Page 29 of Death’s Gentle Hand
Held by the Thread
Damian
T he descent to the Crescent Archive felt like traveling into the ribcage of some long-dead god.
Damian followed Lennar down spiraling stairs carved from bone that hummed with residual cosmic energy, his white cane tapping against steps that had been worn smooth by centuries of desperate scholars seeking forbidden knowledge.
“Watch your head here,” Lennar warned, his voice echoing strangely in the curved passage. “The ribs get low, and they're sharp enough to cut if you're not careful.”
Damian ducked accordingly, feeling the air change as they moved deeper into the archive.
The temperature dropped with each step, and the very atmosphere seemed to thicken with the weight of accumulated secrets.
This wasn't just a library—it was a tomb for knowledge deemed too dangerous for the surface world but too valuable to destroy completely.
The main chamber opened around them like a cathedral built from calcified remains.
Damian could hear the whisper of pages turning themselves, the soft hum of crystalline data cores maintaining information that predated human civilization, the rustle of robes from scholars who had died at their research tables and never bothered to leave.
“Soulcraft theory,” Lennar muttered, guiding Damian through the maze of reading alcoves and forbidden stacks. “Should be in the Eternal Bindings section, if they haven't moved it again.”
They found the texts they needed carved into tablets of crystallized time, the words shifting and changing as Damian's fingers traced their raised surfaces. The knowledge they contained felt alive, dangerous, eager to be understood despite the consequences such understanding might bring.
As Lennar read aloud from the ancient sources, Damian felt his worst fears crystallizing into terrible certainty.
Tethering Death to the mortal realm created an inherently unstable magical equation, a feedback loop that grew more dangerous with each passing day.
The mortal anchor grew stronger as the cosmic entity weakened, but if the bond progressed too far without resolution, the resulting temporal backlash would destroy both parties utterly.
“How long?” Damian asked, his voice steady despite the ice forming in his stomach. “How long before it becomes irreversible?”
Lennar's scarred hands were gentle on the ancient texts as he traced passages that spoke of cosmic dissolution and spiritual annihilation.
“Difficult to say. The texts are... metaphorical in places.
But judging by the symptoms you've described—his increasing solidity, your enhanced abilities, the way time itself responds to your proximity—you're already deep into the danger zone.”
“What about the physical symptoms?” Damian pressed, thinking of the nosebleeds that had started yesterday, the way his hands had aged decades in minutes before returning to normal. “The temporal bleeds?”
Lennar's pause was answer enough. “Those are advanced signs. Your mortal frame is struggling to contain cosmic resonance. And if he's experiencing similar instabilities...”
“Here,” Lennar said finally, his voice carrying reluctant hope. “A redirecting ritual. Instead of binding the cosmic entity to a person, you transfer the connection to an object or location. Break the emotional component, save the magical function.”
Damian leaned forward, his hands finding the relevant passages on the crystalline tablet. The ritual was complex but achievable, requiring materials that could be obtained and techniques that fell within his magical capabilities. But as he read the specifics, his heart began to sink.
“The emotional foundation has to be completely severed,” Lennar explained quietly. “All memories of how the bond began, all feelings that created the connection in the first place. The magic preserves their existence, but everything that made them matter to you disappears.”
“So I'd save him,” Damian said slowly, “but I'd lose everything that made saving him important.”
“That's the trade. Cael would continue to exist, might even retain some connection to this realm, but he'd be a stranger to you. And you'd never remember why that should matter.”
Lennar leaned closer, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper. “If you choose this path, Damian, you may become something unrecognizable. The texts speak of Anchors who lost their humanity entirely, consumed by forces beyond mortal comprehension. Will you be able to live with that? Will he ?”
The choice tore at Damian's soul like physical pain.
As they gathered the necessary ritual components—silver wire blessed under dying stars, crystals that hummed with temporal energy, herbs that grew only in the spaces between heartbeats—each item felt like a potential weapon turned against his own heart.
As they prepared to leave, Damian lingered over the forbidden texts. Cold draft snaked around his ankles, and for a moment, the ancient bones underfoot seemed to shiver. Something was watching from the shadows between stacks, aware that knowledge was being stolen.
He pocketed the second text, the choice burning in his hand like stolen fire.
This one described how anchors could voluntarily strengthen the bond instead of severing it, embracing cosmic connection despite knowing the cost. The cryptic inscription along its edge made his skin crawl with recognition:
Love is a key that opens all locks, but some doors should never be opened.
Some had been consumed entirely, their mortal forms unable to contain infinite energy.
But others—rare, precious others—had achieved something unprecedented.
They had become bridges between realms, beings who existed in multiple states simultaneously, love made manifest in defiance of universal law.
If their bond was destroying them both, perhaps the answer wasn't to fight it but to surrender completely.
That night, Varos erupted in coordinated chaos that made the previous Hollow attacks look like random violence.
The creatures surged through the streets in unprecedented numbers, but these weren't the shambling, directionless remnants Damian had seen before.
These Hollows moved with purpose, targeting specific locations and individuals with strategic intent.
Someone was directing them. Someone was turning the city's victims into weapons.
Damian fought to protect the refugees who had gathered near his clinic, people who had nowhere else to go when the boundary between life and death began to collapse. Their terrified voices created a cacophony of fear as reality warped around them.
Buildings flickered between states—new and ancient, whole and ruined, existing and not.
A woman aged fifty years in seconds, then snapped back to childhood, screaming as her memories scattered like leaves.
Clocks melted into temporal puddles that reflected moments from past and future simultaneously.
But Damian's magical abilities were spiraling beyond his control, corrupted by the temporal distortions affecting the entire city.
The absorbed pain he usually channeled defensively became aggressive, lashing out at anything nearby regardless of whether it posed a threat.
Dark energy sparked from his fingertips like poisonous lightning.
The first wave of Hollows approached from the east, their footsteps creating an irregular rhythm that spoke of souls fractured beyond repair. Damian counted at least a dozen distinct sets of movement, their breathing ragged and uneven as they shuffled through the temporal chaos.
“Get behind me,” he called to the refugees, extending his staff to its full length. The carved wood hummed with defensive enchantments, but even those felt unstable in the chaotic magical field surrounding them.
The lead Hollow moved with the jerky unpredictability of something that had forgotten how bodies were supposed to work. When it spoke, its voice carried the hollow echo of someone whose soul had been carved away piece by piece.
“Cold... so cold...” it moaned, its breath creating frost in the suddenly frigid air. “Need warmth... need to stop the emptiness...”
These weren't coordinated attackers—they were desperate remnants drawn to the clinic by the warmth of life and healing it represented.
Their partially-extracted souls craved the comfort Damian's presence offered, but their fractured minds couldn't distinguish between gentle healing and violent consumption.
The lead Hollow lunged with clumsy desperation, its movements driven by need rather than malice.
Ice-cold fingers reached for Damian's face, seeking the warmth that might fill the terrible void where its soul had been.
He heard the whistle of displaced air, felt the temperature drop so fast his breath turned to mist.
Damian swept his staff in a defensive arc, catching the creature across the chest. The impact sent it staggering backward, but its desperate hunger drove it forward again almost immediately. These weren't enemies to be defeated—they were victims to be saved.
“I can't touch them safely,” Damian called out, feeling the dark energy crackling around his hands. “The temporal distortions are making my Paincraft unstable!”
More Hollows pressed forward, their movements becoming more agitated as they sensed the magical chaos radiating from him. They moaned and wailed, not from aggression but from the terrible awareness that the very thing they sought might destroy them.
“Get back!” he shouted to the huddled refugees, feeling the dark energy building in his hands like poisonous fire. “I can't control it!”
The corrupted magic sparked from his fingertips in wild arcs, seeking any target nearby. One bolt struck a wooden crate, reducing it to splinters in seconds. Another carved a smoking furrow in the stone wall of his clinic, leaving behind glass-smooth channels that glowed with residual heat.