They reached Daggerlight at dusk on the second day.
The fog moved like a thinking thing. Not thick, not dark — just always where it shouldn't be. Around ankles. Up inside sleeves. Under helmets.
Rats met them first.
Not skittering. Standing.
Watching.
Tarn didn't speak of it. Neither did the men. But no one unpacked in the bell tower's shadow.
The Shrine of Screams was half a ruin, half a wound. The bell was gone, but its ropes still hung — stiff with time, pale with salt, and twitching like breath when no wind stirred.
They pitched camp to the east slope. Cooked root slop over damp wood. No one prayed.
At second watch, the screaming began.
Not human. Not beast.
Not loud.
Worse — it was near.
Tarn stood first. Sword drawn, boots soft in frost.
The priest-scout stood beside the tower, facing it.
Unmoving.
Veil pulled down.
Mouth open.
Not breathing.
Tarn grabbed his shoulder.
The priest blinked. Once. Breathed.
Whispered.
"It's not a shrine anymore. It never was."
He fell.
Alive, but still. Asleep or something worse.
Tarn dragged him back to the fire. No one helped.
At dawn, Rikk approached the tower. Alone.
Tarn followed.
Inside, they found a niche behind the rope wall. A hollow in the stone, smoothed by years. Inside: bones. Cracked. Shaped. As if they had once been made into a bell.
There was no sound.
Until Tarn reached out.
Then — the scream.
Not air. Not voice.
Memory.
Every man who had died holding Daggerlight.
All at once.
He staggered back. Nose bleeding. One word seared into his mind:
"Unforgiven."
When Tarn returned to camp, his men didn't speak. They looked at him as if he'd changed.
Because he had.
Because the tower had answered.
And whatever it remembered — it remembered him now, too.