Darkness swallowed me whole.
Not cold.
Not empty.
Hungry.
The ring of runes around my throat tightened, pulling my name—my very identity—out by its roots. My limbs shook violently. My soul felt like it was unraveling fiber by fiber.
Somewhere far away, I heard Seris screaming.
The nameless beast roaring.
But the cloaked figure's voice drowned everything:
"Let go, Aerin.
Your true name is not yours."
My vision flickered.
I saw shadows peeling from my skin.
Pieces of myself dissolving—
A memory.
My mother's smile.
Gone.
Another.
My first step.
Gone.
Another.
My voice.
Gone.
My chest constricted.
My lungs refused to obey.
My heartbeat wavered.
I was dying.
Not physically.
Metaphysically.
The cloaked figure whispered:
"Say it."
"H…ha…"
My lips trembled.
"Hah…"
"Say your true name."
I couldn't.
I didn't know it.
That was the point.
He was ripping it out to claim it.
A shockwave tore through the alley as the nameless beast erupted into a silhouette of shifting void.
Its voice wasn't cold anymore.
It was furious.
"Release him."
The cloaked figure didn't even turn.
He flicked his fingers—
—and the beast was slammed into a wall so hard reality cracked like glass.
Spacial fractures spiderwebbed across the buildings.
The beast staggered, collapsing to one knee.
It bared its jagged teeth.
"Release him, or I consume you."
The cloaked figure finally glanced back.
Mocking.
"Consume me?
Little one…
I created the first hunger."
His aura expanded—
and the beast crumpled, choking as its form flickered violently.
I felt its pain echo inside me through the bond.
My heart clenched.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't speak.
I couldn't breathe.
But I felt everything.
The cloak tightened his grip on my unraveling name.
"Almost…"
My soul stretched thin—
"Almost mine—"
A flash of silver-blue light ripped through the darkness.
Seris.
She hurled herself at the cloaked figure, her blade blazing with moonfire, sigil burning across her arm.
He turned lazily.
"Child."
She screamed, "GET AWAY FROM HIM!"
Her sword collided with his hand—
—And shattered into a rain of light.
Seris froze mid-strike, her pupils shrinking.
The cloaked figure's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Bold."
He tapped her forehead with one finger.
Her body convulsed.
Silver blood trickled from the corner of her eye.
She dropped to her knees.
I wanted to shout.
I tried.
Nothing came out.
The runes tightened further.
My vision dimmed at the edges.
He turned back to me.
"Now… where were we?"
He lifted his hand—ready to rip the last piece of my name—
When the impossible happened.
The runes on my neck flickered.
Then cracked.
Then—
shattered.
The cloaked figure froze.
A pulse of golden-black energy exploded from my chest.
My Mute Sigil ignited like a silent star.
His eyes—hidden beneath shadow—widened.
"Impossible."
My throat burned.
A sound escaped me.
Not a word.
A force.
A command.
A denial.
Reality twisted around me.
The runes he placed crumbled into ash.
I gasped, finally breathing.
My name snapped halfway back into my soul—
—but half of it was still missing.
Stolen.
I felt the absence like a bleeding wound.
The cloaked figure stepped back, stunned.
"You… resisted me?"
The beast whispered inside my mind, shaken.
"You tore your own name apart to break free…
No mortal can do that."
Seris looked up at me, eyes wide with horror and awe.
"Aerin… what are you?"
I didn't know.
My head felt like it was splitting open.
Black and gold energy spiraled from my hands, hanging in the air like inverted light.
The cloaked figure recovered.
His voice became edged steel.
"You weren't supposed to awaken yet."
Awaken what?
My vision blurred.
My pulse boomed like thunder.
My body felt too tight for whatever was inside me.
He lifted both hands.
"Then I shall force the rest out."
The ground began screaming again as runes surged toward me.
Seris forced herself up, staggering.
"NO!" she shouted. "He'll DIE!"
I felt the runes hook into the half of my name he stole.
I felt him try to drag the rest of it out—
And something inside me snapped.
Like a string pulled too tight.
I didn't speak a name.
I didn't chant.
I didn't command a beast.
I just thought:
Stop.
The world obeyed.
The air froze.
The runes froze.
The cloaked figure froze mid-motion.
Only one thing moved:
Me.
And the nameless beast.
The beast stared at me, both awed and horrified.
"Impossible…"
Seris trembled.
Her voice was barely audible.
"Aerin… you're not just a vessel…"
The beast finished for her.
"He is waking the Third Tongue."
The cloaked figure's frozen mask cracked—
a smile forming beneath the shadows.
Not fear.
Satisfaction.
"Yes."
"So you finally hear it."
"The language beneath reality."
"The one neither gods nor monsters can control."
"My heir—"
His body un-froze with a sound like shattering glass.
"—speak it."
I recoiled.
"NO!"
If I spoke anything…
If this was truly the language that named existence—
What would happen?
Would I rewrite the world?
Kill everyone?
Erase myself?
The cloaked figure lifted his hand.
"Speak it."
"I WON'T!"
He whispered:
"Then I'll make you."
Black chains erupted from the ground.
Seris screamed.
The beast lunged.
My heartbeat spiked—
And the entire world bent inward—
The chains slammed toward me—
and I opened my mouth—
NOT to speak the Third Tongue—
but because something else spoke through me.
A voice that wasn't mine.
A voice that wasn't human.
A voice that wasn't the beast.
"UNMADE."
The alley detonated.
Buildings folded.
Light inverted.
The cloaked figure was thrown into a collapsing star of runes.
And when the dust settled—
He was gone.
Vanished.
Like he was erased.
Not dead.
Not defeated.
Just—
Not there.
I collapsed to my knees, chest heaving, vision shaking.
Seris crawled toward me, gripping my shoulders.
"Aerin—Aerin, talk to me—!"
I looked at her with hollow eyes.
"I… didn't say that."
The beast spoke in a low, terrified whisper:
"No.
Something… inside you did."
Seris backed away, panic rising.
"Aerin… what did you unleash?"
I clutched my head, trembling.
"I don't know.
I don't know—
I don't—"
A whisper slid through the broken air.
Cold.
Soft.
Impossible.
"Aerin…
return the rest of your name to me."
My blood froze.
I whipped my head up.
The cloaked figure stood on top of a shattered building.
Unaffected.
Untouched.
Smiling.
But he wasn't alone.
Beside him floated the missing half of my glowing name—
held between his fingers like a captured soul.
My soul.
And with a single flick—
He threw it into the void behind him.
Gone.
Lost.
Irretrievable.
My vision blurred.
A hole opened inside my mind.
My name—my identity—my existence—half missing forever.
The cloaked figure spread his arms.
"Now you can never escape your destiny."
Seris screamed my name.
The beast roared.
My body collapsed—
And something ancient inside me woke completely.
The world dimmed—
And the last thing I saw before blacking out was my reflection in a shattered window.
My eyes were no longer mine.
They were the eyes of something older.
Something hungry.
Something nameless.