The next part we will see the guardian.
Also do you believe I improved in the fighting scenes?
Also I throw dice sometimes to decid the outcome of some events, and let's just say the dice knew no mercy this time.
———-
The Grand Mausoleum of the Forgotten Shore was a testament to a civilization that had long since crumbled into dust and memory. Yet here, deep beneath the surface of the earth, their legacy endured—not as fading ruins, but as defiant, immortal beauty carved into the bones of the world itself.
The chamber was colossal, vast enough to drown a mountain in shadow. Marble pillars, each the girth of ancient oaks and stretching hundreds of meters high, stood like titanic sentinels beneath the vaulted dome of a subterranean cavern. They upheld a ceiling forged of interwoven crystal and polished granite, an architectural marvel that shimmered like a cathedral built by gods. Light—where it came from, no one knew—filtered through windows that rose like the flanks of skyscrapers, their immense panes etched in colored crystal.
Each window told a story.
Long-dead monarchs, their lives rendered in glass: birth, war, triumph, betrayal, coronation, death. The artistry was haunting—some scenes ablaze with the glory of divine light, others soaked in sorrow, with broken swords and burning crowns beneath a bleeding sky. No two were the same, and all were larger than life.
Before the mausoleum's monolithic threshold lay a grave of iron and silence: a field of discarded arms and weathered suits of knightly armor, each one arranged with reverence. Spears crossed in eternal guard. Greatswords embedded in stone. Helms cradled in gauntlets like sleeping faces. Some pieces were no more than rusted husks; others gleamed like they had only just been set down.
And above it all, the air stirred with a wrongness that had no sound.
Sunless saw nothing at first. But his shadow sense told another story.
Ghosts.
Or the echoes of them. Flickering presences circled the mausoleum in a slow, orbiting drift—weightless, invisible to the eye, but heavy on the soul. Not spirits, exactly. Not quite alive. Not quite dead.
Specters.
He didn't need explanation. He knew exactly what would happen the moment they crossed that invisible boundary. The instant any of them came too close to the temple of the dead, the shadows would descend—and every sword, every suit of armor, would no longer lie still. They would be possessed, puppeted by rage and memory, and forced to dance once more.
A legion of haunted steel.
More than a dozen Awakened-level opponents, at minimum. And that was only what he could sense now.
He looked to his side.
On one side: an army of forgotten warriors, bound by wrath and ancient duty.
And on his?
A blind girl, Cassie, cradling a scavenger Echo at her side. Her face was calm, but Sunless had not seen her in a proper fight, he would be lying if he said he was confident in her ability.
Sasha Petrov, curled in on herself, too quiet, too jumpy. Her armor was still stained with blood she hadn't meant to spill. A girl with a good heart, trembling under too much weight.
Three unknown Pathfinders, quiet and watchful. Fresh meat, desperate to earn a place, or foolish enough to think they'd survive long enough to do so.
Gemma, their nominal leader, a man with unearthly regeneration and the kind of control over his fighting style that marked him as more than just a Sleeper. His gaze was steady, jaw set like a blade waiting to be drawn.
Athena—Effie—leaned on her spear with the same casual ease as a woman waiting in line for coffee. But her muscles were taut with coiled strength, her Aspect boosting her body to the strength of ten men, by her own modest estimation. Judging by the broken monsters in her wake, it wasn't enough.
And then there was Nephis.
Changing Star of the Immortal Flame Clan. Wreathed in silver fire that licked across her skin like a lover's touch and roared when she moved. He had seen her burn things that couldn't be killed by mere Sleepers, had watched her blade carve light from flesh . Her presence alone was enough to make legends whisper. Not just a fighter. A weapon. A purpose given flesh.
And last…
There was him.
Sunless. The Duke of the Dark City. The only Sleeper known to command Essence as if he were Awakened. The man with two shadow cores. Bearer of an Aspect Legacy. And master of Saint—a knightly demon forged from darkness and stone in the Underworld , bound to his will.
He had power.
He had knowledge.
He had more than most would ever dream.
And still, he didn't like the odds.
This wasn't a battle.
This was going to be a massacre.
'*'
The ghostlights above the mausoleum burned silently. Faint and dim as if trapped beneath layers of ice—but pulsing with deadly intent, waiting to descend.
And beneath them, Sunless stood with the two most valuable assets he had… or rather, the two who chose to follow his instructions only because, for now, those instructions aligned with their own goals.
They weren't subordinates. Not really.
But they were his best hope at Victory.
At Rain.
To his left, Gemma crouched beside a jagged stone outcropping, hands steepled in thought. The pathfinder's tone was calm, quiet—strategic, not showy.
"My Echoes and I can hold the flanks. The two foxes—big as PTVs, remember—can handle the sweep and snap work. Agile. Loud. Perfect to draw attention. The centipedes are tougher. Heavily armored, mean as hell, good for locking down larger threats."
He gestured faintly toward the far side of the mausoleum.
"We'll hit from both sides in a staggered push. Pincer formation, no tight grouping—we bait them into dividing their forces. The moment they begin to possess the graveyard gear, we anchor and delay. We don't try to win, we just keep them busy."
Sunless nodded. Tactical. Efficient. And Gemma knew better than to try playing the hero.
Good.
He reached into his coat and drew a small, chalky sketch— he had written down what Sasha had said. Scrawled lines, but potent ones. Cassie's visions weren't always clear , but they were never wrong. The letters told the story plainly: the specters wouldn't fall until they had form. Until they were chained to blades and bones. Until the specters of war had something to wear.
Sunless tapped the drawing. "Cassie says they're only vulnerable after possession. If they stay incorporeal, we're fighting specters with our hands tied."
He traced an invisible arc across the cave floor. "We force them to descend—Gemma's pincer draws them into the armor field. Once they anchor into the corpses or the weapons, then we move."
To his right, Nephis stood like a statue sculpted in war. Her pale silver hair was bound tight behind her, her armored figure relaxed—but there was no mistaking the contained pressure in her stance. Like a bowstring pulled taut.
She spoke without turning.
"Can Saint throw me into the center of the enemy?"
Her voice was flat. Emotionless. She wasn't joking. She wasn't asking. She was stating a solution.
Sunless blinked at her. For a second, he thought she might be messing with him. But no. Her face was as smooth and unreadable as ever—only the slightest twitch at the corner of her lips, that dangerous glint he knew too well, betrayed her intent.
"Damnation, Neph—are you *seriously* that crazy?" he hissed. His voice cut sharp through the silence, not loud but brimming with fury—and fear. "You want to *die* just to make a flashy entrance?"
She glanced at him, silver eyes like a blade sliding across his cheek.
"No. But I'm going to live up to my name."
That twitch again—barely a smile, more like the ghost of one. Enough to say *I've already decided*.
Sunless ground his jaw and exhaled through his nose, dragging a gloved hand down his face. "Fine. You do that. Saint can give you the launch—just make sure you land somewhere useful."
Nephis gave a subtle nod, already shifting her stance as if visualizing the trajectory. Preparing for war the way some people prepared for a dance.
He turned back to the others. "The rest of us clean up. Stragglers, commanders, anything that looks like it's giving orders or doesn't belong. We don't go for the center unless the flanks collapse. Understood?"
Athena, lounging with her spear braced across her back, cocked a brow. "You're no fun, boss man."
He ignored her, scanning the rest of the team.
Three new Pathfinders—green, eager, disposable. He didn't learn their names. Didn't need to.
Cassie, pale and calm beside her Echo, hands moving gently across its back like she was listening through her fingers.
Sasha, quieter now. Pale-faced and trembling, but standing. That was enough for him—for now.
He looked toward the mausoleum again.
They were minutes away from waking an army of the dead.
And every step of this plan would have to work with precision. If one line buckled, if Nephis was too slow, if the specters refused the bait… they'd be swarmed.
But they had no better option.
"Alright," Sunless muttered, mostly to himself. "Let's see if the dead are still afraid of fire."
He stepped forward, his shadows coiling at his heels like a loyal beast, and gave the silent order to Saint.
It was time.
'*'
Gemma and his squad had earned more than just Sunless's trust—they'd proven themselves tactical predators amid chaos, veterans of the dark. Together with their Echoes, they executed the pincer maneuver with flawless precision.
While the possessed specters surged forward, now rooted in stolen forms of steel and bone, the foxes and centipedes danced and thundered across the battlefield, not a single man lost, not a single gap exposed. Their defense was a fortress in motion.
On the right flank, Gemma rode one of his colossal foxes like a mounted shadow, bow drawn, cloak flaring in the air behind him. Each arrow he loosed screamed through the cavern like a miniature thunderclap. Tiny sonic booms echoed quietly as his enchanted bolts streaked through the gloom—fast enough to tear sound itself,yet with a fraction of the expected power. They struck true, every one. Not for brute force, but precision—threaded with enchantments layered so densely they shimmered faintly as they flew. Two arrows was all it took to drop even the larger revenants, their ghostly armor unraveling as the runes bit into spectral flesh.
On the left, the three titanic centipede Echoes had transformed into a living barricade. Their segmented bodies, once twitching and restless, now fused into an unyielding line of carapace and claw. Behind them, the three lesser Pathfinders braced themselves like soldiers behind a siege wall. Long spears thrust and twisted through the gaps in the centipedes' armored flanks, harrying any spirit foolish enough to press too close.
All according to plan.
Now came the opening act of annihilation.
The earth trembled as Saint moved forward, two of Sunless's shadows coiled tightly around the Tactum Knight like a second skin—enhancing, fortifying, binding it to his will. She—a Awakened Demon —gripped Nephis by the ankle, hoisting her skyward with the ease of lifting a dagger. There was no hesitation. No countdown.
The launch was blinding.
Saint blurred into motion, kicking off the stone with force enough to crater it. A shockwave cracked through the cavern as the massive suit of dark stone armor whipped her arm around and *hurled* Changing Star like a living javelin.
One second Nephis was hanging inverted in the knight's grip—and the next she was a streak of silver fire, arcing high into the darkness above the mausoleum.
The ghosts looked up.
So did the world.
The cave, once cast in the dim azure hue of spiritual light, ignited.
Nephis had become a *star.*
Not a metaphor. Not a flame.
A *celestial* inferno. A brilliant, blinding comet of silver fire, so bright it painted every blade, stone, and piece of armor with its radiance. Her silhouette was gone—replaced by a sphere of light the size of a two-story house, roaring through the air with apocalyptic fury.
And then she fell.
Her descent was not a crash—it was judgment. A silver meteor screamed down upon the heart of the reanimated legion, striking the mausoleum's base like a hammer from the heavens.
The explosion didn't echo. It *consumed.*
The star detonated into a dome of burning silver fire, vaporizing steel and ash, swallowing a hundred animated weapons and dozens of haunted suits of armor in a radiant instant. The light was too intense to look at directly, but even with his eyes closed, Sunless saw it through his eyelids.
When it faded, half the army was simply gone.
He exhaled slowly, awestruck despite himself.
He couldn't let her outshine him forever.
Saint dissolved into his shadow, vanishing like ink into water. Time to move.
Sunless walked forward, quiet as death.
A ghost lunged at him with a heavy poleaxe—he turned with it, let the blow pass within a whisper of his ribs, then spun inside its guard. His blade split its helm. A third came—a greatsword.
He slid under it, then mirrored the move a heartbeat later, cleaving the ghost's side clean through.
The Spell whisper its praise, he ignored it.
He wasn't just fighting.
He was learning.
Every strike the enemy made became part of him. Every footwork pattern, every stance. His shadow mimicked, absorbed, reflected. A blade rose—he had already sensed it. A thrust came—he had already dodged it once. He fought like a man in perfect foresight, each movement a whisper from the dark.
This was Shadow Dance.
Not brute force, not overwhelming fire.
But inevitability.
He cut down another specter, then another, flowing between strikes like water slipping through cracks. The [Midnight Shard] flickered in his hands, too fast to follow, too smooth to stop.
He was the shape of silence. The memory of murder.
And then—
Boom.
A compressed shockwave rocked the field behind him.
Sunless had felt it coming. His shadow sense flared—Sasha had loosed something from her sling, an iron capsule packed with sorcerous spite.
The detonation slammed into the enemy line. Ghostly knights scattered. Two went down, their armor crushed inward by the blast. Not bad—for a girl curled in a ball just hours ago.
Effie streaked past him like a bronze comet, spear flashing. She waded into the thick of it, tearing into haunted steel with relentless drive.
Cassie stood with calm precision, her Scavenger Echo sweeping in from the side like a silent predator, taking down stray enemies without drama or hesitation.
But Sunless?
He kept dancing.
He moved with serenity. Every breath, every twitch of a foot or flick of the blade was deliberate. He was not just a commander, nor a duelist.
He was the shadow at the edge of memory.
The darkness that walked between stars.
And he would not be outshone by any light—not even hers.
Sunless continued to advance in the battle with Clarity.
'*'
The battlefield was shifting again.
The specters had fully anchored—possessing the ancient weapons and knightly armor that had once lain dormant at the mausoleum's gates. Now, they moved with an uncanny life, jerking and twisting with impossible angles. Their joints bent the wrong way. Their blades floated, not carried. Shields flexed mid-swing, like muscle instead of metal. The rules of flesh no longer applied.
Sunless watched one twist at the waist—a full rotation, bones that no longer existed snapping in a way steel should never bend. Another dragged its sword across the ground, its edge shrieking over stone like a tuning fork from hell, only to whip it upward in a geyser of death at an angle no human shoulder could produce.
It was a mockery of form.
A perversion of technique.
He found it fascinating.
He stayed low, circling the flank of a reanimated knight. Its helm jerked once, then twice, like a marionette fighting unseen strings. A poleaxe floated beside it, turning independently from its body. It *twitched*, and the weapon slammed down, trailing ghostlight and black ash.
Sunless stepped inside the arc, letting the haft miss him by centimeters, and drove [Midnight Shard] into the phantom's side—not stabbing, but slicing in a long, controlled drag that caught the angles of movement rather than the flesh that no longer existed.
It collapsed, armor folding in on itself like deflating lungs.
He moved on.
Another ghost approached—this one faster. A longsword hovered beside it, spinning in erratic circles before lashing out without warning. It struck with *intent*, but not with balance. There was no weight behind it, only motion. Pure kinetic fury without regard for body mechanics.
Sunless saw the flaw.
He stepped back—not away from the strike, but into the edge of it. Just enough to feel the pressure of the passing blade, to *see* the rhythm of its madness. Then he adjusted. His stance shifted, just a fraction, and he struck again. A horizontal cut—not meant to kill, but to *interrupt* the pattern. It worked.
The floating sword spiraled off course. He followed it like a shark in blood, his second strike a vertical fall like an executioner's verdict.
It hit, and the light inside the armor *shattered*.
Sunless exhaled slowly.
This was it.
This was the challenge—*learning them.*
He wasn't faster than them. He wasn't stronger. But he was *adaptable.* His entire style, his philosophy, was about recognition and rhythm. Seeing a technique once. Dodging it twice. Owning it by the third.
And now, the ghosts were offering him a symphony of broken rules.
One stumbled forward, dragging a war hammer that weighed more than a man. Its arm bent in reverse, bracing the hammer behind its shoulder as if preparing to launch it like a whip. It shouldn't have worked.
But it did.
The hammer screamed through the air.
Sunless bent backward, the blow grazing just above his chest—close enough to feel the air pressure peel sweat from his skin.
He didn't retreat.
He *stepped inside* the ghost's reach, shoulder brushing its chestplate, and *mirrored* the movement it had just performed.
But he fixed it.
Instead of a warped, backward brace, he turned his body sideways, pivoted through his back foot, and drove a rising elbow into the hollow of the armor's neck. The echo's light flickered—then died.
Behind him, Effie was swearing joyfully as she jammed her bronze spear through the back of a disjointed halberd-wielder, kicking it off the blade with a grunt.
Cassie's Echo darted through the shadows like a phantom shark, its claws dragging one knight to the ground where Cassie calmly slit the cords of light keeping it bound to its armor.
Sasha was on one knee, reloading her sling, face pale but focused. Her hands trembled, but she didn't stop. The iron capsule clacked into place. Another shot rang out.
But Sunless?
Sunless *danced.*
He flowed through the battlefield like oil through gears, always adjusting, always *observing.* Every failed swing taught him. Every collapse of a foe gave him feedback. He was building a library in his mind—a codex of unholy motion, of cursed angles and impossible trajectories.
And he was *winning.*
A knight came at him in a spiral, spinning like a top, two scimitars orbiting it like moons. There was no center of gravity—just death coming in every direction.
Sunless leapt—not away, but *over* it.
While airborne, he turned—mid-spin—his blade drawing an arc as he passed over the spinning ghost.
It hit.
And when he landed, he landed with a roll, smooth and low, right back into stance.
*Shadow Dance.*
He could feel his second shadow swelling beneath his feet—Saint pulsing with excitement from within the depths. She understood. This was no longer survival.
This was an art.
This was the rhythm of war.
The battlefield was a storm of clashing steel and howling silence.
Sunless moved like a whisper through it.
Where others fought with noise—grunts, screams, crashes—he was a ghost. No breath. No sound. Only movement. Even the [Midnight Shard], massive as it was, traced silent arcs through the air, leaving behind faint distortions as if the shadows themselves bent around it.
The possessed suits of armor were uncanny—jerking like puppets, moving in bursts of speed that defied weight or joint. Their swords floated beside them before suddenly pivoting, stabbing with the unpredictability of insects. Shields spun like fans to deflect blows from impossible angles. Every movement was wrong. Not clumsy, not slow—just… inhuman.
Perfect.
He slid beneath a cleaving axe, pivoting on one heel, letting his momentum roll his body under the blade's arc. The [Midnight Shard] flashed out, slicing through the ghost-wrought steel just as it extended for another blow. Sparks burst like fireflies.
He didn't just copy them. He learned them.
[Shadow Dance] was never meant to be mimicry. It was adaptation. Absorption.
These possessed weapons didn't fight like living things. Their rhythm was erratic, their style more akin to malfunctions than martial intent. But Sunless, in that fluid, graceful way of his, was already starting to see the pattern in the chaos.
Too fast in the first second. Too slow in the third. Pause. Leap. Lunge. Two-weapon feint, then—
He let go of thought. The blade in his hand responded to impulse alone.
His shadow, Gloom, wrapped tight around him, flickered with every movement—stretching into a second dancer behind him, echoing his steps with alien precision. Where he dodged, the shadow coiled. Where he struck, it stabbed like a serpent. Together, they weaved a net of silence and silver, trapping enemies in the rhythm of a deadly waltz.
To his left, one of the larger suits—a full plate knight animated by two swords and a halberd—charged him with a cacophony of clanging limbs.
Saint emerged like a bastion between them, her distaste clear.
She moved with heavy certainty, her armor thundering with each step—not clumsy, but deliberate. The kind of rhythm that broke sieges.
Her shield struck first—a bash that shattered the halberd's haft mid-swing. There was no wasted effort, no flurry. Saint didn't fight to match their unnatural grace. She drowned it beneath overwhelming force.
The possessed knight staggered back—but only for a second.
Then her greatsword came down.
She moved with precision and weight, the blade carving a perfect diagonal through the enemy's chestplate. There was no scream, no flash. Just metal folding like cloth and spirit unraveling in silence.
Saint stepped forward, planting her foot like she was claiming territory. Her shield rose again—firm, angled, impenetrable. Her presence didn't waver,measured, rooted, impossible to displace. Each of her movements flowed from the last with calm brutality. Calculated. Grounded. Insidiously lethal.
She didn't glance at Sunless—she didn't need to. Her role was clear.
Sunless used the space she opened to engage three new enemies. These were faster—thin chainmail animated by long spears and shields, darting like snakes in a death ballet. They twisted unnaturally, spears shooting out with whiplash speed and shields flipping mid-air to block without hands behind them.
He didn't clash. He let them lead.
His body moved through the spears, each dodge drawing him closer. He wasn't avoiding them—he was tracing them. Each flick of the spear told him more. Every jerk of the shield, every half-second twitch of a floating weapon, became information.
One dances like wind—brittle but flowing.
One fights like a spring trap—still, then sudden.
And the last... drunk. Off-balance, but hiding venom.
He read them like music.
Then he struck.
The [Midnight Shard] blurred, and all three fell apart before they realized they had engaged. Pieces of chain and shards of glowing steel crashed to the floor, their animating spirits shrieking silently as they burned out. Sunless landed in a low crouch, the breath in his lungs steady, as if he'd done nothing at all.
Above him, Nephis scorched the upper levels of the battlefield with another cascade of silver fire. She moved in bursts—leaping across ancient hills and vaulting from broken pillar to broken pillar, trails of flame etching across the cemetery. With each swing of her sword , dozens of possessed forms were reduced to molten slag.
Cassie stood further back, her hands clutched around her Echo's shell. The scavenger slithered through wreckage and shadows, disabling anything that slipped past the front lines. It worked like a scalpel—precise, quiet, and lethal under her command. She couldn't see, but she felt. She knew where to send it.
Sasha's armor was still stained, her eyes wide with nerves, but she fought.
Not beautifully, not powerfully—but deliberately.
She stayed near Effie, slinging those strange capsules—tiny bombs of light and sound that disrupted the rhythm of their unnatural enemies. Every time Sunless felt a pulse of force behind him, he used it. Twisting with the momentum. Striking at the holes they hadn't meant to open.
Effie was pure aggression. Her bronze spear cut and swept in wide arcs, the haft flashing as she pivoted and spun. She was laughing now—mocking the silence of their foes with her own voice. A taunt, even if they couldn't hear her.
Sunless exhaled.
They had entered the tempo. His shadow danced tighter now, no longer lagging behind. They were near-synchronized, and with each second, it improved.
He felt [Serpent], pulse with joy. Not violent joy—methodical joy. Learning was pleasure. Mastery was its own reward.
One of the largest suits of armor remaining—a corrupted knight with a massive two-handed sword—lunged at him. Its movement was silent, sudden, and horribly fast for its size.
Sunless didn't retreat.
He spun.
His shadows spun with his sword.
[Midnight Shard] carved a perfect circle through the knight's blade as it descended, splitting it in two. In the same movement, Sunless slid inside the knight's reach, angled his body with impossible precision, and plunged the point of the odachi through its helm—twisting as he did so.
It writhed. Then collapsed into twitching metal .
There were fewer now.
Their numbers were thinning. The momentum had shifted.
Saint hurled a shattered enemy into a pillar hard enough to splinter ancient stone. Nephis landed beside her, still blazing silver. Without words, they moved together—fire and stone, grace and force. One cut through ranks like divine flame; the other smashed through them like a moving citadel.
Sunless stood alone in the eye of the storm.
The battlefield was not silent anymore—not to him. The silence had rhythm. A beat.
And he was no longer merely dancing to it.
He was leading it.
This wasn't just a fight.
It was a performance.
And the Coda had come.
'*'
**Shadow Fragments: [166 / 2000]**
For once in what felt like an age, nothing had gone wrong.
Sunless found himself… pleasantly surprised.
There had been injuries, sure. A few too many close calls, some blood spilled—but nothing that Changing Star couldn't smooth over with a flicker of her silver flames. Her healing swept through their ranks like divine fire, effortless and absolute, turning agony to relief, broken limbs to whole flesh. As always, she shone like some tragic miracle.
He hated how impressive it was.
Nephis was a walking cheat code. Wipe out half a battlefield, then heal the survivors for dessert. If she weren't so useful, he might've been more irritated about it. As it stood, he just settled for a familiar undercurrent of jealousy.
Not that he had done poorly himself.
He had only gained four Memories, but that was still four more than most. And one, at least, had been interesting enough to make him pause.
The first had been a weapon—an inferior sword, the kind of thing he wouldn't have looked twice at. It barely lasted a moment before he fed it to Saint.
The next two were Garment-type Memories.
The first was a cane—an elegant one, all black and gray, the metal shaft smooth and cool to the touch, with a polished knob that gleamed faintly in the gloom.
The runes read as follows:
---
**Memory name**: [Stalwart steps]
**Memory type**: Garment
**Memory rank**: Awarded
**Memory tier**: first
**Memory designation**: [It is an Aristocrat's duty to ensure his next step be full of flare.]
**Memory Enchantments**: [Ambience]
**Enchantment Description**: [This Cane shall surround itself with a dramatic Mist.]
---
It wasn't useful. Not in the traditional sense. The mist it conjured was harmless, purely aesthetic—a flourish rather than a function. But Sunless kept it anyway.
He had plans.
Specifically, plans involving Alice.
The unstable, endlessly theatrical girl had a grudge against him—a personal one. And while he wasn't particularly fond of her, that didn't mean he enjoyed the idea of someone so volatile holding a vendetta with his name on it. She'd grown on him, somehow. Like a tumor.
A dramatic mist cane seemed like exactly her sort of thing.
The second Garment was darker—more fitting for someone like him. A brooch in the shape of an obsidian cameo, carved in the profile of a skull. Sleek. Grim. Quietly menacing.
The runes read as follows:
---
**Memory name**: [Moment of mori]
**Memory type**: Garment
**Memory rank**: Awarded
**Memory tier**: second
**Memory designation**: [Like shadows, death is ever present.]
**Memory Enchantments**: [A moment]
**Enchantment Description**: [The intent for Death is easier to feel.]
---
Now this one had value.
Not just thematic, either. It would allow him to sense the direction of an attack—so long as it carried true killing intent. A quiet warning. A whisper of mortality. The kind of edge that could be the difference between walking away from a fight, or not walking at all.
And then came the fourth.
A weapon, which he usually ignored—he had the [Midnight Shard], after all, and finding something better felt increasingly unlikely. But this wasn't meant to replace it.
It was meant to complement it.
It looked like a shield, but barely. A twisted sculpture of metal fragments, ragged and cruel, fused into a crude dome. It seemed to hum faintly, a low, vibrating warning of some tension waiting to snap.
The runes read as follows:
---
**Memory name**: [Broken Bastion]
**Memory type**: Weapon
**Memory rank**: Awarded
**Memory tier**: second
**Memory designation**: [Defense without offense is just a delayed defeat.]
**Memory Enchantments**: [Fractured Grit]
**Enchantment Description**: [The Shield's splinters orbit that what it can no longer protect. Thus it shall cut what it once could not.]
---
When he summoned it from his Soul Sea, it didn't just appear—it *deployed*.
A dome of spinning splinters erupted around him, roughly two meters wide. The jagged shards rotated at deadly speed, catching light and shadow alike as they orbited him in a constant defensive cyclone.
It wasn't subtle. But it was *impressive*.
And he wasn't the only one who'd gained something.
Gemma and his men were already huddled near the edge of the chamber, muttering as they bartered over their own hall. Nephis stood nearby, her blue-flame cloak flickering behind her like the mantle of some holy executioner. She had a strange flute in one hand and a flask in the other, one freshly acquired. She didn't seem thrilled, but neither did she seem disappointed.
Effie was admiring a pair of thick, heavy gauntlets—tossing mock punches in the air like a street brawler. Sasha, meanwhile, had a strange haze shimmering around her—like the air itself distorted near her head. She'd picked up a broken monocle, and whatever it did, it was already doing *something*.
But it was Cassie who had truly been blessed.
The porcelain doll now had two Echoes—*two*.
Both floating swords.
One was a slender rapier, its delicate hilt and elegant form hovering near her shoulder, responding to her movements with eerie synchronicity. The other was a flambard—same general shape, but the blade curved in waves like silver fire, each ripple catching the light like a flickering flame.
Sunless should have been jealous.
He had killed hundreds of abominations and only earned three Echoes in his life.
But when he looked at her—when he saw the subtle confidence in her stance, the way her lips parted in surprise each time one of the Echoes shifted to guard her—he didn't feel envy.
He felt relief.
Cassie was just a little bit safer now.
But he could make her *more* so.
Both [Moment of mori] and [Broken Bastion] were the kind of Memories that would suit her perfectly. Subtle. Defensive. Protective without being condescending. The kind of gifts that would keep her breathing without making her feel coddled.
There were just… two problems.
The first was Cassie herself. He didn't want her thinking he saw her as weak or incapable. That wasn't it. He just *cared*—and he was careful not to let that care make her feel small. He wanted distance. But not *that* kind of distance.
The second problem was his image.
The Duke of the Dark City didn't hand out favors. He was cold. Cruel. Distant. That was the mask he'd chosen, and it kept people away, kept them guessing. Gifting two Memories to someone—especially someone like *her*—would send all the wrong messages.
Still.
He couldn't keep them from her.
He approached her quietly, the familiar rhythm of his boots tapping against the stone three times.
tap. tap. tap.
Cassie turned toward the sound instantly, her lips already curving into a bright smile. The rapier floating beside her tilted in midair, as if it too had noticed him.
"Sunless! You're alive." She beamed, the relief in her voice unmistakable. "I mean, of course you're alive. You always are. But still." She shifted her weight from foot to foot, too giddy to stand still. "You saw? I got two of them!"
He allowed himself a faint smile. "I noticed."
"I didn't even do anything!" She laughed, then caught herself. "Well. I mean. I did, but not enough to get two Echoes. That's just—what even is that?"
"You earned them." He kept his voice even. "They chose you."
Cassie flushed faintly. She couldn't see him, but she tilted her head, reading the subtle inflection in his words. "You're just saying that."
"I don't say things I don't mean," he replied, and after a small pause, added, "Usually."
She laughed again, quieter this time.
"So?" she asked after a moment. "Did you get anything good?"
"A few things," he said. "One or two that might suit you better than me."
"Oh?"
"I'll trade them to you." He paused, then added with a faint hint of irony, "If you agree to two unspecified favors, to be cashed in at an undisclosed time."
Cassie blinked, then smiled—slower this time. "Mmm. That sounds suspicious."
"It is."
"What kind of favors?"
"The kind I'd ask you for," he said, and that was all. His voice was quiet but not cold, just steady—like a thread pulled taut between them.
She considered it for a moment, then nodded. "Alright. Deal."
"Good," he murmured.
He reached into his soul, fingers brushing the shape of [Moment of mori], and hesitated for a breath. Then he summoned the brooch into his hand, and stepped forward to offer it to her.
Her fingers found his, brushing lightly over his palm as she took it.
"Oh," she whispered. "It feels…"
He didn't ask what she meant.
She had received the Memory in the soul sea.
Then he handed her the second Memory—the shield. Or what passed for one. With just a touch it switched soul seas.
When it touched her hand, the dormant shards inside it stirred, humming faintly, reacting to the Echoes that hovered protectively around her.
"This one's…" she trailed off, brow furrowing slightly. "Are you sure? These feel…"
"I'm sure," he said.
Cassie was quiet for a long moment.
"…Thank you," she said softly.
He gave a slight nod. "It's nothing."
"No, it's not," she murmured, but didn't push it. She never did.
And he appreciated that more than she'd ever know.