Chapter 8: Whispers in the Firelight

The town of Darswich stirred beneath the hush of early light, its narrow cobbled streets still slick with dew, and the paper lanterns from the night before swaying gently as though drunk on leftover moonlight.

Clive stood at the edge of the balcony, shirtless, arms resting on the rail. The Loud Moon hung low even now, never fully departing this place. It stained the sky with a dull purple hue, refusing to be forgotten.

Behind him, Selvara lay tangled in a sheet, one leg draped over the side of the bed, her bare shoulder glinting in the filtered light like polished steel. For a woman bred from a witch's nightmare, she looked painfully human in sleep.

Clive let the silence stretch. The night they shared hadn't erased his ghosts. If anything, it stirred them.

He pressed two fingers to the Wyrmstone hanging cold around his neck. It pulsed, faint but steady.

"How long are you going to pretend to brood?" Selvara's voice was hoarse, velvet roughened by morning.

Clive didn't turn. "I wasn't pretending."

She yawned and rolled onto her back. The sheet slipped, but she didn't bother fixing it. "Well, whatever you're doing, put on a shirt. You're making the sunrise feel inadequate."

He cracked a faint smile. "It started it."

She laughed, and for a moment, the room felt like any inn room anywhere. No soul shards. No dead daughters. No cursed skulls.

That was when the door creaked open.

"Morning, lovebirds," Grimpel's unmistakable voice announced cheerily. "Hope you remembered to cast a silencing ward—or at least stuffed a pillow in her mouth. Those inn walls are thin."

Selvara sat up slowly, glaring. "You left?"

"I left," Grimpel confirmed. "To give you two some privacy. You know, a little... shard consolidation. Can't blame a skull for being thoughtful."

Clive rubbed his temple. "How long were you standing there?"

"Oh, I didn't need to stand. I floated. Just enough to catch the highlights. And let me tell you, Clive, I had no idea you were so... rhythmic."

Selvara threw a pillow at him.

Grimpel dodged it midair. "Missed me by a whisper."

"Why are you back?" Clive asked flatly.

"I smelled roasted peaches and regret," Grimpel said. "Also, we've got a shard to find, and you two were getting dangerously close to becoming happy. I had to ruin that."

The marketplace was already alive. Fruit vendors barked prices beneath strings of colored silks. A puppet show performed on a makeshift stage where masked children hissed and danced like demons. Mask shops displayed faces carved from ivory, wood, and some from crystal laced with silver veins.

Selvara eyed a wolf mask, her fingers brushing the edges. "This one feels familiar."

Clive raised a brow. "Maybe you wore one. Maybe it wore you."

A few stalls down, an old man hunched over a harp strung with copper wire. His eyes were gone—sewn shut. But he smiled like he saw everything.

"Old man," Clive called. "You know anything about a temple buried under this town?"

The man kept playing. A soft tune. Like breath in snow.

Then he whispered, "Not buried. Sleeping. The Temple of Forgotten Faces doesn't rise for coin. It rises for memory."

Selvara stepped forward. "Where is it?"

"Find the child who speaks without words," he answered, plucking a minor chord that buzzed in Clive's teeth.

Clive frowned. "That's not helpful."

But the old man only grinned. "It never is. Not until it is."

He resumed playing.

Selvara tugged Clive's sleeve. "I don't trust him."

"Me neither."

"But you think he's right."

Clive didn't answer.

As Clive and Selvara pushed through the bustle of Darswich's midday crowd, they were halted by the sight of a gaudy tent propped up in the middle of the square.

Painted across the front in crooked gold letters:

> "THE FORTUNE FOOLS — Prophecies While You Wait!"

A long line of confused-looking customers stood nearby.

Inside the tent, three wildly mismatched performers bickered loud enough for the entire plaza to hear.

"You can't just say everyone is cursed, Grubble!" barked the tall woman with a fake third eye painted on her forehead. "It ruins the suspense!"

"It's not my fault they all feel cursed!" Grubble replied — a short, egg-shaped man with a monocle and no pants. "I go with my gut!"

"The last gut feeling you had turned out to be indigestion," snapped the third member — a bearded elf wearing a turban over a helmet.

Selvara tilted her head. "Do they actually tell fortunes?"

Grimpel floated forward, intrigued. "No. But they are very committed to failure."

One of the trio suddenly shouted out to the crowd, "NEXT VICTIM—er, client!"

A young man stepped inside nervously.

The tall woman grabbed his hand dramatically. "I see... heartbreak."

Grubble sniffed the air. "And potatoes."

The elf leaned forward and said solemnly, "Beware of doors."

The customer blinked. "What... kind of doors?"

"All kinds," said Grubble. "Especially ones that open."

The man walked out looking thoroughly traumatized.

Grimpel whistled. "They're idiots, but I respect the performance."

Selvara smirked. "They're like if fate had a drinking problem."

One of the trio spotted Clive. "YOU! Brooding stranger with tragic eyes! Your aura is screaming in ancient runes!"

Clive stopped. "I'm not interested."

"Too late!" the elf shouted. "You've already been spiritually invoiced!"

Selvara tugged his sleeve. "Let's go before they put a hex on your socks."

At twilight, Clive saw her.

Lena.

Across the plaza. Dressed in white. Brown hair. Standing perfectly still amid the blur of dancing festivalgoers.

"Lena?" he whispered.

He stepped forward.

"Clive?" Selvara called, but he ignored her.

Lena turned.

Her eyes were gone. Her smile too wide. Her hands stitched to her dress.

Then she blinked. And vanished.

He froze.

Selvara reached him a moment later. "You saw her again."

"She was... stitched. Hollow."

"It's starting," Selvara said. Her voice had lost its playfulness. "The shard is waking something here."

Clive looked up. The moon above them throbbed like a wound.

By nightfall, the square had become a forest of fire and motion.

The Festival of Eyes had begun.

People wore masks of beasts, gods, and forgotten kings. Flames danced on long poles. The air itself felt alive with old magic. Clive and Selvara stood at the edge of the crowd, cloaked and waiting.

"I hate this," he muttered.

Selvara's hand brushed his.

"You hate everything."

"Not everything."

She looked at him. He didn't meet her eyes.

Then a low hum passed through the ground.

A voice.

No words. Just tone.

Familiar.

Clive turned sharply.

There, floating above the dancers, half-shrouded in firelight and smoke, was a skull.

Grimpel.

But... wrong. Dim. Half-present. As if remembering itself.

Clive's breath caught. "You bastard."

Selvara's voice hardened. "Is it really him?"

"Feels like him."

The skull turned, slowly, deliberately.

And then it laughed.

Just once.

Then it vanished.

Clive's heart pounded.

Selvara said nothing.

Because in the echo of that laugh, she had heard something too.

A name.

Not spoken aloud.

Not yet.

But in her mind, it whispered:

Lena.

Later that night, they found a door carved into the alley behind the maskmaker's shop. Covered in soot and old blood sigils.

Clive looked to Selvara.

She nodded once.

"It begins."

They stepped through.

And the air changed.