Page 2 of Death’s Gentle Hand
The temple wasn't supposed to exist. Officially, all Ashen Accord sites had been destroyed when the Time Exchange came to power.
But Damian had found this one years ago, following the scent of old incense and the particular silence that clung to sacred places.
The entrance was hidden beneath a collapsed clocktower, accessible only through a crack in the foundation that he navigated by touch and memory.
The passage was narrow, his coat catching on rough stone. But the temple beyond was different—the air changed, becoming still and peaceful in a way the rest of the city had forgotten. No time-bells here, no mechanical heartbeat of the Hourveins. Just silence and the faint whisper of ancient faith.
He felt his way along the carved walls, fingers reading the stone's history through touch.
The carvings were smooth and deep, telling stories of figures with outstretched hands, gentle faces turned toward something beyond.
Not the skeletal horrors of modern propaganda, but beings of mercy and transition.
Damian found his usual spot and settled into meditation, trying to quiet the borrowed pain still echoing in his bones. The temple's silence wrapped around him, and he could almost forget the weight of the city pressing down above.
The peace was shattered by small footsteps, careful and deliberate. Someone young, he could tell by the lightness of their tread, moving with the hesitant grace of a child trying not to be caught. Damian held perfectly still, listening as the intruder approached what he knew was the altar.
The whisper of paper against stone, so soft he almost missed it. Then the footsteps retreated, faster now, fading into the distance. Damian waited until the silence returned before investigating.
His fingers found a paper bird on the altar, folded from what felt like pages torn from a book.
The paper was thin, almost translucent, and it carried the scent of tears and desperation.
When he held it close, he could smell the faint trace of ink, words that had been forbidden to write, much less speak.
Damian's hands shook as he examined the delicate folds. He should report it. The Time Exchange paid well for information about Accord activity, and he could use the money. But the paper felt warm between his fingers, pulsing with the same desperate hope that brought patients to his door.
He found the eternal flame by its warmth against his face, holding the bird over the flickering heat.
It caught quickly, burning with a clean smell that reminded him of winter mornings long ago.
The ashes scattered on the air current, and for a moment he could swear he felt something watching—a presence old as the city itself.
“Stories,” he whispered to the empty air. “That's all they are.”
But his hands lingered on the altar stone longer than necessary, feeling the smooth surface worn by countless offerings.
The walk back to his clinic took him through the worst parts of Veil Row, where the desperate sold their time in hours and minutes.
He could hear the street dealers hawking temporal fixes, their voices sharp with artificial cheer.
Time-debt workers shuffled past, their footsteps heavy with exhaustion, their breathing labored with the weight of years owed.
Damian's clinic was hidden in the basement of a dead clockmaker's shop, accessible only to those who knew the right combination of knocks.
He felt his way down the familiar stairs, following the handrail worn smooth by years of use.
The building had been abandoned for decades, but magic still hummed in its bones, a rhythm like gears and springs that made his teeth ache.
Corrin was waiting when he arrived—he could smell their particular blend of herbs and cynicism before he even opened the door. They were perched on his examining table, he could tell by the way the metal creaked under their weight.
“Let me guess,” Damian said, setting down his kit by sound and memory. “You tried to handle a soul-brand without gloves again.”
“It was an emergency,” Corrin replied, their voice carrying that particular dryness that meant they were in pain but trying to hide it. “Some of us don't have your martyrdom complex to keep us warm.”
“Fuck off,” Damian said without heat, reaching for his supplies. “Shirt off. Let me check the damage.”
He heard the rustle of fabric as Corrin complied, then caught the sharp scent of burned flesh and blessed metal. When he reached out to examine the wound, he could feel the heat radiating from their forearm, the way the skin had blistered and wept.
“Gods, Corrin. What happened?” he asked, feeling around for his burn salves.
“Mira Blaine,” Corrin said, and the name hit Damian like a fist. He could hear the anger and fear in their voice. “Time Exchange got her. Arrested for treating patients who couldn't afford the legal rates.”
Damian's hands stilled on the salve pot. Mira was a good healer, careful and skilled. If they'd taken her...
“She'll be Hollowed by week's end,” Corrin continued, and he could hear them trying to keep their voice steady. “Made an example of. The Exchange is cracking down on unlicensed practice.”
“And you were trying to break her out of holding,” Damian guessed, beginning to apply the salve with gentle touches.
“The thought had occurred to me.” Corrin hissed as the medicine hit the wound. “Along with the thought that you should lie low for a while. Your name's been mentioned in connection with hers.”
Damian's jaw tightened. “I'm not abandoning my patients.”
“I'm not asking you to abandon them. I'm asking you not to get yourself killed over them.”
“Same thing.”
They argued while Damian worked, voices echoing in the small space.
He could hear the fear underneath Corrin's anger, the way their breathing hitched when they got upset.
They thought he was suicidal, driven by guilt and self-destruction.
Damian thought they were a coward, too willing to compromise with an evil system.
Both of them were probably right.
Their argument was interrupted by the arrival of patients.
Damian could tell who they were before they even spoke—the time-debt worker by his rattling cough and the smell of foundry smoke, the soul-fractured child by her hitching sobs and the way the air shimmered around her broken spirit, the desperate woman by the scent of fear-sweat and the way she kept whispering prayers under her breath.
Damian treated the worker and the child, absorbing their pain until his own body trembled with exhaustion.
The worker's lungs felt like broken glass in his chest, making every breath a struggle.
The child's fractured emotions were worse—a symphony of discord that made his head pound and his hands shake.
But he gave them what relief he could, drawing their suffering into himself until they could function again. It was worth it to hear the worker's breathing ease, to feel the child's emotional storm settle into something manageable.
The woman was different. She wanted to trade her final year for medicine, to sacrifice herself for love. Damian could smell the desperation on her, hear the way her voice cracked when she begged. But he couldn't be party to her death, no matter how noble the reason.
“I'm sorry,” he said, the words tasting like ash. “I can't take your time.”
Her sob hit him like a slap. “Please,” she whispered, and he could hear her heart breaking. “He's all I have left.”
“And you're all he has left,” Damian replied, hating himself for the words. “Don't rob him of that.”
She left cursing him, her voice echoing with hatred and despair. The words hit their mark, but he didn't call her back. He'd learned to live with the hatred of those he couldn't save.
After the patients left, Damian sat alone in his clinic, magical exhaustion settling in his bones. The bitter draught called to him from his kit.
He felt around for his texture-coded journal, fingers finding the familiar binding. Each page had its own texture, its own weight in his hands. He recorded his patients by touch and memory, adding three new entries to the growing list.
The names of the dead were written on the smoothest paper, silk-soft and precious. Too many pages, too many names—maybe he kept them because he was too stubborn to let go.
A knock at his door interrupted his brooding. Official, authoritative, the kind of knock that meant trouble. Damian felt his way to the door and opened it to the crisp sound of a Time Exchange uniform rustling in the wind.
“Damian Vale?” the courier asked, though they already knew the answer.
“That's me.”
The courier pressed a sealed envelope into his hands, heavy with official wax. “Notice of temporal debt. You have exceeded your personal time allowance through unregistered magical practice. Current balance: seven months, fourteen days, six hours.”
Damian's stomach dropped. He could feel the weight of the notice, the official seals that marked it as genuine. Seven months was enough to warrant Hollowing, enough to make him disappear into the city's hungry maw.
“Acknowledged,” he said, keeping his voice steady.
The courier's footsteps faded into the distance. Damian closed the door and leaned against it, feeling the envelope's edges with trembling fingers.
He felt his way to the box where he kept the other notices, each one a reminder of the price of compassion. The Time Exchange was patient, but not infinitely so. Eventually, they'd come for him, and all his good intentions wouldn't save him from the Hollowing.
Corrin found the box when they returned with fresh soul-tonics, and he could hear the sharp intake of breath as they read the accumulated notices.
“Shit, Damian. Seven months?”
“It's fine,” he said, not meeting their eyes out of habit.
“Like hell it's fine.” He heard the jingle of crystallized time, the soft weight of years made solid. “Take it. Cover the debt.”
Damian knocked the pouch from their hands, hearing time-crystals scatter across the floor like fallen rain. “I don't want your charity.”
“It's not charity, it's survival!”
“It's pity,” Damian snarled. “You think I can't handle my own problems?”
“I think you're trying to get yourself killed, and I'm too fond of you to let that happen.”
In the end, Corrin left with their crystals and their anger, the door slamming hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Damian was alone again, surrounded by the familiar sounds of his trade and the weight of his choices.
He prepared his hands for tomorrow's healing, rewrapping them in blessed cloth that had once belonged to his mother.
The fabric was soft with age, and it still carried the faintest trace of her scent—rosemary and something else, something he'd never been able to name.
As he worked, he found himself murmuring half-remembered prayers to gods he claimed not to believe in.
The ritual soothed him, even as he told himself it was meaningless superstition. But the words felt right on his tongue, and the cloth grew warm against his skin. Maybe faith was just another kind of magic, too subtle for the Time Exchange to regulate.
That night, Damian dreamed of absolute silence.
Not peaceful quiet, but the complete absence of sound, breath, heartbeat.
He was drowning in stillness, searching for something he couldn't name but desperately needed.
The dream felt more real than waking, more true than the pain that defined his days.
He woke breathless and aching, his chest tight with inexplicable longing. The city's night sounds filtered through his windows—distant weeping and whispered prayers, the mechanical hum of magic and misery. But underneath it all was that silence, patient and vast, waiting for him to call its name.
Unable to return to sleep, Damian felt his way to the window and listened to Varos sleep fitfully around him.
The night air carried the scent of coal smoke and desperation, punctuated by the quiet sobs of those who couldn't afford tomorrow.
He held Mrs. Kess's charm in his palm, feeling its strange warmth pulse against his skin.
The charm pulsed in time with his heart, and for a moment he could sense something answering—a presence quiet but undeniable, as if the dream-silence had taken form.
Something moved past his window, different from the usual shuffle of the desperate. This footstep was lighter, accompanied by a sound he hadn't heard in twenty years—humming. Not the wordless moaning of the Hollowed, but a real melody, broken and sweet.
The tune cut through him like a blade. It was his mother's song, the one she'd sung while performing illegal soulbinding rituals.
The melody she'd hummed while bleeding power into protective wards, her voice getting weaker with each verse.
The last sound he'd heard before the spell went wrong and took his sight along with her life.
The memory hit him like a wave, and suddenly he was seven again, hiding in the closet while his mother fought to save him from the Time Exchange's attention. He could smell the herbs she'd burned, feel the heat of magic gone wrong, taste the copper of blood and the bitter ash of failure.
To ground himself, Damian pressed a heated soul-needle against his own fingers, using the familiar pain to anchor his scattered thoughts. The smell of burned flesh filled his clinic, sharp and immediate, pulling him back to the present.
He felt around for his journal, finding the section he'd labeled “fragments” by its rougher paper. Strange occurrences filled these pages, things he couldn't explain but couldn't forget. He added another entry, fingers tracing patterns only he could read.
Damian sat in the complete darkness that was his constant companion and whispered a single name to the silence: “Lennar.”
His voice broke on the syllables, carrying years of guilt and longing.
His brother's name, unspoken for so long it felt foreign on his tongue.
Lennar, who'd chosen safety over principle, who'd joined the Time Exchange to survive.
Lennar, who'd stopped visiting when Damian's work became too dangerous to ignore.
The ache in his chest wasn't just borrowed pain now. It was grief, pure and sharp and his own. For the brother he'd lost to compromise, for the mother who'd died protecting him, for the countless patients he couldn't save.
As dawn approached, Damian finally dozed in his chair, exhaustion overcoming memory. In his dreams, the silence was no longer empty. Something waited within it, watchful. For the first time, Damian felt ready to call it by name.
And in the growing light of another gray morning that he couldn't see but could feel in the warming air, Damian Vale began to understand that some things were worth waiting for, even if he didn't know what they were yet.