The way back to the plateau was silent, but the calm shattered the moment they set foot within the boundaries of the outer settlement. It wasn't the usual silence of despair; it was a thick silence, heavy with a renewed fear.
Near the entrance, where the remains of skulls bleached by time served as a macabre warning of who ruled the Dark City, a small group of Sleepers huddled together. They were observing something recently added to the collection. A new head, still fresh, whose features Ash recognized instantly.
Ash opened his eyes slightly, a gesture of surprise that did not go unnoticed by Nephis. Without a word, he stepped forward, pushing through the gaunt-faced men until he stood before a Sleeper watching the scene with trembling hands.
"What happened here?" Ash asked, his voice lower than usual.
The man looked at him with glassy eyes before turning his gaze back to Gunlaug's hunting trophy.
"Another one who thought he was stronger than the castle," the Sleeper replied in a thin voice. "Someone else challenged the Bright Lord and ended up under his executioner's axe... or so say those who were near the gates."
Among the crowd, Ash could hear the poisonous whispers of others: "It was Jubei," "That idiot, what was he thinking?", "No one challenges the castle and lives to tell the tale."
Ash slowly stepped back and returned to Nephis's side. They both moved away from the commotion, walking towards the safety of their shelter before Changing Star broke the silence.
"You knew him." It wasn't a question, but a statement from Nephis.
Ash nodded, looking at the ground, where the rubble seemed heavier than usual.
"Yeah. He was one of the Sleepers from last night's table. His name was Jubei. I won almost all his fragments from him, but he seemed like a principled guy, in his own way. From what I could gather from those whispers, he made the crazy decision to challenge Gunlaug directly. The result is what you see."
Nephis stopped and looked towards the direction of the castle, that colossus of stone that towered over everyone's misery. Her face was a mask of coldness, but her knuckles whitened as she clenched her fist.
"Desperation drives men to commit suicides they call 'challenges'," she said, her voice icy. "Jubei lost his fragments to you and, probably, lost everything. With nothing to offer as tribute and no means to survive, he chose to die fighting a god rather than starve to death in a corner."
Ash sighed, remembering the look in Jubei's eyes when he lost his last hand of poker.
"Maybe if I hadn't won his last fragment from him..." he began, but Nephis cut him off sharply.
"Don't blame yourself for the rules of this place, Ash. In the Dark City, if it hadn't been you, it would have been Andel or any other hunter. Jubei was already dead long before he sat at that table. The only difference now is that his head serves to remind everyone else why Gunlaug remains on the throne."
Ash fell silent. The "luck" of the heart of the cards was starting to taste bitter.
---
Ash let out a heavy sigh, a sound lost in the city's foul air, and turned away without looking back. Nephis watched him walk away; her clear eyes caught the tension in his shoulders, but she didn't try to stop him. She understood the need for silence. In a place where death was the only constant, sometimes the only luxury one could afford was the space to process it.
Ash walked mechanically to the elevated plateau. The climb, which he usually did with agility, today felt as if he were dragging invisible chains. Upon entering the small, patched-up house, the shelter's silence enveloped him, but didn't bring the peace he sought.
He sat in a corner, on a stone block covered with old furs, and took out a piece of dried meat they had prepared the day before. He began to eat without appetite, chewing slowly, feeling the chewy texture and the salty taste.
While the rest of the Dark City followed its violent course down below, Ash sat staring at the rickety entrance of the house.
Why? he asked himself deep in his mind.
Before coming to this cursed place, before the Nightmare Spell dragged him into this world of shadows, things were simpler. He had spent much of his life feeling like the world happened behind a fogged-up window. Emotions were distant echoes, background noise that couldn't disturb his unnatural calm. He didn't feel much, and that, in a way, was his greatest defense.
But now, the image of Jubei's head at the entrance replayed in his memory over and over.
He felt a pang of guilt, a dull weight in his chest he couldn't explain. He had only played. He had used his "luck." He had followed the rules of a game he himself admitted he didn't fully understand. In theory, he hadn't done anything wrong; Jubei was an adult who made his own choices.
And yet, the thought that that man's last act of dignity—a suicidal challenge—was born from the emptiness Ash left in his pockets haunted him.
"I'm not supposed to care," he whispered to himself, more confused than before. "This is the Dark City. People die here every day."
He ran a hand over his face, brushing the almost invisible scar that Nephis had closed that very morning. Maybe that was it. Maybe being surrounded by so much real death, so much tangible pain, was starting to crack his apathy. Or perhaps, simply, being close to someone like Nephis, someone who burned with such pure will, was forcing him to start feeling the warmth too.
---
Asher remained seated, motionless, with his eyes closed for a few moments before opening them.
His thoughts, normally as orderly and cold as steel, now felt like a knot of tangled threads. This guilt, this emotional weight suffocating him over Jubei's death, wasn't normal.
When did this start? he wondered, searching his memories.
It hadn't been like this in the Ash Barrow. There, death was a statistic, one more shadow in a grey world. He thought for a moment about the Soul Devouring Tree. Could that ancient abomination have planted a seed of madness in his mind before they managed to escape? He considered the possibility but dismissed it almost immediately. The memories he carried had enchantments designed to protect his psyche; if something had tried to invade his will, he would have felt it. He would have known.
So, the conclusion was much more unsettling: it was something new. Something that wasn't his, yet at the same time was born from the deepest part of his being.
He closed his eyes and plunged into his Soul Sea.
There, in his own soul, everything remained absolutely the same without any visible change, but he could feel it was slightly different. Having consumed about forty soul fragments of the eighty he had won, he felt how that previously weak, faint presence that watched him was growing, beginning to exert weight and influence over his soul.
It wasn't a voice, nor a defined form, but a pressure, a latent vibration that grew stronger with every soul fragment he devoured. It was as if, by strengthening his core, he was feeding an entity that slumbered within his soul.
That presence seemed to amplify his emotions, giving them a tint of humanity that he himself had discarded long ago in order to survive.
He opened his eyes and looked outside through the gap in the wall. The sky of the Dark City was a stain of pale blue, almost suffocated by heavy grey clouds that promised rain that never managed to clean the dirt from the streets.
"Whatever you are..." Ash whispered to the frigid air, "I suppose we'll get to know each other soon."
He decided to stop fighting the thought. If it was something related to his Aspect or the nature of his soul, the Dark City would take care of bringing it to light sooner or later. In this place, nothing remained hidden for long, especially the things one tried to ignore.
He stood up, dusting himself off. The guilt was still there, but now he observed it with the curiosity of a scientist analyzing a poison. If his soul was changing, he would have to learn to use these new feelings before they used him.