It wasn't loud.
It wasn't distant.
It was close—so close it scraped against the inside of my skull.
My dad's voice cracked in the same place it always did, right at the end of his laughter. I smelled smoke. Old smoke.
The kind that lived in your clothes for days no matter how much you scrubbed. I felt heat against my bare feet. Ash stung my eyes.
I opened my mouth to scream—
Nothing.
No sound.
No breath.
No air.
The sea of darkness does not let you hear yourself.
It does not let you see yourself.
It strips you down until memory is the only thing left that can hurt you.
I tried to move. There was no direction. No up. No down. I was floating inside nothing, yet everything pressed against me. The physical pain faded—but the remembering did not.
They weren't visions.
They were relived.
I was a boy again.
Too small for the blade in my hands. Too thin. Too angry. Blood drying on my knuckles as I buried my parents with hands that shook but never stopped digging.
My father's voice returned. Never shouting. Never cruel.
Quiet.
"Again."
The word echoed endlessly.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Every failure came back.
Every hesitation.
Every moment I chose mercy and paid for it in blood.
Every moment I chose violence and lost something anyway.
The sea did not show me these memories kindly. It forced me to inhabit them. I felt the cold ground beneath my knees when I begged. Felt the weight of chains I had forgotten. Felt steel kiss my throat the first time I truly understood how easy it was to die.
Three days.
That is what I learned later.
In the darkness, time meant nothing. There was only memory looping itself raw, scraping me down to bone. I understood then why the dead look peaceful.
Silence is a mercy—
When pain has finished teaching you.
When I clawed my way back onto the stone floor of Bey's hall—pale, shaking, feral—I was not the man who had fallen.
I could see my childhood even with my eyes closed.
That was when I realised the truth.
The darkness had not only shown me my memories.
It had given them to me.
Sight without eyes.
Sound without ears.
Understanding without permission.
That was the moment Bey was doomed.
Bey had crossed from king to tyrant long before I learned his name. His executions were theater. His mercy was currency. He wore fear like a crown and called it order.
Killing him was not vengeance.
It was payback.
The Council chamber was built to intimidate.
High stone ceilings. Pillars carved with the victories of tyrants long dead.
Banners stitched with symbols meant to remind every man who entered that power did not come from blood or justice—but from survival.
Kings sat in a half circle, thrones raised just enough to look down on one another. Fear lived here. Not openly. Not admitted. But it breathed between them, thick and sour.
Bey stood at the center.
Alive.
Whole.
Smiling.
"My lords," he said calmly, spreading his hands as if addressing frightened children. "As you can see, the rumors of my death have once again been… exaggerated."
A murmur rippled through the chamber. Some relief. Some disbelief. Some terror barely restrained behind gold and silk.
I stepped out of the shadows.
Not behind him.
Not above.
Not with silence.
I stepped forward and let my boots strike stone.
Once.
Twice.
Every king froze.
Bey's smile did not fade—but it tightened.
I felt their eyes snap to me.
Pale skin stretched tight over burns not yet finished healing. My hair hung wild, unbound. The sea of darkness had not been gentle in returning me to the world. I looked like something dragged back from death and too angry to stay there.
"I told you," I said, voice rough, scarred raw by smoke and pain, "that I would come back."
Steel whispered as I drew my daggers—not in threat, but in certainty.
The room erupted.
Guards reached for weapons. Kings shouted orders. Chairs scraped. Panic cracked through their composure like rotten wood.
Bey raised one hand.
"Enough."
His voice cut through the chaos.
They listened.
Of course they did.
He turned slowly to face me, studying me like a problem he had not yet solved—but wanted to.
"You survived," he said. Not surprised. Not afraid. Curious.
"So did you," I answered.
A thin smile curved his lips. "It seems we are both… difficult to finish."
I took another step forward. "There will not be a third time."
Silence fell again—this time deeper.
Bey exhaled, then nodded once. "Then let us do this properly."
He reached for the sword at his side.
The kings leaned back instinctively.
"A duel," Bey announced. "Royal law. Ancient right. Prince of Oma versus Head of the Council of Tyrants."
I felt it then—the shift. The inevitability.
"A condition," he added, eyes never leaving mine.
"Speak."
"You will not use your shadow."
The chamber stilled.
Every king watched me like gamblers watching a blade hover over bone.
I considered him. The sword. The mind behind it.
Then I nodded.
"I accept."
A breath escaped the room.
No shadows.
No darkness.
No fear tricks.
Just flesh, steel, and skill.
The guards cleared the floor. Thrones scraped back. Kings retreated to the edges like spectators at an execution they prayed would not turn on them.
Bey drew his sword.
Perfect balance. Polished steel. Poison grooves etched near the base—subtle. Intelligent.
Of course.
I rolled my shoulders, daggers loose in my hands. Shorter reach. Faster strike. No tricks.
He circled me.
I matched him.
"Prince of Oma," he said conversationally. "Do you know why I always admired your people?"
"Because we were useful," I replied.
"Because you were efficient," he corrected. "You understood sacrifice."
Steel rang as he struck first.
Fast.
Clean.
I barely slipped inside the arc, dagger skimming his guard as his blade kissed air where my throat had been.
The sound of steel on stone echoed like a drumbeat.
He pressed. Calculated strikes. Controlled angles. Every movement measured to force me into predictable responses.
I refused him.
I went low. High. Feinted left. Slashed right. Let instinct—not thought—drive me.
He adapted instantly.
Sword against dagger. Dagger against gauntlet. Sparks leapt as we closed, separated, collided again.
The chamber vanished.
There was only breath.
Only movement.
Only the knowledge that one of us would not leave this floor alive.
He nicked my arm.
A shallow cut—but clean.
I felt it immediately.
The burn.
The wrongness.
Poison.
Bey smiled.
"There it is," he said softly.
I ignored it and drove forward.
I forced him back step by step. Closed the distance where swords lose advantage. Let my daggers sing. One caught his shoulder. Another grazed his ribs.
Blood bloomed dark against his robes.
He grunted—but laughed.
"Yes," he breathed. "That's it. Show them."
We clashed again—harder. Faster. Sweat slicked stone. My vision narrowed. Poison crept like ice through my veins, slowing my fingers, dulling my edges.
Bey saw it.
Of course he did.
"You have less than a day," he said between strikes. "Ingenious, isn't it? You'll kill me—but I still win."
He overextended.
Just slightly.
Just enough.
I stepped into his swing.
Pain flared as steel bit deep into my side—but I was already inside his guard.
Both daggers rose.
Crossed.
Then—
I took his head.
The sound was wet. Final. Absolute.
Bey's laughter cut off mid-breath as his body collapsed, sword clattering to the floor, crown rolling uselessly across stone.
Silence.
Kings stared.
I stood there—blood dripping, poison burning, breath ragged—holding the head of the Wicked Intellect.
"Heads roll," I said hoarsely. "This is the law now."
The poison surged.
Darkness clawed at my vision.
I stepped backward—and let myself fall into my shadow.
I don't remember the journey to Babel.
Only fragments.
Stone. Voices. Pain. Heat and cold and movement.
Then—
Light.
White.
The infirmary.
I collapsed at her feet.
Naya.
She stood frozen, healer's hands stained with blood not mine. Eyes wide. Heart breaking in real time.
I smiled—weak, stupid, honest.
"Naya," I whispered as darkness rushed in. "I love you."
The world went black.
And I did not know
if I would wake again.