The world had ended in light.
When Elara's strike sank into the child's chest, the silence shattered like glass, spilling its endless body into nothingness. For a heartbeat, she thought there was no more world to return to—that the last thing she would ever feel was Tomas's cold weight in her arms.
But then the light thinned.
And she opened her eyes.
She lay on her back, staring at a sky that was neither day nor night. It stretched pale and endless, blank as unwritten parchment. The ground beneath her was soft, crumbling, its dust clinging to her skin like soot.
Ash.
She sat up slowly, her breath ragged, her body trembling. Ash spread in every direction, dunes and valleys of it, rolling like the sea. In the distance, jagged pillars jutted upward, cracked and smoking, as though some vast city had been burned down to its bones.
And beside her—
"Tomas!"
She dropped to her knees. His body lay half-buried in the ash, his chest barely rising, his skin pale as moonlight. His lips were cracked, flecked with blood. Yet his hand—weak, trembling—still reached for hers.
She clutched it instantly, pressing her forehead to his. "I've got you. I've got you."
His eyes fluttered open, the faintest ghost of a smile on his lips. "Still… here."
Her throat tightened. She wanted to weep, to collapse, to scream at the sky that he had survived—but not like this. Not broken and fading in her arms.
The ash shifted.
Whispers rose, faint but cutting, like breath against her ear.
Still here. Still here. Still here.
Elara froze.
Her sun-eye burned, and she saw the truth: faces pressed beneath the dunes, moving just beneath the surface. The ashes were not empty. They were the Hour's remnants, the shattered threads of keepers, villagers, innocents, all ground down into this gray sea.
And they were not gone. They watched. They listened.
Her chest clenched. "No. I ended you."
The whispers trembled, overlapping. Ended. Began. Broken. Bound.
She clutched Tomas tighter. "You don't get him. Not anymore."
The ash hissed, settling. But the faces beneath the surface kept shifting. Waiting.
Hours blurred.
Elara stumbled across the dunes, Tomas's weight slung over her shoulders, his blood staining her skin. Every step was agony, but she refused to stop. Somewhere, there had to be water, shelter, anything.
Her muscles burned. Her throat was dry as stone.
At last, she collapsed at the base of one of the jagged pillars. Tomas slid from her back, groaning weakly. She pressed her hand to his forehead—hot with fever.
She leaned her head back against the stone, her breaths ragged. "I don't know what you want from me," she whispered to the empty air. "I broke your chains. I ended your loom. Isn't that enough?"
The pillar hummed faintly beneath her touch.
A voice—thin, far away—slid into her mind. You ended nothing. You tore a wound. Now the wound bleeds. And it will never close.
Elara's body shook. She wanted to deny it, to scream her defiance, but the truth pressed heavy in her chest. The Hour wasn't gone. It was scattered.
And scattered things always sought to gather.
Night—or something like it—fell. The pale sky dimmed into deep gray, shadows stretching long. No stars, no moon. Just darkness.
Elara built a small fire with scraps of blackened wood she scavenged near the pillar. The flames burned low, red instead of gold, as though the ashes themselves resisted warmth.
Tomas stirred in his fevered sleep, whispering her name. His fingers twitched, reaching. She clasped them instantly.
"I'm here," she whispered, brushing sweat from his brow. "Always."
For a while, she only sat there, watching him breathe, her tears falling silently into the ash.
Then the whispers returned.
Not faint, not far. But close. All around.
He will die. He will die. He will die.
Faces rose in the ash just beyond the firelight, their hollow mouths opening, closing. Shadows stirred at the edges of vision, shifting like beasts.
Elara gripped the key in her hand, though its fire was dim. "Come closer," she hissed into the dark. "I'll end you again."
The whispers laughed. Not cruel, not kind. Only empty.
She didn't sleep. Couldn't.
When Tomas woke in the dim hours, his voice was so faint she barely heard it. "Elara… this place…"
She bent close. "Don't talk. Save your strength."
But he gripped her wrist weakly, forcing her to meet his eyes. "This isn't the end, is it?"
Her lips trembled. She wanted to lie. To tell him yes, it was over, they had won, the world would bloom again.
But his gaze was steady, even through pain. He wanted truth.
So she whispered, "No. It isn't. It's only broken."
His hand fell back, limp. But his faint smile lingered. "Then… we break it more."
By the second day—if days even existed in this ash-world—Elara knew she couldn't stay near the pillar.
The faces beneath the dunes were growing restless. The whispers were louder, overlapping, gnawing at her mind.
So she lifted Tomas again, her body screaming, and began walking toward the horizon, where the jagged tower of light still gleamed faintly in the distance.
Every step felt like a march into madness. The ash rose higher, tugging at her ankles. Whispers sharpened into words. Some begged. Some cursed. Some laughed.
But she kept going.
Because Tomas's breath still warmed her neck. Because she had promised herself—he would not be taken.
Not by silence.Not by chains.Not by anything.
Elara lost track of how long she walked. The dunes were endless, every rise and fall the same, every horizon an empty smear of pale gray. The ash clung to her throat, coated her tongue until she could barely swallow. She carried Tomas in turns—sometimes on her back, sometimes dragging him by sheer will, sometimes pausing to cradle him when his body seized with fever.
She whispered to him constantly. Promises. Lies. Hopes she didn't believe but forced into her voice because silence was worse.
"You'll wake. You'll walk beside me. We'll find the village again. The sea. Remember the sea, Tomas? The salt wind? The gulls screaming?"
His eyes never opened. But once, his lips twitched, as if a memory brushed him. That was enough.
By the third stretch of walking, her sun-eye began to flicker. Not just burning, but showing her things she wasn't ready to see.
Beneath the dunes, the faces writhed more clearly. They weren't strangers anymore.
They were people she knew.
The baker's wife who had pressed bread into her hands before the square. The boy who had hidden with her in the church cellar, whispering that he wasn't afraid. Her mother, her father—faces she had buried long ago.
Their mouths moved in the dust, but their words were not theirs.
Bind us. Free us. Feed us. Be us.
Elara stumbled, nearly dropping Tomas. "You're not them," she spat. "You're not."
But the ash laughed with her mother's voice.
At night—or what passed for night—she dreamed even while awake.
She saw Tomas walking ahead of her, whole, his shoulders strong, his laugh deep as it had once been. He didn't look back at her. Didn't need to. He expected her to follow.
She followed, desperate. And each time she reached for him, her hands closed around ash, her arms filling with dust that slipped through her fingers.
She woke with tears streaking her face, Tomas cold beside her.
On the fourth day, she found water.
A pool glittering in a hollow between two dunes, black and still. She dropped beside it, nearly sobbing, and pressed her cupped hands into the surface.
It was warm. Too warm.
When she lifted it to Tomas's lips, the surface of the pool shifted. Her reflection stared back—not her, not anymore. Her face without eyes, her mouth filled with chains.
Her hands trembled. "No…"
The reflection grinned.
She threw the water away.
Tomas stirred faintly, whispering for more, but she forced herself back, dragging him away from the pool. "Not this. Not for you."
Behind them, the water boiled, bubbling until it turned to ash.
The next horizon was different.
Shapes rose from it—dark, jagged, unnatural. For a moment, hope leapt in her chest. Towers? Ruins? Something human?
But as she drew closer, the shapes resolved into massive figures, half-buried in the dunes. Giants of ash, chained to the earth, their eyeless heads tilted toward the sky.
Her sun-eye burned, and she saw them as they truly were: fragments of the Hour, pieces too large to scatter, bound here instead. Their chains were the same black links she had shattered before, but these writhed endlessly, coiling into the ash.
One of the giants stirred as she passed. Its mouth opened, and silence poured out—heavy, suffocating.
Elara staggered. Tomas's body convulsed in her arms, choking for breath.
She fell to her knees, clutching him, screaming into the void, "You don't get him!"
The silence pressed harder, a weight on her chest, but her sun-eye flared, spilling light across the dune.
The giant shuddered, then collapsed into cinders.
When the ash settled, Tomas was still breathing. Barely.
Elara pressed her forehead to his, her tears mixing with the dust. "I can't keep this up," she whispered. "I can't fight you forever."
But even as she said it, she rose, lifting him again, her body shaking with exhaustion. Because stopping meant death, and she would not give them that.
By the time she reached the next rise, her vision was swimming. The tower of light in the distance no longer seemed closer, no matter how far she walked. It shimmered, bending, a mirage on the horizon.
But for the first time since the white-out, the whispers fell silent.
The ash was still.
She collapsed at the top of the dune, Tomas against her chest. His pulse was faint, his skin ice.
Elara stared at the tower. Her throat burned. Her body screamed for rest.
But her voice came out steady, fierce.
"We're going there. Do you hear me, Tomas? Whatever it is, whatever waits—we're going."
The wind stirred the ash.
And somewhere, far below, the whispers began again—softer this time, but more deliberate.
Come.