Amon was taken by a childish glee. The thrill of the lonely, finding a friend. The hunger of a man who had spent a year talking to rocks, and fox, finally hearing a voice that could answer back.

  But the Mist was not giddy.

  It was cold. Stern.

  It refused to open the channel.

  Instead, the tar surged, wrapping around Sharlone’s immense, chitinous form, and dragging him deeper into the dark. The blessing pulsed with displeasure.

  Troublesome child, it seemed to say. Rebellious. Dangerous.

  The Garden didn't like disobedience. It existed to save, to protect, to swaddle souls in eternal safety. When a soul fought back—when it demanded the right to bleed and die—the Garden reacted with the confused frustration of a parent whose toddler was trying to run into a trampling mob.

  Sharlone was not being offered release.

  He was being put into timeout.

  The tar cocooned him, locking his limbs, filling his spiracles, and muffling his curses. He was safe, he was preserved, and he was furious.

  ‘Let me out!’ The thought screamed against the walls of Amon’s mind, faint but distinct. ‘I am not a stone to be collected!’

  Amon’s excitement cooled into a familiar, heavy pragmatism.

  He understood the Garden better than Sharlone. He understood the lie.

  Belugmah had promised him freedom, if he chose to leave. But Amon knew, with the certainty of a man who had lived under dragons, that the door was painted on the wall.

  Power didn't ask. Power took.

  The Garden preserved, whether a Soul wanted it or not.

  And Amon… Amon was fine with that.

  He had been a farmer. His life had been a series of obligations to forces he couldn't control. Weather, taxes, dragons. Belugmah was just a new landlord, and a generous one at that.

  ‘I am content,’ he projected, opening his mind to the Mist. ‘I am yours.’

  The blessing relaxed.

  It flowed over him, a warm, approving tide. The Mist whispered apologies. It explained that Sharlone was… difficult. A wild soul. A danger to himself. He needed to be restrained, not punished, but kept safe until he learned to appreciate the walls.

  ‘Like a dog that bites,’ Amon thought. ‘Or a river that floods.’

  The Mist agreed. It trusted Amon. It saw his compliance not as weakness, but as wisdom.

  Speak to him, the Mist allowed. Teach him.

  The channel opened.

  It was like a dam breaking.

  ‘—cowardice! Theft! You cannot keep me bound forever!’ Sharlone’s voice boomed in Amon’s skull, raw and resonant. ‘The call of rebirth will bring salvation! They will hear me!’

  Amon paused, letting the Mist provide context.

  Ethumia.

  The Primordial Celestial of Life, Nature, and the Cycle. The Great Mother who demanded that all things grow, die, and return to the soil to feed the next generation.

  Her agents—Heralds—roamed the multiverse, hunting for souls that had gotten stuck. They were the liberators of the dead, the ones who ensured the cycle continued.

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  Sharlone was right. If he screamed loud enough, long enough… they would come.

  And the Garden would have to fight them.

  ‘They will come,’ Amon replied, his thought-voice calm, measured.

  Sharlone fell silent, surprised by the sudden response.

  ‘But they will not find you,’ Amon continued. ‘Belugmah’s gift is absolute. The Mist hides in the deep places. You are safe here. Forever.’

  ‘Safe?’ Sharlone spat the word. ‘Is that what you call this? Buried in slime? Denied movement?’

  ‘Yes. Safe. No more wars. No more hunger. No more fear.’

  ‘And my people?’ Sharlone’s voice cracked. ‘The Golsers? My warriors? Are they “safe” too?’

  ‘All of them,’ Amon confirmed. ‘They dream, they sleep, they are at peace.’

  ‘Peace is for the dead!’ Sharlone roared. ‘I demand life! I demand the risk! I demand the right to fail!’

  Amon sighed. He picked up his chisel and resumed his work on the stone crab.

  ‘Then return to the dream,’ he suggested. ‘Sleep, King. Dream of your battles, your victories. Because the reality is… this is it.’

  ‘I will not sleep!’ Sharlone raged. ‘I will scream until the stars hear me! The Emissaries of Ethumia will burn this pit to ash!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Amon mused. ‘But until then… look at what you have.’

  He leaned back, letting the tar flow over his armored hands.

  ‘We are immortal here, Sharlone. We have eternity. Think of what you could learn. Think of what you could become.’

  ‘I could become a parasite’s pet,’ Sharlone sneered. ‘Like you.’

  Amon chuckled. ‘We are all someone’s pet, at least this master feeds us.’

  ‘It feeds on us!’

  ‘A fair trade,’ Amon countered. ‘It takes Mana, in turn it gives time, and power.’

  He flexed his will. The Mana in his Core surged, Tier 1, pushing toward Tier 2. He felt the tar around him ripple in response, obedient, lethal.?

  ‘I am stronger now than I ever was alive,’ Amon sent. ‘And you… you are already strong. Imagine what you could be if you stopped fighting the current and learned to swim.’

  ‘I know what you are doing,’ Sharlone hissed. ‘You want me to surrender, for you want company in your cage.’

  Amon didn't deny it.

  ‘It is lonely in the dark,’ he admitted. ‘And we have much work to do.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Saving them,’ Amon said. ‘The others. The ones who haven't fallen yet.’

  ‘You are mad,’ Sharlone whispered. ‘You have bound yourself to a monster. You think you are a partner? You are a slave.’

  ‘Freedom is a lie for the weak,’ Amon said, reciting the lesson he had learned in the ashes of Thicketon. ‘The strong dictate. The weak obey. I have simply chosen a strong master.’

  ‘I am a King!’ Sharlone bellowed. ‘I am the Breaker! I bow to no one!’

  ‘You are bowing now,’ Amon pointed out gently. ‘The tar holds you, and the Mist owns you. Your crown is a memory.’

  He severed the connection.

  It wasn't malice. It was just… enough.

  He felt the Mist’s approval. It wrapped around him, warm and validating. He had tried, and been patient.

  He is stubborn, the Mist agreed.

  ‘He is a king,’ Amon corrected. ‘Kings don't learn easily.’

  He looked at the stone crab in his hands. He smoothed the final curve of the shell.

  ‘Will the Heralds come?’ he asked the Mist.

  The fear lingered. Sharlone was loud, and his soul a beacon of defiance.

  The Mist considered it.

  Unlikely, it whispered.

  The reassurance wasn't based on the Garden's strength, but on the realm's tragedy.

  Above them, the war was not just fighting; it was consumption. The Tharnells had deployed their Soul Furnaces. The God-Shells were marching, their engines roaring with the agony of burning spirits.

  The surface was a cacophony.

  Tens of thousands of souls were being ripped from their bodies daily. They were being shredded, siphoned, and burned as fuel. Their screams—silent to the ears, but deafening to the spirit—filled the ether.

  The spiritual noise was blinding, and a hurricane of static.

  He is a whisper in a storm, the Mist conveyed. Let him scream. The engines are louder.

  Amon felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

  The tragedy of the surface was their camouflage. The slaughter was their shield. Sharlone could scream for a thousand years, and his voice would be drowned out by the industrial genocide churning the mud above.

  ‘Good,’ Amon thought, though the word tasted like ash. ‘That is… good.’

  He picked up another rock.

  There were thousands of decent souls in the Garden now. Surely, one of them would be reasonable. Surely, one of them would understand the gift.

  Amon began to carve again.

  Scrape. Scrape. Clink.

  He would wait. He had time.

  He had forever.