I was nursing my ale when the tavern door creaked open. A woman in a simple, dark traveller's cloak walked in. She moved with quiet grace, her face hidden.

  My internal roommate, Ronan, went dead quiet. Not his usual 'thinking' quiet, but a deep, absolute stillness that was alarming.

  The woman walked directly to my table and sat down, uninvited. Before I could protest, the world changed.

  It wasn't a sound or a flash. It was a cessation. The roar of the tavern, the bard, the clatter of plates—vanished. The candle flame froze. Dust motes hung suspended. Time stopped for everyone but us.

  She lowered her hood. A face of impossible, timeless beauty, etched with sorrow older than the mountains. Her eyes, the colour of a dawn sky, weren't looking at me. They were looking through me.

  "Ronan," she whispered, her voice a melody of pure, heartbreaking love. "My son. My star. Oh how I have missed you... I am so sorry."

  I felt Ronan's spirit shudder. A wave of silent, overwhelming emotion. Recognition. Great. Family drama. And I had a front-row seat. He remained silent.

  Her attention shifted to the 'damage' on the surface. Her expression hardened into cold, clinical disgust. She wasn't looking at a person anymore; she was examining a tumour.

  "You," she said, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "You are not a person. You are a symptom. A fever dream my son's mind created to shield itself. You are the cancer that grew from his grief."

  Well, that's a new one. 'Sentient tumour' is definitely a first.

  She took a breath. "My bargain with the Ringmaster is precise," she stated, cold as the void. "I am forbidden contact with my son. If Ludo discovers I have broken this pact... he will cast Ronan back into the nothing. The cost to my divinity for this meeting is… considerable."

  ‘Oh, shit. She's a god,’ I thought.

  "The pact says nothing of the disease that infests him. It says nothing of you. You are the loophole." She leaned forward. "So understand this, affliction. I am here for a reason, and you are the only one who will remember it. You will not speak of this to him. Your silence is the lock on his cage."

  Her expression turned urgent. "Listen closely. The turning of two seasons... six months. That is the time you have. A hunger from the Silent Places is coming for this city. You will know it by the insects it controls. It will wear a familiar face. It must be stopped."

  She pressed two fingers against my chest. A shock went through me, a wave of unimaginable warmth. "I am giving him a sliver of my own power. A gift not for you, but from my son. It will empower his Art. Ludo will not object. He knows that should this vessel be destroyed... my power will revert to him."

  A cosmic insurance policy. Smart.

  A soft chime resonated in my being as a new pathway of power was etched into my spirit. A second, gentler pulse washed over Ronan's consciousness. "He will remember nothing of this."

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Her voice turned to hard steel.

  "You have six months."

  She gave a single nod, pulled her hood up, and vanished.

  Time crashed back in. The roar of the tavern rushed into my ears.

  "Sir? Are you alright, sir?" Sandy, the waitress, asked, looking concerned. "You just... stared off into space there."

  I stared at the empty chair where a goddess had just called me a cancer. ‘Peachy,’ I thought.

  Ronan's presence stirred, hazy. ‘What were we just talking about?’

  He didn't remember. But I did. A cryptic warning from a goddess who saw me as a disease.

  "Fine," I said, my voice strained. "Just... thinking."

  I reached for my coin pouch. My right hand fumbled, and on instinct, my left hand came up to steady it.

  And stopped.

  Sensation. Leather against fingers.

  I pulled my left hand away and held it up.

  It wasn't a stump.

  It was a whole, pale, perfectly formed hand. Five fingers. A thumb. Faint lines. It was weak, but it was mine.

  ‘Murphy? What are you doing?’ Ronan projected, feeling my shock. ‘What's with your hand?’

  He didn't know. She must have wiped the memory of the stump too.

  "Excuse me, sir," the waitress said, staring. "I... I could have sworn, when you came in, you only had..."

  "...Good day, Sandy." I cut her off, forcing a smile.

  “But your hand...”

  “I said good day!”

  I felt Ronan's confusion. ‘Only had... what? Murphy?’ But his suspicion was clouded by the fog.

  I took a shaky breath, opened my new hand, and picked up a few copper coins. They felt solid.

  I tossed them on the table and headed to my room, my mind reeling from a terrifying warning and an impossible miracle.

  Interlude

  To my dear Ronan,

  For a being such as I, time is a river. Yet there are moments that stand like pillars. You are one of them.

  Before you were this pain, you were mine. My Brightest Son. My Morningstar. You were a song of courage.

  And I failed you.

  There was a war. A flaw in divine law. I was checkmated. To save our realm, I would have had to sacrifice a part of my divinity—plunging my corner of creation into shadow.

  You saw the price. And you, in your final act of heroism, made the choice for me. You became the sacrifice. You laid down your divinity for a world you loved.

  Your death was a snuffing out. You were banished to a world devoid of magic. And upon you was laid a curse. A malevolent gravity ensuring your torment would be endless.

  The pact held me fast. I became a spectator to your damnation. I watched you rise in fragile flesh, only to be extinguished by cruel nights. I saw you sacrificed on stone altars. Broken on racks. Drowning in poison gas.

  After many lives, the hero inside gave up. Your survival became a weapon.

  You took every memory of that hell—every death, every betrayal—and you tore them out. From the ash, a new consciousness was forged—a shield of scar tissue. And you, my Ronan, were left hollowed out—an amnesiac king with no memory of the crucible.

  Your final reincarnation ended with your own heroic nature convincing the shield to sacrifice everything for a family. That act shattered the curse.

  Powerless to reach you, I went to the one being I had wronged. The Ringmaster. To bring you home, I sacrificed your love. I agreed to never contact you again. Ludo took credit for lifting the curse, using my silence as proof of abandonment.

  But Ludo’s cruelty did not end there. He offered to make you whole, to scour the scar tissue from your soul. Unmake the consciousness that had been your torment. And you refused. You would not be his champion if it meant murdering the being that had borne your pain.

  Ludo relented with a malicious bargain. He would bring you both back, but he would pour his influence into the 'signing bonus', leaving nothing for the vessel. A cruel starting hand, but you accepted it to save it. The shield. The cancer.

  And so, you were returned. Fractured.

  My guilt is a starless midnight. I hear you wonder why I forsake you, and I am forced to silence.

  You still hold the light. A light that can, I pray, one day find the strength to discard the growth that clings to you and reclaim what is yours.

  Your eternally watchful, and forever shamed, Mother.