The world was no longer red.
It was a void of shimmering, liquid silver. Kiron felt neither weight nor cold. The agony in his palms was gone, replaced by a strange, humming lightness. He was floating, or perhaps standing, on a surface that rippled like a mirror made of mercury.
"Where... where am I?" Kiron's voice didn't echo. It felt as though the space itself was swallowing the sound.
"You are where the blood meets the sky, Your Highness."
Kiron spun around. Standing a few paces away was a figure that didn't belong in his nightmares. This wasn't a faceless ghost or a broken villager. It was a man tall and elegant, dressed in robes that seemed to be woven from the very starlight of the High-Spires.
His face was visible—unusually calm, with sharp, regal features and eyes that held the depth of ancient oceans. He didn't look like a scrapper, and he certainly didn't look like a Tainted God.
"Your Highness?" Kiron stammered, his mind racing. He's talking to me? I've spent my life eating gray sludge and sleeping on rusted pipes. "You have the wrong person. I'm Kiron. I'm just a scrapper from the Vort-Isle."
The entity offered a small, knowing smile. He bowed deeply, his forehead nearly touching the silver floor. "A diamond in the mud is still a diamond, my Lord. The lineage of the Underworld does not fade simply because the surface has forgotten its true masters."
"The Underworld?" Kiron took a step back. The stories the elders told... about the world beneath the Shush? "Who are you? What was that wall of blood back in the mountain? Why are people dying for me?"
"I am but a shadow of the throne you left behind," the man replied, his image beginning to flicker like a dying candle. "The wall was a tithe—a small portion of the debt we owe to your bloodline. As for the rest... the truth is a heavy crown, Kiron. You are not ready to wear it all."
"Wait!" Kiron lunged forward, trying to grab the man's sleeve, but his hand passed through the silk like mist. "Tell me! Why is Juro-Gai afraid of me? What did they do to my people?"
The entity's face grew solemn. The silver void began to darken at the edges, turning back into the crushing black of the Shush.
"The time is short," the entity whispered. "The Taint is reaching even here. But know this: we are watching you. Every drop of blood you spill, every step you take toward the heavens, we see it."
The man reached out, his translucent fingers hovering just inches from Kiron's forehead. A sudden, piercing cold shot through Kiron's skull.
"May you bless us with your strength, and may you free the people from the golden chains," the man's voice began to fade into a thousand overlapping echoes. "We await your return to the Throne of Graves. Do not let the light blind you."
"Wait! Come back!" Kiron shouted.
"Wake up, Kiron!"
The silver world shattered.
Kiron's eyes snapped open. He gasped, sucking in a lungful of air that was dry and tasted like powdered bone. His vision was a blur of brilliant, blinding white.
"He's awake!" Taz's voice was high and panicked.
Kiron squinted, his eyes stinging. He wasn't in the mountain. He was lying on a soft, undulating surface that felt like silk but moved like water. Above him, the sky was a hazy, featureless white.
He was in the Shush.
Nyra was kneeling over him, her face pale and etched with exhaustion. She let out a long, shaky breath, her hand dropping from the hilt of her knife.
"You were gone for three hours," she whispered, her eyes searching his. "Your heart stopped twice. I thought... I thought the Prayer had finally taken you."
Kiron pushed himself up, his muscles screaming in protest. He looked at his palms. They were scarred and red, but the gold glow was gone. He looked back up at the sky, where the distant, dark silhouette of the mountain-isle was still visible, thousands of feet above.
Your Highness, the man's voice echoed in the back of his mind.
Kiron looked at Nyra, then at his own trembling hands. The fear was still there, but it was being buried under a mountain of questions.
"We need to move," Kiron said, his voice sounding deeper, harder. "The God is still up there. And I think I know why he wants me dead."
Nyra frowned, her hand lingering on his shoulder. "What did you see in there, Kiron?"
Kiron stood up, his boots sinking into the fine, white sand of the Shush. He looked toward the horizon, where the white desert seemed to go on forever.
"I saw a debt," Kiron replied. "And I think it's time I started collecting."