It had no heartbeat.
It had no breath.
But it could taste the space between them.
The thing in the pit had been small before.
Weak. Edged in prey-smell.
Nothing worth binding.
Now…
The air curdled around it.
Chains in the ceiling vibrated without sound. Bone towers leaned inward as if bowing. The marrow dust on the floor clumped together in spirals, all pointing toward the shadow in the center of the chamber.
The Keeper's jaw unhinged—not to scream, but to listen.
The sound wasn't sound at all. It was pressure.
An asking.
An answering.
And in that answering came a weight the Keeper recognized.
Not prey.
Not even predator.
Inheritance.
---
Daigo
My throat was raw from shouting his name. The cage kept climbing, metal grinding on bone as the pit below pulled away.
Then I saw it.
Not him—
What stood in his place.
Riven was upright, but wrong. His shadow didn't match his body—it writhed taller, broader, broken, like it was stitched together from a hundred shapes that didn't belong. The space behind him bled absence, and the monsters that had been swarming just seconds ago were… fleeing.
Not fighting.
Fleeing.
"...Riven?" My voice cracked.
The Keeper hadn't moved from its post. The thing's ribs flared open like insect wings, each bone tipped in black fire, chains unspooling from its spine like living veins.
It was watching him.
The ground under Riven's feet went black, shadows crawling outward like spilled ink. They swallowed the marrow dust. They swallowed the light.
Then I heard it—so faint I thought it was in my head:
> "Give."
Every creature still in the chamber convulsed at once. Their screams bent in pitch, snapping upward until the air felt like it was going to tear.
And my little brother—
The kid I used to drag out of bed by the ankle—
Walked toward the Keeper.
Not like prey.
Not like hunter.
Like owner.
The Keeper didn't blink.
Couldn't.
Its orders were etched into its marrow before time had a name:
Watch.
Weigh.
Erase.
It had never spoken.
Never broken the stillness.
Not for gods.
Not for kings.
But the boy stepped forward—
And the chains stopped moving.
They froze mid-sway, each link trembling like a trapped animal.
The Keeper's ribs clicked inward, then apart, hesitating.
Daigo's voice was just noise now.
Everything else was quiet.
Riven didn't look at the Keeper.
He looked through it.
And the Keeper felt something it had no word for in the language of bones.
A pressure against the back of its thoughts, bending its will until the cracks showed.
> "State your price."
The words weren't heard—they arrived.
Dropped into the chamber like a hammer into water.
Daigo grabbed the bars of the cage so hard his knuckles split. "What the hell are you doing?!"
The Keeper's voice finally came, if it could be called that.
A grind of wet stone dragged through empty lungs.
> "—Not for you."
Every monster in the dark flattened to the floor.
Not dead.
Not submissive.
Obeying.
Daigo felt it in his spine—that impossible truth.
The Keeper had broken its own law.
For Riven.
And Riven?
He only tilted his head, as if measuring the size of the leash around the world.
Daigo's breath came in sharp bursts.
He wasn't afraid of monsters.
He was afraid of rules breaking.
Because if the Keeper could break one…
It could break all of them.
"Riven!" His voice cracked between command and plea. "Don't answer it. Don't—"
> "Price."
The Keeper leaned.
Not forward—inward.
Like the whole world tipped toward the boy and left Daigo stranded on the edge.
Riven didn't flinch.
Didn't even breathe.
His eyes were on the Keeper's ribcage—on the spaces between bones where things moved that shouldn't exist.
And for the first time, Daigo realized his brother wasn't trying to survive.
He was negotiating.
A shiver cut through the chamber.
The shadows in the corners bent into shapes that almost had faces.
A thousand mouths whispered in unison, syllables looping and folding back on themselves.
Daigo's head throbbed. His teeth hurt.
Blood dripped from his ear.
Riven stepped closer, boots grinding against the wet stone.
One pace.
Two.
Every link in the hanging chains shivered at once.
The Keeper's skull tilted, and it asked again—
Not with voice, not with thought—
But with hunger.
"Name your price."
Daigo's POV
My hands were on my sword before I knew it.
Not because I thought steel would help—
I knew it wouldn't.
But because I needed something between that thing and my brother.
"Riven, step back," I said. My voice came out lower than I expected.
Not loud. Not begging.
The kind of tone you use when you've already decided what you'll do if someone ignores you.
He ignored me.
The Keeper's ribs moved like a tide.
Inside, there were shapes—hands maybe, or shadows pretending to be hands—pressing outward as if they wanted to escape.
The air thickened.
Not heat, not cold—just weight.
Like the world had been buried six feet under and we were breathing dirt.
> "Name your price," it said again.
Riven's mouth almost moved.
Almost.
That was when the back of my neck lit up—
Every hunter instinct I had screamed wrong.
I stepped forward, arm out, blocking his path.
"You're done," I said, locking eyes with him. "We walk out now."
His gaze cut to mine. No fear. No hesitation.
Just… a calculation.
Like I wasn't his brother—just another variable in his damn equation.
The Keeper tilted its skull toward me, and my vision ripped.
One second I was standing there,
the next—
I was somewhere else.
A cavern of mirrors.
Each one holding a different version of Riven.
Some with blood on his hands.
Some with eyes I didn't recognize.
Some that weren't human.
I tore my eyes away—
and I was back.
My sword hand was shaking.
Not from fear. From the rage of knowing something had just touched my mind without asking.
"Last warning, Riven," I said, teeth grinding.
"You don't make deals with things that don't breathe."