Dawn had long since lost its meaning in Almagh.
Even when the sun rose, the darkness in the city did not lift.
Mist clung to the stones, and the wind that slid between the walls carried with it the murmurs of souls long departed.
Lian had taken refuge in an abandoned inn.
The walls sweated with damp; the air was thick, stagnant.
The child he had rescued slept in the corner — breath shallow, uneven.
The color of his soul had faded almost to transparency, a wan, spectral white.
Lian watched him in silence.
Even in sleep, the child's body trembled — as though some unseen hand still brushed against his heart.
The Void never returns, he thought. But it leaves its mark.
He drew from his cloak a small talisman.
Violet light flared faintly in his palm.
It was a tool for reading spiritual echoes — a resonance ring.
When he pressed it to the child's chest, ripples shimmered through the air like disturbed water.
For an instant, he felt it — that corrupted pulse.
The darkness still lived within the boy.
Not pressing in from without, but growing from within.
A whisper stirred in Lian's mind.
Not words, but impressions.
Fear. Loneliness. Regret.
And beneath them — a vibration that struck something familiar in him.
Similar frequency, he murmured. Violet resonance. A mind in contact.
This was no direct assault from the Void, but a contamination — a fragment of its echo.
The Void hadn't devoured the boy's mind completely.
It had only scarred it.
Which meant the child could still hear its inner voice.
Lian's expression darkened.
A curse — yet also a rare chance.
If the boy could hear the echoes of the Void,
then Lian could glimpse its structure through him.
But that boundary was perilous.
If he entered too far — if their consciousnesses touched —
the Void would become aware of him.
The child suddenly lurched upright.
His breath hitched; his pupils widened to pools of black.
He was staring — not at Lian, but at something beyond him.
"There…" he whispered, pointing into the corner.
"It's watching me."
Lian followed his gaze.
With his eyes, he saw nothing — yet his spirit felt a shiver.
A shadow, nearly invisible, hovered there.
The echo of the Void still clung to the air.
He set a hand upon the boy's shoulder.
"Calm yourself," he said, his voice a low, cold note.
"What you see is within you."
"No," the boy murmured. "It's touching me."
Lian tilted his head slightly, extending his perception.
The silence of the room broke.
The air seemed to pulse, slow and rhythmic — like a heartbeat.
And then, from somewhere between them, a voice emerged:
When you save one, you lose another.
Violet light burned behind Lian's eyes.
He focused his mind upon the boy's soul — only skimming its surface.
He did not go deeper.
He did not enter.
He merely observed.
And what he saw rooted him in place.
Amid the child's scattered memories, a gray stain was spreading.
Not a memory, but a wound.
And from within that wound, a whisper rose — soft, familiar:
I remember you.
Lian severed the link at once.
Cold sweat beaded his brow.
The contact had been stronger than he'd expected.
The Void's echo had touched not only the boy's mind, but his own.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he placed his hand upon the talisman once more and sealed it shut.
Violet light flared briefly — then died.
The boy drifted back into deep, steady sleep.
His breathing evened out.
Lian turned toward the window.
The streets beyond lay empty.
But through the mist, for a fleeting instant, he saw a silhouette —
a gray figure standing still, watching him from afar.
It did not move.
It simply was.
And then it unraveled into the fog.
The Void has noticed me, Lian thought.
I am now a mark upon its map.
He could not remain in this city much longer.
Yet there were things he still needed to learn before he left —
how the Void spread, why some souls yielded more easily than others,
and most of all, why it spoke as though it knew him.
A faint shimmer of violet flickered through his soul.
For a heartbeat, he saw his reflection in the glass —
his eyes tinted with gray, trembling with an inner light.
The more I save, the more I am infected, he thought.
But to stop… would be worse.
Silence returned, vast and heavy.
In the shadow of the gray city,
Lian heard only his own echo —
Every salvation is the beginning of another decay.