The road to the Archive wound like a scar through the heart of a city pretending it wasn't dead.
The group advanced in silence, the air warped and heavy around them. The shadows of the city stretched long, twisted unnaturally—even under the noonday sun. Above, the clouds didn't move. Not a breeze stirred. It was as if time itself had stalled, frozen in anticipation.
They moved as a single body. Koda at the front, his pace measured, expression unreadable. Maia kept close to his right, Junen to his left. Behind them, Thessa walked with fists clenching and unclenching, tiny arcs of fire twitching along her knuckles. Deker muttered to himself—unreadable fragments about charge ratios, reinforced ignition coils, and backup detonators. Wren's sigils pulsed in slow rhythm over their arms and jaw, ready. Terron took up the rear, his hammer balanced casually on one shoulder, though nothing about his body language suggested ease.
They did not speak. Words would only echo back wrong here.
The silence of the city wasn't the peace of rest. It was the silence of a held breath. The kind that came before screaming.
Calthis, flanked by two Watchers from the surviving Order, led them down the last slope. The closer they came to the Archive, the more reality seemed to splinter. A child's doll lay in the gutter, smiling with glass teeth. Ink streamed from split gutters like black veins. The banners that once bore the Eternal Guide's sigil now curled with fungus, red and gold threads rotting into symbols that shifted when stared at too long.
And ahead—beyond the final row of buildings—the Grand Archive waited.
It no longer resembled what it had been. Not a seat of knowledge. Not a place of wisdom. The once-proud cathedral of thought had become a living monument to consumption.
The Archive's facade had caved in on itself, its massive entry arch reshaped into a yawning spiral—columns twisted like spines, stone reshaped like unfurling muscle. The great seal above the doors, once depicting the Eternal Guide's outstretched hand, had been defaced—rewritten into a perfect, faceless silhouette, arms wide in benediction, mouth open in eternal proclamation.
The plaza before it had been swept clean, but not with reverence. No blood remained. No bodies. Only the sheen of something wiped away.
"This is it," Calthis murmured, halting a few paces from the edge of the plaza. "This is as close as we can take you. No one enters that place and comes out unchanged. We've lost Watchers who got too near."
"Lost how?" Maia asked, low.
"They didn't die," Calthis said. "They just… stopped being who they were."
Koda looked forward, eyes narrowed at the corrupted structure. "So he's inside."
"Beneath it," Calthis corrected. "He's nesting in the old lower sanctum. The Mouth. That's where he speaks. That's where the Choir started."
Junen's brow furrowed. "Why hasn't he come out? If he's so strong now, what's he waiting for?"
"He's consolidating," Wren said, voice grim. "The shards he swallowed—Sloth, Lust, Wrath—they weren't just power. They were principles. He's becoming something worse."
"He's waiting for his final form to take shape," Thessa muttered.
Koda stepped to the plaza's edge. The air here pulsed. With every heartbeat, something deep below the ground throbbed in answer. A harmony. A resonance.
It called to him.
He staggered.
Maia reached for him. "Koda—"
He raised a hand, stopping her.
"It's okay," he whispered. "I knew this would happen."
Junen stepped forward. "What do you mean?"
"I told you," Koda said, his voice rough. "I have to understand Pride if we're going to break his hold. The Sanctuary resonates with truths. But it can only reflect what I give it."
"You're talking about letting it touch you," Wren said, tone cold.
Koda nodded. "I need to be dosed. Like venom. Just enough to survive the poison—and build immunity."
"That's a damn idiotic plan," Deker snapped, for once deadly serious. "You wanna sip a plague?"
"I'm not drinking the ocean," Koda said. "I'm tasting the storm."
Maia stepped in front of him, her hands gripping his tunic. "There's a line, Koda. You don't always come back from exposure like that. If he sees you as a vessel—"
"I am a vessel," Koda said. "That's why it's me and not any of you."
He looked past her, toward the plaza. Toward the thing that used to be a holy place.
"The others were asked to serve," he murmured. "He's not asking me."
Thessa tensed. "What?"
Koda's voice grew hollow. "He's offering. I'm not just fit to worship. I'm fit to replace."
A wind whipped across the stones.
And suddenly Koda's knees buckled.
The wind wasn't air. It was presence.
The others stepped forward—but Wren held up a hand. "No," they whispered. "It's happening."
Maia caught Koda before he hit the ground. His body trembled violently, eyes rolled back, mouth open. He was muttering—no, echoing. His voice overlapped with a dozen others, deep and lilting, smooth and inhuman.
The sigils on his arms lit gold.
Then froze.
And from somewhere deep inside him—
Something knocked.
——-
The darkness did not come with violence.
It came with warmth.
Golden light spilled over stone, over soil, over the flat expanse of a training yard at sunrise. A younger Koda stood at the edge of it, hands on his hips, watching as Maia drove her blade into a post for the fifth time, sweat gleaming at her brow. She was so focused. Her stance sloppy, but her will unbreakable. He had said nothing at first—just watched.
When she finally struck the target dead center, her breath caught. She looked back to him.
And he smiled.
"That's it," he'd said. "That's what it means to move with purpose."
The memory should have passed. But it didn't.
Instead, it deepened.
Light poured across the dream, soaking everything in warm gold. The training post shimmered, then vanished. Now they stood at the crest of the northern pass, wind rushing past their cloaks, the sky a riot of pink and fire. Maia held a wounded traveler upright while Koda fended off the last of the beasts. When it was done, when the blood had dried and the man was safe, Maia looked to him again, her eyes lit from within.
"You were brilliant," she'd said.
But in the dream, she didn't stop there.
"You always are."
The light flared.
Now he stood in the Hall of Triumph. Tapestries of his deeds draped from every rafter. The Council bowed before him. Even the forgers—who had once laughed at his crude sword—nodded with grudging awe. Behind them, the murals on the walls shifted. Not just of battles—but of him. Leading. Commanding. Standing alone at the center of storms and victories alike.
He blinked.
He was in the canyon. Wrath's ruin lay behind him. The crowd ahead erupted in cheers not for Veylan—but for him. They were chanting.
"Koda. Koda. Koda."
He turned. Maia was there again, a crown in her hands, eyes wet with awe.
"You're everything they said you were," she whispered. "More."
He wanted to step back. Something felt off.
But the ground held him.
Maia stepped closer. "You're not like them, Koda. You're better. Stronger. You never needed a church to tell you how to lead. You were the will of the gods."
The cheers swelled.
He tried to speak. Tried to say it wasn't like that. That it was never about glory.
But he couldn't remember why.
Why wasn't it about that?
Hadn't he fought every battle with nothing but steel and grit? Hadn't he bled for a world that had given him nothing? Hadn't he faced Wrath alone, when even the gods had turned away?
The crowd parted.
A mirror stood at the center of the chamber now, tall and gilded, carved with the symbols of the five great orders.
He stepped toward it.
Inside, his reflection towered. Not hunched. Not wounded. Not worn.
But divine.
Armor burnished to gold. Eyes shining with power. The sword in his hand no longer dull iron, but blazing with unspoken names.
He looked… perfect.
And behind him, kneeling in the mirror's reflection, were Maia, Thessa, Junen. Wren, Terron, Deker. Their heads bowed.
Willingly.
He reached out, half entranced.
Then—
A flicker.
His hand touched glass. The warmth dimmed.
And behind him, just for a second, he heard a voice that wasn't his.
Or Maia's.
Or anyone he'd known.
It said:
"Wasn't this always what you wanted?"
The mirror shimmered.
Then cracked.
Not violently. Not as a shattering thing. Just a gentle line, blooming out from where Koda's fingers touched the glass.
His reflection blinked. It smiled.
Not in triumph.
In certainty.
They know, it seemed to say.
Behind the glass, the chamber changed. No longer the Hall of Triumph. It was the Capital itself, reborn. Vast and gleaming, spires climbing to the heavens, every building carved with his likeness. Statues lined the streets—Koda mid-swing, Koda standing solemn, Koda with flames behind him and cities at his feet.
He walked through the avenue, and people bowed.
Not in ceremony.
In worship.
And he found that he liked it.
His steps grew steadier. Shoulders straightened. The old limp—the one Wrath gave him—was gone. No pain. No weakness. Every breath fed strength into his limbs. The sky cracked above with sunlight, and he drank it in like a blessing meant only for him.
He turned a corner.
Maia stood at the base of a marble stairway, arms crossed. A small smile touched her lips.
"You're not scared of what you're becoming," she said.
Koda frowned. "No."
"You're not confused anymore."
"No."
"You're not angry."
"…No."
"You're just—finally—honest."
He tried to reply, but the stairs stretched taller behind her now, impossibly tall. At the summit, a throne—pure white stone, veined with gold. Pillars encircling it like ribs. The seat of a god.
A place made for him.
He took a step forward. The air shimmered. The weight on his chest—light before—now bloomed into grandeur. Responsibility? No, something heavier. Something… fulfilling.
Each step forward, more people appeared—clapping, saluting, falling to their knees.
"You've earned this," said Junen's voice, though she wasn't visible.
"You endured what no one else could," said Thessa.
"They would be dead without you," whispered Wren.
"You lead," murmured Terron. "So they don't have to."
Only Deker's voice did not come.
Koda paused.
Where was Deker?
He turned. The street behind him was empty.
Only his statue remained. Sword raised. Eyes forward.
No shadow.
No companions.
Just him.
Alone.
A scream rose—not one of pain, but of ecstasy—as the people around him burst into golden flame and ash, like paper catching light. But they smiled as they burned. Rejoiced. Adored him even as they vanished.
He tried to look away. But the throne called.
Step. Step. Step.
Now Maia stood beside the throne, eyes burning white.
"You've outgrown the world," she said.
He opened his mouth to object—to say something selfless, something noble. But the words caught.
Hadn't he?
Hadn't he outlived every order, surpassed every creed? What did the Eternal Guide offer him now? He was the sword. He was the flame. The chains, the walls, the doctrines—they had all broken when he struck Wrath down.
He stepped onto the platform.
But it wasn't his foot that moved.
It was the reflection.
Still smiling.
Still perfect.
Still not quite him.
The throne pulsed. A heartbeat. A hush.
The voice returned. Clearer now.
"Sit."
He tried to speak. His mouth wouldn't open.
"Sit, and all will follow. Sit, and they will never question you again. Sit—and you will never need to bleed for them again."
Koda's knees bent.
The marble kissed his palms.
He gripped the throne's arms.
And the crown—molten, radiant, searing—lowered toward his head.
The crown touched him.
And the world went silent.
No thunder. No music. Just stillness—as if the dream itself were holding its breath. But the moment stretched too long, too taut.
And then, it broke.
The crown melted.
Not into gold.
Into fingers.
Thin, white, writhing digits clinging to his scalp like a parasite. They wrapped around his skull and tightened, their nails pushing beneath his skin, sinking into the soft tissue just behind his eyes.
Koda screamed.
The throne shattered behind him, crumbling like salt in water. The sunlight died. The spires of the city bent toward him, curving inward like a cage. And the people—those who had praised him, loved him, wept for his greatness—they were all still there.
But they were wrong.
Their faces were masks. Paper-thin and painted with smiles. Beneath the eyes: nothing. Just sockets. Open and yawning and watching.
Maia stood at the foot of the platform, smiling that same impossible smile. The skin on her cheeks cracked as the expression grew wider than it should have. Her voice was no longer hers.
It was Pride's.
"You see now," the thing said in her voice. "There is no line between what you are… and what I am."
The others appeared beside her.
Junen. Thessa. Wren. Terron. All with the same fractured smile. All still, but twitching slightly—like puppets waiting for strings.
"You didn't save them," Pride whispered.
"They just outlived the ones you killed."
Koda tried to move. His arms didn't respond. The fingers around his head had grown roots—threading into his mind, showing him images.
Wren impaled by a dozen lances, her eyes still locked on Koda's as if begging for guidance.
Junen on her knees, arms outstretched, whispering prayers to Koda, not the Holy Mother or the Guide.
Thessa slitting her own throat, smiling as she fell, mouthing the word: "Freedom."
Terron laughing as he pulled Maia into the flames.
"No—" Koda choked, the air thick and acrid.
But the voice didn't stop.
"You didn't protect them. You dominated them."
"You didn't lead. You commanded."
"You didn't suffer for them. You used their suffering to grow your myth."
A mirror appeared before him again, but this time… there was no reflection.
Just a vast, darkened cathedral, lined with stained glass windows depicting every moment of his rise—each of them grotesque and wrong. In one, he held Wrath's head aloft like a trophy. In another, he stood over Maia, sword at her throat, smiling. And in the last: a figure seated on a throne of bones, crown of hands fused to his flesh, his body vast and faceless.
That one bore no name.
Just a title carved into the glass beneath it:
THE ONE WHO REPLACED GOD.
Pride's voice curled around the base of his skull, intimate now, like breath on skin.
"Don't resist me," it whispered. "You've never had to. I am what's already there. I am not added—I am revealed."
The glass shattered inward, slicing across his body. No blood. Just shards of memory, each showing a moment when he could have turned back. Could have said no. Could have shared the burden.
Each one, ignored.
Each one, forgotten.
"You are not being tempted," Pride said. "You are being recognized."