CHAPTER 4 — The Mouth of Ash
CHAPTER 4 — The Mouth of Ash
Location: Halworn, Sector 9 — Driftspine Commons
Time: Nightfall, All Four Suns Shadowed by Orbiting Spires
---
The invitation didn't come on paper.
It came as a man.
Or what used to be one.
They found him kneeling in the centre of the square, head tilted upward, face serene. He wore no clothes. No runes. No cultic robes.
Just… skin, stretched too tightly.
Too polished.
As if he'd been remade.
His chest was carved open — clean, bloodless. Inside his ribs was not a heart, but a burning glyph in the shape of three lines and a broken circle.
Lucien stopped four metres away.
Eris beside him tilted her head.
> "That's not normal," she said flatly.
> "No," Lucien replied.
> "He's smiling too much."
Lucien didn't answer. He was listening.
Because the body was breathing.
But the lungs weren't moving.
---
A flicker.
And then, without sound, the man began to speak.
> "To the Drifting Monarch," he said, lips unmoving.
"We know your burden. We have waited. The Circle sees the fracture you carry. The Ash owes its debt to the flame — and you are flame."
The voice didn't come from the mouth.
It came from the ribs.
The glyph was speaking.
> "The world has taken from us. Now it shall be shaped anew. Walk with us. Claim your rightful chain."
Then — silence.
And the man's head snapped backward.
Not violently. Almost… politely.
Like a marionette being unstrung.
The glyph went dim.
Lucien didn't move.
Eris crouched next to the corpse.
> "That was weird."
> "Very."
> "Do we burn it?"
Lucien looked at her.
> "You want to burn it?"
> "A little."
> "Why?"
> "Because I don't like things that smile while dead."
Lucien paused. Then stepped forward.
He knelt beside the body.
> "Ashweavers," he murmured.
Eris perked up.
> "Cult?"
> "Yes."
> "Powerful?"
> "Very."
She stood, hammer over her shoulder.
> "Do I hit them?"
Lucien didn't answer.
---
In the shadows of the nearby building, a child watched with empty eyes.
Not a real child.
A shell. A vessel.
Inside its mouth: a second glyph.
It recorded.
Watched.
Sent the feed back into the hollow glass of the Ashweaver's domain.
---
⟡
Beneath Halworn — The Vowborn Chamber
> "The message was received."
> "And?"
> "He did not destroy the vessel."
> "He listened."
> "He acknowledged."
He Who Remembers sat still on his rusted throne.
> "Good."
> "He will come?"
> "No."
Pause.
> "But he knows we exist now."
> "Is that enough?"
> "For now. Soon, we give him a reason."
> "The Sin is with him. She will not like us."
> "She is not the target."
> "But she is a threat."
> "So is the wind. So is time."
> "Do we move to Phase Three?"
> "Not yet."
> "Then what?"
He smiled faintly.
> "We make him curious."
---
⟡
Back above, in Halworn...
Lucien stood in the square long after the body was taken away by sanitation drones. No one questioned it. No one stopped. The city adjusted to wrongness like a body numbed to pain.
Eris leaned against a wall, chewing something. Probably not food.
> "You're thinking," she said.
Lucien didn't answer.
> "You're wondering if they're stupid or confident."
Still nothing.
> "I vote stupid."
Lucien finally spoke.
> "They believe the world owes them something."
> "Gross."
> "And they think I'm part of that payment."
> "Stupid and gross."
Lucien smirked.
> "They might be useful."
> "Nope."
> "You haven't even heard why."
> "Don't care. I hate their vibe."
> "You hate everyone's vibe."
> "True."
---
Lucien stepped away.
> "Come on."
> "Where?"
> "To poke something until it reacts."
> "You mean provoke them?"
> "Same thing."
---
As they vanished into the layered streets, the wind shifted.
And the glyph in the dead man's ribs flared to life one last time, even though the body was gone.
In an empty room, a single line etched itself onto a wall of ash:
> LUX IGNIS IN VINCULIS
(Light of Fire, Bound)
---Here begins the descent.
---
Location: The Hollow Below | Ashweaver Sanctum Delta
Time: Sub-Solar Eclipse | Sun Veil Phase 2
---
There was no time in the Hollow Below.
Not really.
The Ashweaver sanctum — one of many — sat beneath the world like a forgotten lung. It breathed rituals and exhaled silence. Cracked stone. Ritual circles older than light. Dust that never settled.
There were no windows.
No clocks.
Only the steady hum of the Obelisk Core — a monolith of black ash veined with amber script that glowed every time someone in the cult thought too hard about Lucien.
Lately, it pulsed often.
Too often.
And someone… had noticed.
---
The Ninth Disciple was not like the others.
She never had been.
The others spoke in ash-coded tongue. She sometimes spoke aloud. Quietly. To herself.
They fasted before communion.
She… forgot.
They erased desire.
She—
Well.
She never stopped feeling it.
Not hunger.
Not lust.
Not fear.
What she felt was something far more dangerous:
> Fascination.
---
She was the youngest.
Not in age.
In commitment.
She hadn't been born into the doctrine. She'd chosen it.
And now… she was breaking it.
---
Her name, long forgotten, surfaced again inside her thoughts.
> "Soreya," she whispered to no one.
The sound shivered the chamber.
> "He sees through the fabric," she murmured, tracing a burnt drawing of Lucien's face onto a torn stretch of dried skin.
Not perfectly drawn.
But close.
White hair. One glowing blue eye. One swirling void.
She sketched him over and over.
Not out of loyalty.
Not out of belief.
Out of something... more personal.
> "He doesn't follow law or sin," she said aloud.
> "He's not ours."
> "That makes him mine."
---
Elsewhere in the sanctum, the Second Disciple passed her cell, paused, narrowed his invisible eyes.
The drawings. The muttering.
Something was wrong with Ninth.
He chose to say nothing.
For now.
---
⟡
Above — In Halworn, Layer 4
Lucien sat on the ledge of an old broken tram tower, legs swinging. Eris lay flat behind him on a steel bench, hammer beside her, using his lap as a pillow.
She wasn't asleep.
Her eyes were open. Watching.
> "Someone's watching us," she said.
> "Yes," Lucien replied.
> "Again."
> "Mhm."
> "But it's different this time."
Lucien's gaze dropped to a silver coin tossed into the wind. It hovered midair, refusing to fall.
> "Same cult," he said. "But not the same intent."
Eris tilted her head lazily.
> "How do you know?"
> "Because this time…"
He flicked the coin.
It dropped like lead.
> "…it's personal."
---
⟡
Back below, in the Hollow
Soreya—the Ninth—sat cross-legged before a candle made of bone wax, pages of forbidden ink spread in front of her. Her hood was down.
Her eyes were not human anymore.
One was rust-red. The other shimmered with fragments of Lucien's mana signature — copied, studied, mimicked.
She whispered again.
> "They said you were flame. But flame can't be held."
She smiled. A tear rolled down her cheek. She didn't notice.
> "You're not the prophecy."
> "You're the end of it."
---
Suddenly—
A presence.
She felt it.
Lucien's mana pulsed, like a hand brushing against the inside of her skull.
He knew.
---
She gasped. Fell forward. Smiled.
> "He sees me."
---
⟡
Elsewhere, within the Ashweaver High Circle
> "Ninth is... unstable," said the Fifth.
> "Correction," said the Fourth. "She is broken."
> "A symptom," said the Second. "She spends too much time near the glyph archive. Too many glimpses."
He Who Remembers said nothing.
Not at first.
Then, softly:
> "Let her spiral."
> "Why?"
> "Because madness reveals what loyalty hides."
---
⟡
Back on the surface…
Lucien and Eris now stood at the edge of a bridge hanging over the Rift Core Canal. Beneath them: sky so dark it looked like a mirror.
Lucien's black eye pulsed once.
> "One of them's different," he said.
Eris blinked.
> "One of the cult?"
> "Yes."
> "Good different or kill-it different?"
> "I haven't decided."
She yawned.
> "Let me know."
---
A breeze passed between them. Cold. Sharp.
Far below, in the Hollow, Soreya stared upward at nothing.
> "Come find me," she whispered.
"Please. Come see me."
---
Let's do this.
This chapter leans more into subtle emotion — not dramatic outbursts, but undercurrents. A lazy girl getting annoyed. A psychopathic king raising an eyebrow. And a cultist spiralling in obsession.
---
Location: Outer Halworn Layer 3 — Sector Vergewalk
Time: Pale Sunset, Sky Drift 17
---
Eris sat on the edge of the railing, kicking her legs.
Not because she was happy.
She was annoyed.
But she was also tired.
And being annoyed took energy.
Lucien stood several metres away, watching the horizon with that blank, unreadable calm. The kind of calm people mistook for indifference — but Eris knew better.
He was thinking.
About her.
> "Tch."
Lucien turned.
> "Something wrong?"
Eris squinted at him.
> "You keep checking for her."
> "For who?"
> "The cult girl."
Lucien didn't answer immediately.
His silence was confirmation.
> "I'm not jealous," Eris said.
Lucien raised a brow.
> "I didn't say you were."
> "I'm not," she repeated, lying like a deadpan child.
> "Understood."
She kicked the air again.
> "She's probably ugly."
Lucien's lip quirked.
> "She's a fanatic. Fanatics don't have time to care about looks."
> "Exactly."
> "You are annoyed."
Eris turned away dramatically, arms crossed.
> "I'm not."
---
They sat like that for a while.
Lucien watching the skyline.
Eris pretending she wasn't peeking at him.
Eventually, she mumbled:
> "She better not get a nickname."
Lucien looked over.
> "What?"
> "You call me 'Sloth' sometimes. If you give her a name, I'll bite you."
Lucien stared.
Then smiled.
> "Noted."
---
⟡
Deep Below – The Hollow Sanctum
Soreya had stopped attending rituals.
She no longer cared if the others noticed. Her quarters were covered now — from wall to wall — with sketches of Lucien. His eye. His coat. His posture.
She didn't dream anymore.
She just waited.
---
The glyph inside her palm burned softly, stolen from a ritual she was never supposed to witness.
She shouldn't have been able to use it.
But then again, she shouldn't have felt anything, either.
And yet…
> "He looked at me."
She whispered it like a prayer.
---
Above, Lucien blinked.
He felt it.
A pulse of mana — just a flicker — carrying his signature.
He narrowed his eyes.
The cult girl had managed to extract something from him.
Interesting.
> "She's mimicking me," he said aloud.
Eris looked up from her nap.
> "Ew."
> "She's managed to pull fragments from my previous spatial step. That's not easy."
> "Sounds like a fan."
Lucien didn't respond.
> "You like fans now?"
> "No."
Eris sat up, pouted slightly.
> "She better not show up with matching clothes."
Lucien blinked.
> "You think she'll cosplay?"
> "I think she's insane."
Pause.
> "I'm insane too," Eris added. "But I don't stare at you like you're the last dessert in a dying pantry."
> "You literally nap on me daily."
> "That's different."
> "How?"
> "Because I'm cute."
Lucien blinked again.
He had no idea how to argue with that.
---
⟡
Elsewhere — The Ashweaver High Circle
The Fifth Disciple finally spoke up.
> "The Ninth has stopped communion."
> "She's experimenting with mana that doesn't belong to her."
> "She has rewritten the Hymn of Obedience."
He Who Remembers did not respond immediately. He watched a flickering projection of Lucien walking through a crowded layer, Eris trailing behind him with a piece of fruit in her mouth.
> "Let her."
> "But—"
> "Obsession is faith with heat."
> "What if she breaks?"
> "Then we see what hatches from the fracture."
---
⟡
Back above…
Eris tossed a stone into a vent and listened to it clatter.
> "She's going to do something stupid."
> "Probably," Lucien agreed.
> "You're going to let her?"
> "For now."
> "Why?"
Lucien turned toward her.
His swirling black eye glinted.
> "Because sometimes, people tell you more with what they break than with what they build."
Eris rolled her eyes.
> "Cryptic. You should write poetry."
Lucien smirked.
> "That a compliment?"
> "No. Just a suggestion."
---
⟡
– Below the Surface
Soreya carved her final rune.
She had reshaped an entire Ashweaver doctrine. Not to defy it.
To aim it.
All their prophecies, all their scriptures… she reworded them.
Now they no longer awaited the Monarch.
They served him.
Her hands bled. Her smile cracked.
> "I will be useful," she whispered.
"I'll be seen."
And somewhere, for the first time, Lucien frowned.
---