The violet mist of the Gnash-Groves began to thin, leaving behind a silence that felt heavier than the whispers. Kiron sat on the edge of the sled, his skin still shedding flakes of grey stone like a snake losing its hide. He felt a deep, gnawing hunger in his chest—a vacuum where the "Authority" had been.
But his eyes were fixed on Nel-Eak.
The man who had stood with such predatory grace just hours ago was now staring at his own curved daggers with the confused curiosity of a child holding a dangerous toy. The muscle memory was there—the way his fingers naturally found the grip, the way his feet stayed light—but the soul behind the eyes had been scrubbed clean.
"He doesn't know us," Taz whispered, his hand hovering near Kiron's shoulder. "Kiron, he gave up everything just to pull you back. He doesn't even know his own name."
Nyra stepped toward the hunter, her hand on her hilt, wary. "Nel-Eak? Can you hear me?"
The man looked up. His scarred face tilted to the side. "That sound... 'Nel-Eak.' It rings like a bell in a deep well. Is that me? Is that what I am?"
"It's who you were," Kiron said, his voice raspy as he climbed off the sled. His legs were shaky, but the Stone-Sleep had left his muscles feeling strangely dense. "You're the man who saved my life. And right now, you're the only reason we're still breathing."
"I feel... light," Nel-Eak said, his voice a low, hollow rumble. "Like a ship that has dumped its cargo to stay afloat in a storm. But I don't know where the port is. I don't know why my heart feels like it's missing a beat."
"We are the port for now," Kiron said, reaching out a hand, but he stopped as a high, crystalline chime echoed through the valley.
It wasn't a sound of the Wastes. It was a note of pure, mathematical perfection.
High above the jagged pipes, a Celestial Needle descended. Unlike the bulky God-Ships, this was a slender spike of white glass, silent and blindingly bright. It didn't drop bombs. It dropped a single figure.
The Inquisitor landed softly on the rusted floor, the impact creating a ripple of golden energy that leveled the nearby scrap-piles. He wore robes of flowing white silk that never touched the grime, and his face was hidden behind a mask of polished gold with a single, vertical slit for an eye.
"A memory has been traded," the Inquisitor said, his voice like the humming of a thousand glass harps. "A leak in the tapestry of the Divine. The Echo-Walkers have tasted a rare vintage of shame, and the scent has led me here."
He turned the gold mask toward Kiron. "The Seed of the Grave. You look brittle. A fractured vessel for a dead throne."
"And you look like a target," Nyra spat, drawing her blade.
"I am Val-En, the Hand of the Final Dawn," the Inquisitor replied. He raised a hand, and the air around them began to crystallize, turning into shards of solid light. "I do not seek a fight. I seek the reclamation of the 'Lament.' Give me the charcoal blade, and I will leave your broken souls to rot in the rust."
Kiron reached for the wrapped sword on the sled. His fingers still felt cold, but the "Authority" in his chest wasn't a spark anymore—it was a hard knot of defiance.
"The sword stays with me," Kiron said.
"Then the King dies in the dirt," Val-En sighed.
The Inquisitor moved. He didn't run; he flickered. One moment he was thirty yards away, the next he was pressing a palm of burning light toward Kiron's chest.
Suddenly, a blur of serpent-scales intercepted the strike.
Nel-Eak didn't know who he was, but his body remembered how to protect. He had moved without thinking, his curved daggers clashing against the Inquisitor's palm. The white light hissed against the steel, but the hunter's instinct was flawless. He twisted, a dervish of leather and scars, forcing the Celestial back.
"I don't know you, Bright-One," Nel-Eak said, his voice flat and empty. "But my shadow hates your light."
Kiron gripped the hilt of Lament. He looked at Nel-Eak's back, seeing the man who had traded his past for Kiron's future.
"Nyra, Taz, get back!" Kiron shouted. He felt a new connection forming—a bridge between the emptiness in Nel-Eak and the darkness in the sword. "If he has no memory, he has no limit. I'm going to fill the void!"