I wake to the sound of distant drums and the taste of ash in my mouth. For a moment, I'm back in Hell, the familiar weight of torment settling over me like a second skin. Then reality reasserts itself—the stone walls of the safe house, the lingering heat from last night's hellfire, the hollow ache where hope used to live.
And the knowledge that Caleif might be gone forever.
The thought sends a fresh wave of hellfire surging through my chest. Without the bracelet's suppression, the plates beneath my skin shift and harden, obsidian claws extending from my fingertips. I dig them into the reinforced bed frame, anchoring myself against the tide of rage that threatens to consume everything.
*Control*. I need to find control before I can do anything else.
I force myself to breathe, counting each inhalation like I used to during those rare moments of respite in the Pit. One. Two. Three. The hellfire doesn't diminish, but it stabilizes—a constant burn rather than an expanding inferno.
Progress, I suppose.
The drums grow louder, accompanied now by flutes and strange stringed instruments. The Convergence Festival continues outside, beings from across the dimensional spectrum celebrating the thinning barriers while I sit alone in a containment room, trying not to tear reality apart in my grief.
Irony has never been my favorite form of humor.
I push myself off the bed and examine my reflection in the polished metal surface that serves as a mirror. Without the ring's disguise, my true form is fully visible—metallic skin that shifts with each movement, eyes burning with hellfire, a face that resembles the professor I once was only in the most abstract terms.
This is what Hell made me. This is what Caleif saw beneath the human disguise I wore at the Academy.
And somehow, impossibly, she didn't run.
The memory of her acceptance cuts deeper than any torture I endured in the Pit. She looked at this monster and saw something worth saving. Something worth loving, perhaps, though we never had the chance to find out for certain.
A knock at the door interrupts my brooding. Three sharp raps, then silence.
"Yes?" I call, my voice carrying that metallic resonance that makes reality vibrate.
"It's Marius," comes the reply. "I've brought something for you. May I enter?"
I consider refusing, but isolation won't solve anything. "Come in."
The door opens to reveal the innkeeper, carrying what appears to be a bundle of clothing and a small wooden box. His too-wide eyes take in my true form without flinching, which says more about what he really is than any explanation could.
"I see the bracelet failed," he observes, setting his burdens on a small table near the door. "Earlier than expected, but not surprising given the circumstances."
"The circumstances being that I'm a walking dimensional catastrophe," I mutter.
"The circumstances being that you're grieving," he corrects gently. "Even beings of cosmic significance feel loss, Kamen. Perhaps more acutely than most."
I don't want his understanding. It makes it harder to maintain the anger that's kept me functioning since Hell. "Did you find the seer?"
"Vera will see you this morning," he confirms. "But first, we need to address your... presentation issues."
He opens the wooden box to reveal what looks like an ornate metal collar, inscribed with symbols that hurt to look at directly. Unlike the ring or bracelet, this device radiates power that even my hellfire-addled senses recognize as significant.
"What is that?" I ask, taking an involuntary step back.
"A more robust solution than what you've been using," Marius explains, lifting the collar carefully. "Dimensional resonance dampener. Developed by the Adaptation Guild specifically for beings whose true nature disrupts local reality."
I eye the device with suspicion. "It looks like a slave collar."
"It's not meant to control you," he says, setting it down. "Only to contain the dimensional disruption your presence causes. You'd still have access to your abilities, but they wouldn't affect the surrounding reality unless you deliberately channeled them."
"And if I refuse?"
His expression turns grave. "Then you'll need to remain in containment facilities like this one indefinitely. The Citadel's tolerance has limits, especially during Convergence when the barriers are already unstable."
Another cage, just with different bars. But what choice do I have? I can't return to the forest. Can't tear my way through dimensions without potentially destroying countless innocent lives. Can't even walk the streets without causing panic in my current form.
"Fine," I concede, approaching the table. "How does it work?"
"It attunes to your specific dimensional resonance," Marius explains, lifting the collar again. "Creates a localized field that prevents that resonance from affecting the surrounding area. You'll appear as you truly are, but without the... side effects."
"Such as?"
"Reality distortion. Spontaneous combustion of nearby objects. Dimensional fracturing when you experience strong emotions." He meets my gaze steadily. "The things that made the Shepherds modify their protection and the chimera sprites flee."
I take the collar from his hands, feeling its weight—heavier than it looks, with that same strange quality of being more *present* in reality than normal matter. "Do I just... put it on?"
"Yes. It will adjust to fit and attune to your signature automatically."
With reluctance born of five millennia of refusing to be bound, I place the collar around my neck. It clicks shut with a sound like reality locking into place, then seems to melt slightly, conforming to my anatomy with uncomfortable precision.
The effect is immediate and disorienting. The hellfire still burns in my chest, but it's contained within my own form rather than radiating outward. My enhanced senses remain, but the constant awareness of dimensional boundaries fades to background noise. I can still feel my own power, but it no longer threatens to tear holes in reality with each emotional spike.
It's like being wrapped in cosmic insulation.
"How does it feel?" Marius asks, watching me with those too-wide eyes.
"Restrictive," I admit. "But... manageable."
"The discomfort will fade as you adjust to the containment field." He gestures to the bundle of clothing he brought. "These should fit your true form. The material is designed to withstand higher temperatures."
I examine the offerings—simple but well-made garments in dark colors. Practical clothing for someone who occasionally bursts into hellfire. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," he warns. "The collar will allow you to move through the Citadel without causing immediate panic, but your appearance will still draw attention. People will see what you really are, even if they're not feeling the full effect of your presence."
"So I'll still be a monster, just a safely contained one."
His expression softens slightly. "You're only a monster if you choose to be, Kamen. The collar doesn't change what you are—only how that affects the world around you."
I dress quickly, finding the clothing fits better than expected. The material feels strange against my metallic skin, but it doesn't ignite when the hellfire pulses, which is an improvement over most fabrics.
"Now," I say, turning back to Marius. "Take me to this seer."
He leads me through a different exit than the one we entered by, emerging into a narrow alley that connects to one of the main thoroughfares of the Crossroads Quarter. The festival continues around us, beings of every conceivable form celebrating the Convergence with music, food, and what appears to be ritualized trading of small tokens.
No one runs screaming at the sight of me, which I count as a success for the collar's containment field. But I do notice the double-takes, the widened eyes, the way conversations pause momentarily as we pass. My true form might not be causing dimensional disruption anymore, but it's still obviously not from this realm.
"The Divination District is this way," Marius says, guiding me through the crowd with practiced ease. "Stay close. The festival attracts all sorts, not all of them friendly."
We pass through areas where the architecture shifts dramatically, moving from the eclectic styles of the Crossroads to more specialized designs. Buildings with impossible angles that make my eyes hurt. Structures that seem to exist in multiple states simultaneously. Doorways that open onto spaces much larger than they should contain.
The Divination District announces itself with a shift in the very air—thinner somehow, charged with possibilities rather than certainties. Signs depicting eyes, stars, and various divination tools hang above doorways. Practitioners of varying species sit at small tables along the street, offering glimpses of potential futures to festival-goers.
Marius leads me to a small shop tucked between two larger establishments. The sign above the door shows a simple crescent moon partially eclipsing a sun, with no words or other identification.
"Vera doesn't advertise," he explains, pausing at the entrance. "She doesn't need to. The Sight finds those who need it, not the other way around."
"Convenient business model," I mutter, trying to mask my apprehension with sarcasm.
"Kamen." His voice turns serious. "Whatever you learn in there—remember that the Sight shows possibilities as well as certainties. Paths that might have been taken, futures that could still change."
"You're saying she might be wrong about Caleif."
"I'm saying that grief can make us fixate on the worst possibilities," he replies carefully. "Try to keep an open mind."
The bell above the door chimes softly as we enter, though I don't remember either of us touching it. The interior is dimly lit by candles that burn with blue-green flames, casting strange shadows across shelves lined with objects I can't identify but sense are powerful.
At the center of the room sits the old woman from last night, her weathered hands resting on a table covered in dark cloth. Her eyes—pale blue and clouded with cataracts—fix on me with uncomfortable accuracy despite her apparent blindness.
"The burning one returns," she says, her voice stronger than her frail appearance suggests. "Seeking certainty where none exists."
"You told me Caleif is dead," I reply, the hellfire in my chest pulsing against the collar's containment. "I need to know if that's true."
"Truth is a river, not a stone," she says cryptically. "It changes with the viewing, shifts with the telling."
My patience, already thin, threatens to snap completely. "I don't need philosophy. I need answers."
"No." She shakes her head slowly. "You need comfort. But I cannot offer what I do not possess."
The plates beneath my skin shift with frustration, and I feel the collar grow warmer as it works to contain the dimensional disruption my emotions threaten to cause. "Then what can you offer?"
"Clarity," she says simply. "Sit, burning one. Let the Sight show what it will."
I glance at Marius, who nods encouragingly from near the door. With reluctance born of five millennia of distrusting cosmic authorities, I lower myself into the chair opposite Vera, which creaks ominously under my weight.
"Your hands," she instructs, extending her own across the table.
I hesitate, looking down at my obsidian claws. "I might hurt you."
A smile creases her weathered face. "The Sight has shown me far worse than physical pain, burning one. Your claws cannot harm what has already been scarred by visions."
Carefully, I place my hands in hers and images of Caleif and my students slowly dying start entering my mind forcibly and with no caution.
The vision tears through my mind like molten glass, searing itself into memories that have endured five thousand years of Hell's worst torments. I see her face—*Caleif's* face—with perfect, devastating clarity. The way her bluish-red eyes widen with terror as reality begins to unravel around her. The desperate hope that flickers there when she speaks my name, as if calling out to me could somehow bridge the dimensional void between us.
"*Kamen, I don't know where you are, but I need you, I love you. Please come back.*"
The words hit me with more force than any torture Hell ever devised. She loved me. Past tense. Because she's gone now, scattered across dimensions that no longer exist, and her final moments were spent calling for someone who couldn't answer.
The hellfire in my chest explodes outward with such violence that the collar around my neck actually *screams*—a high-pitched whine of metal and magic pushed beyond their limits. The blue-green candles throughout Vera's shop flicker and die, plunging us into darkness broken only by the crimson glow bleeding from my eyes.
"*NO!*" The word erupts from me with enough force to crack the stone walls, reality itself bending under the weight of my denial. "*She can't be gone! I have to go back! I have to save her!*"
Vera's hands tighten around my claws, her grip surprisingly strong for someone so frail. "The path is closed, burning one. What was, is no more. What might have been can never be."
I try to pull away, to stand, to do *something* other than sit here and accept the unacceptable, but her fingers hold me with supernatural strength. The vision continues, relentless and merciless, showing me every detail of Caleif's final moments as my realm—*our* realm—collapses into dimensional static.
I see the Academy crumbling, its impossible architecture folding in on itself like origami made of screaming stone. My students—those brilliant, dangerous children I was supposed to protect—scattered like leaves in a cosmic hurricane. Some fighting desperately against the inevitable. Others simply... fading, their enhanced abilities no match for the fundamental dissolution of reality itself.
And through it all, Caleif stands at the center of the chaos, her own demonic power flaring as she tries to hold the realm together through sheer force of will. But she's an anchor without a ship, a connection point to something that's already been torn away.
To me.
"She tried to maintain the dimensional stability," Vera's voice cuts through the vision like a blade. "Used herself as a focal point to keep the realm from immediate collapse. But without you—without the other half of the resonance—it was doomed from the moment you were pulled away."
The vision shows me Caleif's last desperate gambit, pouring every ounce of her demonic essence into a failing attempt to stabilize reality. Her body begins to dissolve at the edges, particles of her being scattered across dimensions as the realm's death throes tear her apart molecule by molecule.
But her eyes—those beautiful, impossible eyes—never stop searching. Even as she disintegrates, she's looking for me. Hoping, somehow, that I'll appear and make everything right.
I don't.
I can't.
Because I'm here, in this alien realm, wearing a collar like a cosmic dog and learning that the one person who might have loved the monster I've become died calling my name.
The hellfire in my chest burns so hot that I can smell my new clothes beginning to smolder. The collar around my neck pulses with warning lights, its containment field stretched to the breaking point. Somewhere behind me, I hear Marius moving—probably getting ready to evacuate the building before I accidentally tear a hole in reality.
"Let me go," I growl at Vera, my voice carrying harmonics that make the remaining candles shatter. "Let me go so I can find a way back to her."
"There is no back," she replies with infuriating calm. "The realm is gone. The paths are severed. The connections that bound you to that place exist now only in memory and regret."
"Then I'll make new connections!" I snarl, finally managing to pull my hands free from hers. I surge to my feet, the chair I was sitting in crumbling under the force of my movement. "I'll tear through every dimension in existence until I find some trace of her!"
"And how many billions will die in your search?" Vera asks, echoing Marius's words from last night. "How many realms will you destroy chasing the ghost of someone who is already beyond saving?"
The question stops me cold, the hellfire flickering as rational thought reasserts itself. How many innocent lives would I sacrifice for even the slimmest chance of seeing Caleif again? How many civilizations would I doom to spare myself this pain?
The answer hasn't changed since last night: *All of them.*
The realization should horrify me. Should make me recoil from the depths of my own selfishness. Instead, it just makes the emptiness in my chest ache worse. Because even knowing the cost, even understanding the monstrous selfishness of it, I would still do it. I would burn every star in the sky for one more moment with her.
"That's what Hell made me," I whisper, the words barely audible even to my own enhanced hearing. "A creature that would destroy everything for its own desires."
"No," Vera says, her clouded eyes somehow finding mine in the darkness. "That's what *love* made you. Hell simply gave you the power to act on it."
The distinction feels meaningless in the face of such devastating loss. Love, obsession, Hell-forged madness—what difference does the source make when the result is the same monstrous selfishness?
"She's really gone," I say, not a question but a statement. An acceptance of reality that tastes like ashes and broken promises.
"From this existence, yes," Vera confirms gently. "But not from all existence. The connections between souls run deeper than dimensional boundaries, burning one. What was real between you and she... that cannot be unmade by mere reality collapse."
"Philosophical comfort," I mutter, turning toward the door. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"It's supposed to make you think," she calls after me. "About what she would want from you now. About how you can honor what you had instead of destroying everything in futile pursuit of what you've lost."
I pause at the threshold, one hand on the door frame. The wood chars slightly under my touch, despite the collar's containment field. "And what would she want?"
"For you to live," Vera says simply. "For you to become the man she saw beneath the monster. For you to find peace instead of perpetual war with reality itself."
The words hit harder than any physical blow. Because I know she's right. Caleif wouldn't want me to tear the multiverse apart in her name. She'd want me to find some way to exist without destroying everything I touch. To honor her memory by becoming something worthy of her love, not by spreading my pain to innocent worlds.
But knowing what she'd want and being capable of it are two very different things.
"I don't know how," I admit, my voice cracking despite the metallic resonance. "Five thousand years in Hell didn't teach me how to live. Only how to endure."
"Then learn," Marius says from behind me, his voice carrying the same gentle firmness it held last night. "The Crossroads is full of beings who've faced similar losses. Let them teach you."
I turn to look at him, this strange innkeeper who destroyed his own realm and somehow found a way to build something constructive from the ashes. "How long did it take you? To stop wanting to burn everything down?"
His too-wide eyes reflect something that might be hope. "I'll let you know when it happens," he says with a sad smile. "But I've found that helping others makes the urge more manageable."
A philosophy of constructive atonement. Use the power that destroyed one thing to build another. Channel the rage and grief into something that helps rather than harms.
It's not forgiveness—I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for failing to save Caleif. But it might be a way to live with the guilt without letting it consume everything I touch.
"The Adaptation Guild," I say, remembering his earlier words. "They help beings like us find ways to exist constructively?"
"Among other things," he confirms. "They have programs for grief counseling, power management, integration into local society. All designed around the principle that everyone deserves a chance to become something better than their worst moments."
Even beings forged in Hell's deepest pits. Even monsters who would sacrifice countless innocents for their own selfish desires. Even creatures like me, who love so destructively that it becomes indistinguishable from hate.
"Alright," I decide, the word tasting strange in my mouth. "Show me this Guild."
As we leave Vera's shop, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the darkened window. The collar around my neck pulses with contained energy, holding back the dimensional disruption that my grief threatens to cause. My true form is fully visible—metallic skin, burning eyes, the face of something forged in cosmic fire.
But for the first time since my transformation, I don't see just a monster looking back at me. I see someone who might, possibly, eventually learn to become something else.
Something Caleif could be proud of.
The thought doesn't ease the pain—nothing will ever do that. But it gives the pain purpose. Direction. A way to honor her memory that doesn't involve burning down the multiverse in her name.