She screamed into the hollow where nothing answered.

  “I… I… I…”

  The words fractured before they could fully exist, torn apart by a pressure that was absent itself. There was no ground beneath her feet, no sky above her head—only a void that curled inward like a forgotten sentence, a place where even memory seemed to dissolve.

  “I…!”

  Her voice cracked through the emptiness, raw and desperate.

  Silence pressed against her from every direction, a suffocating toll that tried to erase the shape of her thoughts. It felt as if the narrative itself had turned its gaze away, as if she had slipped between pages no one intended to read.

  No name.

  No role.

  No place.

  Just nothing.

  The void tightened.

  Memories flickered.

  Caroline’s voice rose from somewhere deep inside her, soft but stubborn. Another memory overlapped it—her male self standing firm, stubborn eyes refusing to bend. The emptiness surged again, trying to swallow those memories whole.

  She clawed at it.

  She refused to let go.

  “I!” she screamed again, louder this time, the words tearing through her throat like broken glass.

  Images rushed back—laughter shared under strange skies, grief that hollowed her chest, battles fought alongside people who had bled beside her.

  Pain. Joy. Regret. Choice.

  Each one struck the void like a hammer.

  The nothingness recoiled.

  Her aura flared weakly at first, then stronger, threads of purple spiraling around her as if trying to stitch her back together. The pressure didn’t vanish—it fought back, pulling at her edges, trying to unmake her piece by piece.

  But she held on.

  “I felt sorrow,” she whispered, voice shaking but steadying with each breath. “I made choices. I changed.”

  The void hissed, a silent protest.

  “I didn’t do everything right,” she said, louder now.

  The darkness rippled.

  “But I became more!”

  Light cracked through the emptiness like a fault line splitting stone. The pressure faltered, the void unraveling at the edges where her words carved meaning into it.

  Her heartbeat returned first—a slow and heavy thrum.

  Eyes blazing with stubborn fury, refusing to be erased.

  She drifted in the hollow between moments, wrapped in absence so complete, as she tried to make the universe remember her.

  Nothing held shape.

  Nothing held sound.

  But the feeling wasn’t one she wasn’t familiar with.

  Her thoughts scattered like torn pages, memories slipping through invisible cracks. She tried to grasp them — faces, voices, fragments of warmth — but they dissolved before she could hold them long enough to matter.

  Her Unraveling started to distort the space.

  No.

  She clenched onto the word like a lifeline.

  No, no, no.

  She existed.

  She had to.

  The fear rose first — cold and choking — the same terror she felt when talking to the hands in the Whispering Tree’s core. That memory stabbed through the void like a flare, and with it came realization.

  If she was Unraveling… then she was still in Requiem.

  Still part of the weave.

  Still counted.

  The realms knew she existed.

  Even if only barely.

  Her breathing steadied — or at least she imagined it did. The nothingness around her rippled faintly, responding to the stubborn refusal coiling in her chest.

  Why had that woman attacked her and trapped her in her dying essence?

  Rituain chants.

  Top Tribe techniques.

  Not random.

  Someone wanted her erased.

  The thought ignited anger beneath the fear, and that anger slowed the Unraveling threads clawing at her edges. She felt herself stabilize — not fully, but enough to think.

  Right.

  She remembered now.

  To Unravel properly… she had to synchronize with her godly self.

  It sounded insane even in her own mind. A step toward dissolution in order to remain whole.

  For a moment she hesitated.

  The void pressed closer, whispering promises of quiet.

  Of surrender.

  She swallowed and moved anyway.

  Against every instinct screaming at her to hold onto safety, she leaned back into the fear — into the unraveling pull — letting the absence swallow her a little deeper.

  Threads of foreign memory burst open like shattered glass.

  Not hers.

  Yet they poured into her mind all the same.

  Voices she didn’t know.

  Pain she didn’t live.

  Images of another woman’s death, another life collapsing into silence, bleeding into her awareness.

  Her vision fractured.

  Reality folded.

  And the deeper she drifted into the Unraveling, the louder those alien memories became — screaming, clawing, demanding to be understood.

  She opened her eyes to warmth.

  Steam drifted across the surface of a quiet hot spring, curling through the air like living breath. Minerals shimmered beneath the water, soft gold and ember light dancing across smooth stone. The world felt distant—muted—like she was standing behind glass.

  Except she couldn’t move.

  She tried to turn her head. Nothing. Tried to speak. Silence. Her awareness floated, tethered to a body that wasn’t entirely hers.

  Then the surface of the water rippled.

  A reflection formed.

  Rhan.

  No… not Rhan.

  The face was familiar, but softer. More feminine. Long black hair slid over bare shoulders, damp strands clinging to fair skin. Ember-colored eyes glowed faintly, rimmed with gold like sunlight trapped beneath the surface.

  Understanding hit like cold water.

  That’s… me.

  But how?

  Rhan had never spoken of a split. Never hinted she existed as anything other than their Jujisn. Yet Unravelings never lied—and these memories felt too heavy, too real to be illusions.

  The woman in the spring—tilted her head, water sliding along the curve of her collarbone as she spoke animatedly to someone nearby.

  “Hideton!”

  A man lounged against the rocks at the edge of the spring. Wolf-white hair fell messily around a sharp face, black eyes flecked with pale spots like distant stars. He looked half asleep, arms draped lazily over the stone, steam drifting around him. He looked like a lean white bear laying lazily.

  “Hm?”

  “Are you listening to me?!”

  “Yes Rhanri I’m listening…” he said flatly.

  She crossed her arms, splashing water. “Then recite what I said.”

  He blinked slowly, deadpan. “Recite?”

  “Yes. I would think a war-savage like you would love this information! I’m crafting an entirely new version of power for the realms!”

  “Hmmp.” Hideton’s thick Russian accent curled around each word. “I like my methods very much. But I think using Sakroon—”

  “Sryun!” she snapped. “It’s literally an S in front of Ryun!”

  “I don’t like either of those names, woman.” He muttered something in Russian, listing harsher, heavier words that sounded more like war than energy.

  “It’s—”

  “Sryun. She’s right to be upset. It’s simple on purpose.”

  The voice came from behind them.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Both turned.

  A young dark-skinned man stood at the edge of the spring, gold and black armored robes flowing like ceremonial cloth caught between priest and warrior. His eyes swirled black and gold, impossible to look at for long without feeling… lighter.

  Religious freedom.

  That was the only way to describe the aura rolling off him—like chains breaking quietly somewhere deep in the soul.

  For a moment—

  just a moment—

  his gaze passed through Rhanri.

  And landed on Tinsurnae.

  His expression didn’t change, but something ancient stirred in his eyes, as if he recognized a presence that wasn’t supposed to be here.

  He lowered himself onto a bloom of golden blight, the light beneath him shimmering — a contradiction made real — radiance that felt holy and wounded at the same time. The spring’s steam curled around his shoulders.

  Rhanri perked up at once, leaning forward in the water. Hideton only crossed his arms, waiting.

  “Laos,” she pressed, “tell him the truth. The realms stagnate because everyone clings to the same structure. Ryun alone isn’t enough anymore.”

  Laos gave a small smile, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Progress always feels like heresy to someone.”

  Hideton snorted. “Heresy implies there is a correct path to betray.”

  “There isn’t,” Laos replied. “That’s the problem… and the beauty.”

  He rested his elbows on his knees, golden-black eyes reflecting the ripples of the spring. “Rhanri wants evolution — a new branch of power. You see it as unnecessary risk. Both positions make sense depending on what you value.”

  Rhanri huffed but didn’t interrupt.

  Laos continued, voice quiet but firm. “I am building something too. A belief. A structure of meaning that doesn’t exist yet. And the backlash has been… considerable.”

  Hideton tilted his head. “Religion?”

  “Yes,” Laos said simply. “Not one born from gods, but from people choosing purpose. That unsettles many. Some think I am trying to replace the divine. Others think I am mocking it.”

  Rhanri’s eyes softened slightly. “So you get it… They don’t understand because they’re afraid.”

  “They don’t understand,” Laos corrected gently, “because change threatens identity. When you reshape power itself, you reshape how others define their place in the world.”

  Steam rolled between them.

  Hideton glanced toward the water, voice low. “And what do you do when they refuse to listen?”

  Laos shrugged lightly. “You don’t force revelation. You offer it. Some will reject it. Some will fight it. A few will see it… and that is enough.”

  He looked at Rhanri, expression warm but serious. “You cannot convince everyone to walk your path. Even if you’re right. Especially if you’re right.”

  Rhanri folded her arms, clearly unhappy with the answer — yet she didn’t argue.

  “And you,” Laos added, turning to Hideton, “cannot pretend nothing changes simply because you prefer the old shape of the world. Even warriors adapt, whether they admit it or not.”

  Hideton grunted, half-amused, half-annoyed.

  The golden blight beneath Laos pulsed once, as if agreeing with him.

  Hideton sighed. “Woman. Please explain this Sryun again.”

  She smiled.

  Laos nodded slowly. “I would also like to hear this. Maybe it will be of use to me and my newfound faith.”

  Hideton let out a long breath through his nose. “Why you want to make a religion in a place full of gods is beyond me. You are a strange man, Laos.”

  Laos only smiled wider. “That’s fine. But unlike Earth’s religion, there’s a clear connection between gods and mortals. Here, religion isn’t a concept — it’s simply a fact. That’s not the same. It’s worship, yes, but the idea is more grounded. What I’m making… it’s that same principle on Earth, but here in Requiem.” He paused, eyes distant for a moment. “Then—”

  “Hey!” Rhanri quipped, swimming forward with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “I was about to talk about Sryun! Me and Rhan been working hard… well, more like I’ve been forcing him to work on it with me.”

  “Get on with it, woman.”

  She splashed him.

  Cold droplets struck Hideton across the cheek. He stared at her, unmoving, water sliding down the sharp line of his jaw.

  Rhanri grinned. “Oh? Now you’re really paying attention.”

  “I was already paying attention.”

  “No, you were brooding. Completely different skill set.”

  Laos chuckled quietly under his breath.

  Steam curled around the spring as she rose slightly from the water, ember-gold eyes shined with pride. “Alright,” she said, brushing wet hair over her shoulder. “Really! Listen this time.”

  Hideton stretched his arms, unimpressed. Laos leaned forward on his seat of blighted light, patient and curious.

  “Sryun,” Rhanri began, “isn’t meant to replace Ryun. It’s meant to catch what Ryun ignores.”

  She traced a slow circle on the water’s surface. The ripples shimmered, turning faintly dark at the edges.

  “Ryun flows from clarity. Focus. Identity. It responds when someone knows who they are and what they want. But what happens when someone is broken? Angry? Lost? When grief becomes heavier than belief?”

  Hideton’s brow furrowed.

  “They fail,” he said simply.

  “Exactly!” she snapped, pointing at him. “They fail — not because they lack power, but because Ryun refuses to answer them. Outlanders bring chaotic magic, gods bring divine law, but the people stuck in between? They drown.”

  Laos nodded slowly. “You wish to give form to emotional residue.”

  “Yes!” she beamed. “Sryun feeds on everything Ryun rejects. Rage, fear, doubt, sorrow… not to corrupt — to redirect. It’s poison only because no one has learned how to digest it.”

  Hideton clicked his tongue. “Sounds unstable. Power drawn from misery breeds monsters.”

  Rhanri didn’t argue immediately. She glanced down at her reflection, fingers tightening in the water.

  “It can,” she admitted. “That’s why it isn’t finished.”

  Laos spoke gently. “You are attempting to make expression itself tangible. To turn inner narrative into external force. Not just power… but meaning.”

  She nodded quickly, grateful someone understood.

  “Outlander magic destabilizes the realms. Ryun alone can’t stabilize it. Sryun bridges the gap — between belief and fracture. Between who someone is and who they’re becoming.”

  Hideton watched her carefully.

  “And what happens,” he asked, voice quieter now, “when someone builds their identity on pain alone?”

  Rhanri hesitated.

  Steam rolled across the surface of the spring, swallowing her reflection for a moment.

  “That…” she said softly, “…is the part I don’t know yet.”

  Laos smiled faintly.

  “Then it is not evil,” Hideton said. “It is unfinished.”

  Rhanri brightened at that, splashing water toward Hideton again.

  “See? You appreciate its genius!”

  Hideton sighed, wiping water from his face. “I never said that. I just find it slightly interesting.”

  But there was less resistance in his voice now.

  And for a brief moment, Tinsurnae — watching through memory — felt something shift.

  The hot spring shimmered beneath her, steam curling like soft ghosts across the surface of memory. Rhanri’s laughter lingered in the air — bright and alive, — while Hideton leaned lazily against the rocks and Laos watched with that strange, blightful light in his eyes.

  And then—

  They came.

  Two figures came over the horizon. Their steps were measured with purpose.

  Jafar first.

  His presence carved through the memory like a blade sliding through butter. Long black hair fell past his shoulders, each strand moving as if guided by an unseen current. Three crimson lines burned beneath each eye, and within those red eyes—

  Rotating black sigils.

  He wore a robe of deep red threaded with royal threads, hems burned at the edges.

  Beside him walked Rhan.

  Slightly shorter.

  Green eyes layered with a gold glow.

  A robe of living vines curled across his frame like nature trying to cage a beast.

  Rhanri smiled when she saw them —

  But then the moment froze.

  Not for Rhanri.

  For Tinsurnae.

  Rhan stopped walking.

  His gaze shifted — past Rhanri, past Hideton, past Laos.

  It found her.

  The intruder.

  Time stretched thin, trembling.

  Tinsurnae’s soul tightened. A primal instinct screamed through her being — a certainty older than thought itself.

  Danger.

  Rhan’s eyes narrowed, flaring like a judgment long delayed.

  Slowly, deliberately—

  He raised his hand.

  The air didn’t tremble.

  The memory did.

  She felt it without understanding how — a pressure that wasn’t physical but conceptual.

  Not death.

  Not injury.

  Erasure.

  Narrative severance.

  Her mind filled with a single, impossible certainty:

  If that hand finished rising… she would cease to exist. Not just here. Not just now.

  Everywhere.

  She struggled to move, to speak, to scream — but she was only a witness stitched into a past that wasn’t hers.

  Rhanri kept talking, unaware.

  Hideton blinked lazily.

  Laos tilted his head.

  Only Rhan reacted.

  His fingers lifted higher.

  And then—

  A hand closed gently over his wrist.

  Jafar.

  He didn’t look at Tinsurnae.

  He didn’t speak.

  He simply pressed down.

  Rhan turned toward him, confusion flickering across his features.

  A silent exchange passed between them.

  Tinsurnae felt the killing intent loosen.

  Not vanish.

  Just… withheld.

  Like a blade sheathed.

  The memory resumed.

  Laughter returned. Voices flowed again. The world acted as though nothing had happened.

  But Rhan’s eyes drifted back toward her, unreadable.

  And then—

  The spring shattered into light.

  The past unraveled.

  Tinsurnae was ripped away, dragged backward through threads of memory, the warmth of the water dissolving into cold emptiness as the vision collapsed around her.

  The last thing she felt was the echo of that raised hand…

  ———

  Rhan stared at Jafar, the air between them tight with a pressure that felt older than war.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Rhan said at last, voice low, measured. “Why have you brought Consequence to my name?”

  Jafar didn’t look at him.

  His gaze lingered forward—past Rhan, past the quiet waters of the spring, resting instead on Laos, whose expression had turned sharp with displeasure.

  “You’re thinking too narrowly, my little hound,” Jafar replied coolly. “You’ve been hunting for a very long time with no results. For someone of your stature… that is quite funny, isn’t it?”

  Rhan’s jaw flexed. The faint rustle of vines along his robe tightened like a living thing, reacting to his irritation.

  “You forbade me from destroying the flora offspring,” he said. “I would have devoured that Whispering Tree sooner, if you hadn’t intervened back then.”

  Jafar’s lips curved—not quite a smile, more like a thought passing across his face.

  “It was necessary,” he said simply. “Things must ebb and flow. Even chaos requires rhythm. Had you succeeded… you would never be full.”

  Rhan’s eyes narrowed, green irises burning faintly gold beneath the surface. He understood the logic. That didn’t mean he liked it.

  Jafar continued, voice calm, almost patient.

  “You chase endings as if they are meals. But some endings only exist to starve you. Use this opportunity instead. For a being whose concept balances on chaos itself… this should be easy for you. No?”

  Rhan exhaled slowly, annoyance still present, but quieter now—tempered by understanding.

  Then something clicked.

  Jafar still hadn’t looked at him.

  Not once.

  Rhan followed his gaze.

  Laos.

  The King of blightful light sat across the spring, posture relaxed but eyes hardened, the golden-black swirl within them unmoving. The aura around him had sharpened into something colder—less welcoming, more judicial.

  He was staring directly back at Jafar.

  The air stilled.

  Jafar finally spoke, but his voice was softer now—almost conversational.

  “You’ve grown bold, Laos.”

  Laos didn’t smile.

  “I’ve grown aware,” he replied evenly. “There is a difference.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  ————

  Tinsurnae refused to fade.

  She had too many questions.

  Why did Rhan want to kill her?

  Why did Rhan hide Rhanri?

  Who was Rhanri?

  She made Sryun? To help the natives of the realms?

  The void around her trembled as the last threads of Unraveling began to thin, the borrowed memories collapsing like dying stars. The decaying essence she was trapped inside creaked under pressure, fractures spreading through a reality that had already started forgetting her shape.

  No.

  She reached inward instead of outward.

  Purple Sryun stirred.

  At first it was faint — a trembling ripple, like breath against frozen glass. Then it surged, blooming from her chest in spiraling currents that cut through the emptiness. A current made from everything she refused to lose.

  Grief.

  Anger.

  Hope.

  The void resisted her, trying to smooth her edges into nothing, but she pushed harder. Her Sryun coiled outward in long ribbons, searching, probing, feeling through the spaces between existence. She needed an anchor.

  She reached for Caroline.

  Silence.

  She reached for S?urtinaui.

  A faint tug. Too faint.

  North.

  Another flicker — distant, unstable, like a shout heard underwater.

  They were still there. But the bridge wouldn’t hold.

  The Unraveling cracked around her, shards of memory snapping loose as the dying essence tried to close. She felt herself slipping again, pieces of identity falling away like ash.

  Fear clawed up her throat.

  Don’t disappear. Don’t disappear. Don’t disappear.

  Her Sryun pulsed violently, flaring brighter, deeper purple — almost black at its core. She gathered every memory she owned and forced it into the current.

  The Whispering Tree.

  Ascension.

  The laughter.

  The pain.

  The promise she made to survive.

  A realization struck her like lightning.

  The one who would remember.

  Always.

  Her Sryun exploded outward.

  The void split.

  A massive wave of violet energy surged from her body, spreading like blooming ink across nothingness. It wasn’t gentle anymore. It was a scream made into power, a declaration carved into existence itself.

  I EXIST.

  The purple current stretched farther than before, threading through unseen matter, diving past broken timelines and abandoned echoes. Reality groaned as her presence forced itself back into the narrative, refusing to be erased.

  For a moment, everything went still.

  Then—

  Something answered.

  A distant pull.

  Her Sryun snapped toward it like a hooked chain.

  The void cracked open in a jagged line of violet light, and for the first time since she had been swallowed, warmth brushed against her soul.

  Recognition.

  Tinsurnae gasped as the bridge formed, fragile but real, her purple Sryun weaving itself into a lifeline that refused to break.

  She laughed — breathless and shaky.

  “I knew it,” she whispered into the collapsing dark. “You’d remember me… no matter what.”

  The Unraveling recoiled.

  And Tinsurnae pulled herself forward through the abyss.

  ————

  Light poured down on Tinsurnae — not sunlight, not flame, not anything he could name. It felt older than warmth, heavier than gravity, a presence that simply existed whether he did or not.

  He sat within a metaphor made real.

  The ground beneath him shifted constantly. Brown grass blinked into violet fields, then dissolved back into blank soil. Color struggled to decide what truth it wanted to hold. The horizon never arrived. White stretched endlessly outward, suffocating in its purity.

  He rose slowly, movements weightless. Time felt fractured here. He had no idea how long he had been waiting.

  He wondered how his female counterpart was doing. He hadn’t seen her in awhile, but he hasn’t died so she must still be alive.

  Then the world broke.

  Purple Sryun erupted into existence like a comet tearing through reality. The void split open, flooding the blank expanse with violent color. Energy spiraled inward, condensing, reshaping, forcing a form into being.

  He jumped back instinctively, aura flaring.

  He recognized that presence.

  “What the hell you been up to?”, he said, half amused, half wary.

  The humor died when the shape finished forming.

  She stood before him — similar, yet undeniably different. Black hair had faded to white, falling around a face sharpened by struggle. Green eyes now burned violet, filled with something heavier than rage and deeper than fear.

  They stared at each other in silence that stretched too long.

  He finally spoke, voice softer now.

  “What happened?”

  She laughed.

  Triumph layered over exhaustion, defiance layered over terror.

  “I just proved my existence.”