Noah stuffed it into a satchel that used to belong to someone else—he didn't want to know who.
The Womb, if that's what they were still calling it, groaned now and then. Loud, deep, hungry. Like the Saint's death had left a hole, and the earth itself didn't know how to fill it.
Or maybe it was just collapsing.
Either way, they had to leave.
The path to the outer caves was ruined.
Everything was pulped flesh and cracked stone now. The air still shimmered with warmth—not fire, not magic, just rot that hadn't cooled yet.
Cassian walked with his head down, mouth pressed thin. No golden retriever in sight. Just a ghost in too much skin.
Abel limped beside Noah, silent. Breathing steadier, but his hand never left his sword's hilt. Not like he was afraid of monsters. Like he was afraid he wouldn't make it to the next fight without help.
Noah kept his eyes forward. Not because he wanted to. But because every time he blinked, he saw the gold again—felt it swirl in him, settle in his chest like a sin made visible.
The Zorya weren't following anymore.
They didn't have to.
They were inside him now.
"You okay?" Abel's voice was rough, like he'd been chewing on coals.
Noah snorted. "Sure. Just swallowed a few dozen screaming souls. Slept great. Love this vacation."
Abel let out something that might've been a laugh, then winced.
"Sorry," Noah muttered. "You shouldn't be walking."
"I should be dead," Abel said. "So we'll call this a compromise."
Cassian said nothing.
Noah glanced at him, then back at the path ahead. A familiar fork loomed—jagged flesh on one side, old stone and roots on the other.
"This is where it happened," he said.
Abel looked up. "What?"
"Where the Saint's path ended. Where we tried to leave before… and it looped. Made us forget."
Cassian's head turned, slow. "You think it's gone now?"
"I think he's dead," Noah said. "And his tricks with him."
"Unless that's what he wanted," Cassian murmured. "Unless the looping was to keep something in, not us out."
Noah didn't answer.
He just stepped forward.
The air was different. Cooler. Dry, almost. A hint of wind touched his cheek, faint but real. Not magic. Not rot.
A way out.
He felt it.
Something cracked in his chest—not bone. Something older. A tether breaking loose.
"I think this is it," he said.
Abel drew in a breath. "Then let's go."
Cassian hesitated. "And when we're out?"
Noah didn't look back.
"We survive. And then… we find out who else did."
The path curved like a vein split open.
The deeper they went, the more the walls changed. Flesh faded to stone. Bone gave way to root. The scent of blood peeled back, replaced by earth and mildew. And air—real air—brushed past them in slow drafts.
Time twisted.
None of them spoke.
Not until the stairs.
Ancient. Crumbling. Half-eaten by moss and shadow. They led up into black.
Cassian squinted. "How deep were we?"
Noah didn't answer. He was too busy trying not to think about what came next.
He put his foot on the first step.
It held.
One by one, they climbed.
Abel breathed through his teeth, but didn't stop.
Cassian lagged once. Noah didn't ask why. He knew.
The dead weren't behind them. They were inside them.
And Noah? Noah wasn't sure if he still counted as one of the living.
Not after what he'd done.
The top of the stairs gave way to a crumbled arch.
No sigils. No gates. Just ruin—and light.
Real light.
Noah blinked hard. His body flinched like it expected another trick. Another wall. Another scream.
But nothing stopped him.
He stepped through the arch.
And the world opened.
Not into hell. Not into fire.
Into sky.
The top of the stairs gave way to a crumbled arch.
No sigils. No gates. Just ruin—and light.
Real light.
Noah blinked hard. His body flinched like it expected another trick. Another wall. Another scream.
But nothing stopped him.
He stepped through the arch.
And the world opened.
Not into hell. Not into fire.
Into sky.
Blue.
Not the black-soaked rot of the Womb. Not the dark red sky of memory.
Blue.
A soft, endless blue, cut with thin white clouds that drifted like breath. The kind of sky you forgot could exist. The kind of sky that didn't belong to a world like this.
Below it: a valley.
Massive. Quiet. Lush.
Forests spilled down green slopes like ink poured from a god's hand. Trees in shades Noah had never seen—emerald, amber, silver-leaved giants that moved in the wind like dancers. Glacial mountains shimmered in the distance. Fields of gold, streams of light.
There were birds.
There was snow on peaks.
And there was sun.
Not the fake kind. Not the burning eye of corrupted saints.
But sunlight. Real, warm, distant. Touching the skin like memory.
Abel stood beside him, slack-jawed.
Cassian stepped out last. He stopped dead.
"…What the fuck," he whispered.
Noah didn't answer.
He couldn't.
His legs gave out, and he fell to his knees on the stone ridge, hands braced on sun-warmed rock. His cane slid from his grip, clattering beside him.
The wind was real.
The sky was real.
The world was still here.
But how?
How could this exist above the Womb?
How could anything grow above so much death?
How could the air be clean?
He swallowed a scream that wasn't his.
Golden motes danced in the light.
Not Zorya.
But Noah saw them anyway.
Saw them in the way the wind moved.
Heard them in the silence.
Felt them settle into him.
Like the world had waited.
And now it was watching.
--------
Zorya:
"All things born beneath the sky shine once—then fall.
The light they leave behind is not memory.
It is fuel."
—Fragment from The Divine Lexicon, Book of Breath
Zorya is not the soul.
But it is what the soul burns.
The oldest scholars called it starblood. A shimmering essence, invisible to most. It spills from all living things—monster, beast, or man—when life ends. Not in sorrow. Not in peace. In power.
It is the cost of dying.
It takes three forms:
⟡ SILVER ZORYA – The Breath of Beasts
The most common. The most stable.
It escapes from monsters, animals, or once-human things that have lost their name.
It flickers like cold starlight—lightweight, abundant, and easy to absorb.
Hunters chase it. Alchemists bottle it.
It fuels lesser rituals and soft magic.
Safe, mostly. But weak.
Only fools grow drunk on silver and call themselves gods.
⟡ VIOLET ZORYA – The Scream of the Corrupted
Born of twisted flesh, fallen angels, and things that shouldn't exist.
Its light burns too bright. Its hum splits bone.
Only the mad or the desperate try to harvest it.
And those who do rarely return.
It clings to the skin. It sinks into the blood.
It whispers.
Even divine candidates must purify it, slowly, painfully—or risk becoming what they fight.
Violet Zorya never forgets.
And it never forgives.
⟡ GOLDEN ZORYA – The Echo of the Divine
The rarest. The purest. The most damning.
It glows from humans. From thinking things.
From souls with stories.
To take it is to wound a soul.
Sometimes fatally.
A wrong touch and the person dies screaming—
or doesn't die at all,
but rots inside, mind unraveling, cursed to wander as ghost, wraith, or worse.
Most call it taboo.
Some call it holy.
Because gods?
Gods feed on gold.
Only divine candidates absorb it naturally—without rites, without asking.
Even they don't always realize it.
But the soul does.
And sometimes, it screams.
Only a few can even see the Zorya.
Divine candidates.
High mages.
Nobles with cursed eyes or forged lenses.
The rest live blind, stepping through starfire as if through wind.
To absorb Zorya is to walk toward power.
But every step costs something.
The smart ones count.
The hungry ones never do.