The change was instant. The skull beneath Vaxel’s hand twitched.

Then, everything screamed.

Bones shuddered to life—dozens of them—pulling together into jagged, impossible shapes. Skulls fused with ribs, arms with spines. They formed a field of spears, stabbing the werewolf. It struggled, for a few moments, then was still.

The bones collapsed. Vaxel stared. His hands still smoked with heat, the blackened skin charred and cracking. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a rasp.

“...What did I do?”

Beneath his knees, the bones still trembled—not from life, but memory. He could feel it now, threading through his limbs like cold fire: a web of agony, stretched tight beneath the castle.

“He listens,” the whispers said.

“He sees,” hissed another, older voice.

"He has come at last." The final voice reverberated in Vaxel's bones. However, there was no time to dwell on their meaning. More howls came from the stairwell. He quickly turned and ran into the crypt, the silent darkness welcoming him.

Vaxel stumbled through the catacombs, weaving his way around bodies, some whole, but most weren't. Every single one of them had pointed marks, a life stolen by the Riveners. But he had no time to mourn them.

The stench of death kept his smell hidden from his pursuers, but it wouldn't be long before they would start searching the space inch-by-inch. And all the while, the whispers lurked in his head.

"They smiled when I screamed."

"I wanted to grow wheat. They used my leftovers as mulch."

"My skin still aches ... save me ..."

As he continued into the crypt, the bones became more numerous, replacing the stone for the walls and ceilings. The whispers multiplied, demanding entrance to his mind, some hissing, some weeping, most filled with an undeniable tone of anger.

He rounded one final corner, and the chamber suddenly opened, revealing a dome-like room, the air still and stale as if it had lain there for centuries. At the center stood a throne made of bone, shaped more like an altar than a seat. ribs and vertebrae curled in spirals around the base, and skulls adorned the surface. He cautiously approached. Then-the shadows shifted.

His vision was gone, replaced by the view of another. A room in flames. A child sobbing. A battlefield. A voice shouting:

"Call them, or be buried with them."

He staggered, his vision returning. The room was unchanged, but the pressure of air suddenly became too much to breathe. The weight of memory curled around him like a net.

Vaxel fell to one knee, gasping. His hands dug into the bone-littered floor-only to recoil. The bones were warm.

He looked up at the throne, half-expecting it to move. But it remained still. Regal. Waiting.

The whisper returned-not in his ears, but in the back of his skull.

"You were seen. And the dead do not forget."

Vaxel’s hands twitched. Threads of invisible tension spread from his fingers into the floor like spider silk. He saw nothing-but felt pull.

A femur rose. A jaw clicked. Fingers-not his own-moved across the floor.

A half-skeleton coalesced before him, spine arched backward, ribs facing the ceiling like a broken birdcage.

It was hideous. Crude.

It was alive.

Vaxel’s stomach lurched. His hands smoked again, black veins crawling up his wrists. He tried to pull back—tried to let go of whatever force he had called—

But something else answered.

"One of us."

"Too late."

The skeleton collapsed into dust, as quickly as it had risen.

Vaxel lay on the cold ground, breathing hard. The throne hadn’t moved. But the room felt… emptier, as if it had given away all it could.

From the corridor behind him came a sniff. Then a growl.

The werewolves were searching.

He lurched upright, moving with all the grace of a man stitched together from the dead. He turned—not toward the exit, but a narrow tunnel behind the throne, barely a crawlspace.

He didn’t choose it. It was shown to him.

A whisper in the bones:

"This way. Down."

He crawled. Deeper. Further from the world of the living.

The tunnel emptied into a smaller room—no throne, no fancy embellishments. Just walls etched in deep, desperate gouges.

Someone had carved words in bone:

“Do not love. Do not trust. Do not mourn.”

Vaxel pressed his back against the wall, finally still. His breath came ragged, his hands trembled.

But something inside him was quiet.

A pressure he hadn’t noticed—one that had been building since the Shard—had finally released.

In the stillness, the blackened veins faded. The voices fell silent.

For now.