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His kindred’s form did not change colour, but Ingram could see his own ethereal tears glittering around his pink, spectral skull.

“I have missed you, Ingram,”he answered quietly, lowering his bat skull until his flat snout was facing downward.“It is... lonely here. I do not like being without you. It feels wrong.”

“We are one.”

“Yes, we are.”Aleron rubbed at his sternum as he looked up and away. Then he bounced back and spread his wings.“I have learnt to fly now though, since I consumed a few souls I should not have.”

Aleron was trying to distract him. It wasn’t working.

Nothing could erase how he felt, although being able to see and speak with his kindred did bring him a small amount of tainted joy.

Weldir crossed his arms, and one disappeared despite the other remaining in that position. “Yes, you should not have.”

He bashfully scratched a claw at the side of his bony bat snout.“It gifted me some humanity, but it, uh, gave me the human’s memories. Weldir struggled to remove them from me. It was very disorientating.”

“I thought we could not eat more than one soul,”Ingram commented.

“It is like eating flesh here,”Weldir answered plainly.

“I see.”

Just as Ingram lifted his hand to cup the side of his beak in thought, the glow of purple halted him. He stared down at his claws and the tips of his fingers, that had turned spectral like Aleron’s entire form, except purple.

Then he darted his head around to check his body, finding the same thing was happening to his toes and the tip of his tail.

Weldir must have noticed where his attention had focused on because he commanded, “We must move on. The process has begun.”

He clenched his fists before he leaned forward to walk on all fours. Following Weldir’s lead once more, it was slower.

As much as he wanted to sprint headlong towards Emerie, he was unwilling to separate from Aleron. He even tried to curl his tail over the top of his long feathered one, only to pass through him.

A part of him considered... staying here.

Emerie and Aleron were both here. The two people he wanted most in all the worlds were in the same place.

“Why can I not stay here?”Ingram asked Weldir’s back.

“If that is what you choose, then so be it,” Weldir responded. “However, you will not be able to bond with Emerie, and she will... forget you if you part from her for too long here. I will only be able to save the most recent memories gained here between memory sleeps. Only Mavka remain fully conscious.”

Oh,he internally muttered.

Emerie had once asked him to choose.

At the time, he’d said he was unable to choose between her and Aleron. Was he... going to have to?

He peeked at his kindred beside him.

Who do I want more?

He tossed his head to shake it, snorting out a huff.An impossible choice.

His heart was evenly split between them.

“If you want my advice,” Weldir lowly muttered, “choose the human. You cannot take back your life if you choose to leave it behind, and you will learn that not being with her is painful – especially since she will be in your grasp, but utterly unobtainable. However, and I do really mean this, don’t tell her if you plan to stay if she rejects you. That is not fair to her.”

It isn’t?He didn’t understand why.

“You are here for a female?”Aleron asked with his head tilted.“A bride?”