The Order That Doesn’t Burn
It was the second time.
The second time I'd found myself in that same sunless chamber.
The same bone-colored stone underfoot. The same red silk brushing against my legs like whispers. The same chants, in a language my ears flinched to hear but somehow understood.
I didn't remember it when I was Delmira.
Not this place.
Not this ritual.
And that was what terrified me.
Because how do you forget something carved into your body?
---
The women circled again.
Their eyes blank. Their skin painted with ash and oil.
One of them held a blade this time — obsidian, curved like a crescent moon.
She dipped it into something black and warm and reached for my shoulder.
I wanted to run.
I didn't.
I wanted to scream.
I didn't.
Because I knewI'd been here before.
Because part of me wanted her to finish what she started.
---
Then came the moaning.
Low. Unified.
The group writhed in the center — limbs tangled, hips rocking, hands gripping flesh as if it were sand slipping through their fingers.
It wasn't pleasure.
It was sacrifice.
Something was being summoned.
And in every mirror on that ceiling, I saw myself:
Eyes black.
Runes glowing across my back like branding.
---
I woke up gasping.
Fists clenched. Skin wet.
And I couldn't tell if the trembling in my chest was from the nightmare—
Or the memory.
Because now I wasn't sure there was a difference.
---
Pain conversion: 63%
System dormant.
Ashbind reaction: SHARD resonance spiking.
No skill unlocked.
---
The shard on my desk had cracked a little deeper.
A sliver of red light bled through its core.
It hummed against the wood — faint, but rhythmic.
Almost like breathing.
---
Clarisse knocked twice — impatient, sharp.
I flinched.
She didn't wait for permission to enter. She never did.
"The palace sent for you," she said, already folding a letter she hadn't even let me see. "Your presence is requested in the west library."
I blinked. "Why?"
She smirked slightly. "Maybe they're tired of forgetting you exist."
---
I didn't ask further.
I dressed. Slowly. Carefully.
The nightmare still clung to me. Like it had sunk beneath my skin and was watching me from inside.
I wrapped the shard in cloth and tucked it beneath my belt.
It pulsed once in response.
---
The west library sat on the second level of the palace — wide, warm, and polished with political lies. It wasn't where the real history was kept.
No — that lay beneath it.
Below the gilded stairwell.
Down the locked hall. Through the iron-banded door.
Into the old archive.
---
I stole in when no one was looking.
Habit. Confidence. Timing.
Three things even the king's guards couldn't detect when used well enough.
---
The scent hit me first: ancient paper and candle ash.
Then silence.
The kind that remembers.
I walked with slow steps, fingers brushing shelves worn smooth with age.
One book called to me.
Bound in black. No title. No author.
Just a single red stitch at the spine.
I picked it up.
It was warm.
---
Inside, the writing was in Old Solvanian. But even without perfect translation, the words bled through.
Over and over again, a name reappeared.
The Order of Vireh
---
Pages described ceremonies. Pacts. Pain. Memory.
I saw notes written in the margins in different handwriting — some terrified, some reverent.
"The women of Vireh do not burn. They remember too much."
"They carve memory into skin. They chant in tongues not meant for sound. They take flesh. They give none."
---
There were illustrations too.
Women in red robes, heads bowed in circles. Some floating above ground. Some writhing on it.
And one sketch stopped my breath.
A pale woman with white hair. Blackened eyes.
Not artistically imagined — remembered.
It was me.
Or… it had been.
---
The shard pulsed violently in my belt.
Pain conversion: 63%
System: SHARD overreaction.
Memory bleed increasing.
WARNING: limit approaching breach threshold.
---
A sound cracked through the silence.
A voice.
Low. Slippery. Too close and too far all at once.
"Careful where you dig, ash-blood. The Order is not dead….just sleeping."
I spun. No one was there.
The book slipped from my hand.
---
I ran.
Back through the corridor. Through the palace wall. Through the city smoke.
Back to Clarisse's door.
---
She didn't say anything until I was inside.
Then, without even turning, she murmured:
"You shouldn't go out so often."
I swallowed. My hands were still shaking.
"Too many people are starting to notice."
"Notice what?"
She turned to me at last.
Her eyes narrowed, and her voice was quiet but certain.
"That you don't blink like the rest of us anymore."