The winds that haunted the outskirts of Wushan had died. In their place, a heavy stillness blanketed the ruined paths leading toward the Source of the Crying Remains—a silence so complete that even Elwin's breath felt like an intrusion.
He stood before the jagged mouth of the descent, cliffs bleeding shadow like wounds that would never heal. The gate was no more than fractured stone, etched with markings he had seen only once before—on the night Aymelle was taken. Symbols of the old blood. The Bloodbound's sigils.
The ground at the threshold was scorched, stained in a crimson hue that pulsed faintly when touched by the morning sun.
She passed through here, he thought.
His grip on her staff tightened. He had carried it every step since the monastery fell, never once letting it leave his side.
A whisper stirred behind him.
"Elwin Sallet," came a low voice, deep as gravel, smooth as smoke.
He turned swiftly, sword half-drawn—but paused.
The man before him was cloaked in worn leather and storm-gray armor. His face was half-hidden beneath a hood, but the glint of one silver eye caught the light.
"You've come far," the stranger said. "Farther than most."
Elwin's voice was sharp. "Who are you?"
The man inclined his head, one gloved hand resting over the hilt of a curved blade. "Some call me Meyr. Others... don't live long enough to call me anything."
Elwin didn't flinch. "Then tell me what you want before I make you one of the latter."
A pause. Then a quiet chuckle.
"Relax, boy. If I meant you harm, you'd already be ash. I'm here because I've seen her."
Elwin froze.
"Aymelle?" he breathed.
Meyr nodded. "The priestess of tears. She passed through this place two days ago. Alone. Bleeding from more than just her body."
Elwin stepped forward. "Is she alive?"
Meyr's expression darkened. "For now. But the deeper she goes, the less she remains herself. The Crying Remains feed on sorrow, twist it, make it sing. And she's... full of music."
"What do you mean?"
Meyr glanced toward the abyss. "There are things down there even the Revenants fear. The remnants of failed gods, spirits who weep not because they feel—but because they remember. If she touches the core—if she reaches the source unguarded—"
"I'm going after her," Elwin cut in. "No matter what's waiting."
"Then you'll die."
"I don't care."
Meyr's eye narrowed.
After a long silence, he nodded once.
"Then I'll guide you—partway. You'll need more than a sword and devotion to walk the path she chose. And you'll need to know what she is now becoming."
Elwin's heart pounded at those words. "Becoming?"
Meyr didn't answer. Instead, he turned and walked toward the broken descent, cloak billowing like shadow behind him.
Elwin followed, unaware that from the cliffs above, something watched them—eyes gleaming red, a grin of bone splitting open in the dark.
The descent had begun.
Aymelle moved through a corridor carved not by hands, but by anguish.
The walls breathed. They wept.
Veins of glowing blue-green light pulsed beneath the stone, as though the rock itself was alive—remembering pain, echoing every scream that had once stained this place.
Her steps were slow, deliberate. The hem of her robes was torn, bloodied at the edges, and her bare arms bore shallow cuts that pulsed faintly with silver light. But her hands—her hands no longer trembled.
The tears had stopped flowing long ago, and that frightened her more than anything.
"Is it sorrow," she whispered aloud to no one, "if it no longer hurts?"
Her voice echoed back at her, fragmented, hollow.
Somewhere in the distance, a sound slithered through the air. Not footsteps. Not breathing.
It was sobbing.
Aymelle turned a corner and froze.
The chamber before her was vast, lit by hanging crystals that emitted a dim, bluish glow. In its center stood a statue—once a woman, now only fractured stone and hollow eye sockets. Around its base were dozens of kneeling figures, unmoving, as if in eternal prayer.
But they weren't statues.
They were the Crying Remains.
They had once been people—priests, wanderers, perhaps even knights—who had wandered into this place with hope, or vengeance, or desperation. Their faces were frozen in the exact moment they surrendered. Some bore tear streaks of hardened obsidian. Others had mouths still open in silent screams.
And one of them… wore the robes of the monastery.
Aymelle stepped forward, heart pounding.
She reached toward the nearest one, her fingers inches from its cracked cheek.
Then it moved.
With a sickening snap, its head twisted toward her.
Its jaw dropped open.
And the room filled with weeping.
Screams that weren't screams. Laughter soaked in despair. The song of a hundred broken minds, all bursting forth at once.
The Crying Remains rose.
Aymelle stumbled back, tears forming for the first time in hours—but not from fear. From fury.
"No," she whispered, gripping the chain around her neck—the pendant Elwin had once given her, long before the flames, before the monastery fell.
"I am not yours. I am not your memory."
They surged toward her.
And in that instant—her tears burned.
Light exploded from her eyes, from her chest, from the scars on her arms. Not soft silver, but crimson. Fierce. Grieving. Angry.
She screamed—not in pain, but in declaration—and the first wave of Crying Remains was torn apart mid-air, their weeping turned to ash.
The power coursing through her wasn't the gentle blessing of the goddess. It was the sorrow she had refused to let go. The ache of every life lost, every prayer unanswered.
She stood amidst the ruined echoes, chest heaving, eyes glowing like dying stars.
And from the shattered silence, a voice emerged.
"So this... is the Priestess of Tears."
A shadow detached from the far wall. Cloaked. Tall. Its face hidden behind a mask etched with flowing symbols of grief.
Not Crying Remain.
Something worse.
Something aware.
Aymelle's breath caught. The pendant at her throat burned.
And deep within her, the crimson light answered again.
The wind howled low and dry as Elwin stepped over the broken threshold of the old shrine, his boots crushing dead moss and forgotten prayers. Just behind him, the hooded figure of Meyr trailed silently, her boots never making a sound, as if the earth itself hesitated to notice her.
The descent into the Source of the Crying Remains had begun.
"Keep up," Elwin said, glancing over his shoulder. "This place doesn't forgive the slow."
Meyr gave a dry chuckle, but didn't reply. Her eyes remained on the twisting path ahead—lined with broken statues, remnants of older gods long buried beneath tears and time.
The road they walked was no road at all. It was a wound. The land here was not simply corrupted; it was grieving. The stones bled mist, and the air itself seemed to resist being breathed.
"You've been here before," Elwin said, not as a question, but an accusation.
Meyr tilted her head. "Not exactly. But I've seen places like this. And they all have one thing in common."
"What's that?"
"They remember."
Elwin's grip tightened on his blade.
He didn't trust her. Not entirely. There was something in her movements—too deliberate. Something in her gaze—too knowing. But he couldn't deny she had recognized Aymelle's path without hesitation, as if drawn by the same force.
A force neither of them had named.
Suddenly, a sharp metallic wail pierced the mist.
Elwin halted. Ahead, a faint glow pulsed between crumbled stones—greenish, sickly. Shapes shifted. Crawling. Not quite human.
Meyr drew her blade in a single, fluid motion.
The Crying Remains emerged.
This one was different. Larger. Its body twisted as if grown from melted bodies fused together. Dozens of arms jutted out at impossible angles, some clawing at the ground, others at its own face. From its gaping maw came the sound of children crying, women praying, men begging—all layered atop one another.
Elwin's breath caught. "What in the goddess' name—"
Meyr stepped in front of him.
"No words. Fight."
It lunged.
Elwin moved instinctively, blade flashing silver in the mist. He struck true—his sword biting deep into what should've been a neck. But the creature wept, not bled. The sound alone staggered him.
Behind him, Meyr moved like flame—graceful, merciless. Her blade wasn't steel. It shimmered with faint violet light, and wherever it struck, the Crying Remain recoiled as if seared.
"She's already awakened it…" Meyr muttered under her breath.
"What?"
"The priestess. Aymelle." Her tone shifted. "She's begun to burn her own tears."
The creature shrieked—louder, madder—and its form began to break apart. Not die, but dissolve, like a memory being forgotten.
Moments later, it was gone.
Only the echo of its weeping remained.
Elwin turned to Meyr, breathing hard. "How do you know that?"
Meyr didn't answer right away. She sheathed her blade and looked toward the deeper mist. "Because I once walked the same path. But I didn't survive it."
Elwin frowned. "What are you saying?"
"I died here, Elwin Sallet. A long time ago."
She met his gaze fully for the first time, and in her eyes, he saw something that wasn't human—but wasn't monstrous either. Something caught in between.
"Then why are you here now?" he asked.
Meyr smiled faintly.
"To see whether the priestess can finish what I couldn't."
The path narrowed.
Aymelle's feet no longer touched solid ground—only soft, ever-shifting petals of ash. The air here was not mist but sorrow made visible, curling in silent ribbons around her wrists like chains made of forgotten promises.
She had passed through silence.
Now, she walked through memory.
The deeper she ventured, the more the world around her changed. Shapes of broken towers loomed in the distance, rising from nothing like sunken bones. Between them, lights flickered—white, cold, mournful. And somewhere ahead… someone sang.
It was a lullaby.
No words. Just a hum. Faint, like the sound of a mother rocking an empty cradle.
Her breath caught in her throat.
"…Mother?"
She didn't know why she said it. The memory had come unbidden—soft fingers brushing her cheek, a song in the dark. But Aymelle had no memory of her mother's face. Only the scent of lavender and the weight of a prayer spoken too late.
She stepped forward.
The world shifted.
Suddenly, she was no longer in the abyss. She stood in a village—familiar, yet wrong. Skyless. Washed in grey.
Children laughed nearby. Their faces were blurred, like ink running on paper soaked with tears. In the center of the village, a massive tree stood. Its branches bore no leaves—only ribbons soaked in blood.
A figure stood beneath it.
A young woman, robed in white. Her eyes—Aymelle recognized them at once.
They were her own.
But older. Weary. And full of something Aymelle could only describe as resignation.
The woman turned.
"You came too far," she said. Her voice was Aymelle's, but lower—emptied of all light. "You should have stayed at the monastery."
Aymelle took a step back. "This… this is a dream."
"No," the older Aymelle whispered. "This is a warning."
The children's laughter stopped.
In the distance, the tree began to bleed.
Crimson tears fell from its branches, staining the earth. And from those drops, forms began to rise—small at first, hunched. Then taller. Then grotesque.
Dozens of them.
"No…" Aymelle whispered. "This isn't real—"
The older version of herself smiled sadly. "It will be. Unless you turn back now."
"I can't," Aymelle said, voice trembling. "Elwin… he's still looking for me. And if I don't stop this—"
"You'll lose yourself. Like I did."
The phantom stepped forward. Her robes began to decay, blackened by sorrow. Her skin cracked, as if unable to contain the grief inside.
"You cannot burn your tears forever, Aymelle. One day… they burn you."
With a scream, the world shattered.
---
Aymelle fell to her knees, gasping.
The illusion had passed—but the sting of it lingered. Her hands trembled as she looked down at them, expecting to see cracks, like her phantom self.
But they were whole.
Still her own.
Barely.
She rose slowly. Around her, the air had stilled—but in that stillness, she could hear it now:
A voice. A heartbeat. A presence.
Something deep within the Crying Remains was watching her.
Waiting.