It gnawed at me with every breath, every twitch of muscle. There was no comfort in the cot, no safety in the tent. The healers' chants were distant bells, muffled as though their words passed through thick water. Garron's presence was a weight against the storm, but even that was fading. The heat surged higher, until it hollowed me out, until I was no longer flesh but a vessel filled with flame.
And then the world broke again.
The tent dissolved into ash. My body fell from the cot into a sea of gray dust, endless, swallowing. I tried to catch myself, but the ground shifted like silt, pulling me down. The sky above was a veil of cinder, cracked by veins of fire that pulsed like the heart of a dying god.
The commander waited.
His form had grown clearer since the last encounter, as though my fever-fed weakness gave him strength. He was taller now, his armor no longer shattered shadow but whole, forged of black iron glowing at the seams. His face was still half-ruin, yet the molten light of his eyes cut sharper, steadier, searing into me.
"You return," he said, voice rolling like thunder over ash. "Good. You cannot flee what is within you."
I staggered upright, my body lighter than in the waking world yet burdened all the same. My arms shook as I raised them, searching for a weapon, for steel, for anything. My hand closed on air—then tightened on a blade of ash that had formed in my grip, brittle and pale. It felt wrong, fragile, yet it was something.
The commander tilted his head, amused. "A toy. Do you think it can cut me? Do you think it can cut yourself?"
"I don't need toys to break you," I rasped.
His laughter cracked the sky, scattering embers. "You already carry me. You already breathe me. Each breath fills you with my ash. Why pretend at separation?"
He lunged, faster than before. His black-iron blade carved the air, a sweep meant to end me. I barely raised my weapon in time. When steel met ash, the sound was like glass splintering. My blade cracked down the center, fragments falling away into dust. His strength bore down, crushing.
I fell to one knee. My chest burned as though the strike had pierced me through. His shadow loomed over me, vast, endless.
"You are weak," he growled. "Even here, in your own marrow. You have fought wars, but wars end. Ash endures. Bow, and be made whole."
I spat blood onto the dust. "Never."
The commander's molten eyes narrowed. He raised his blade for another strike.
But before it fell, the ash stirred.
The sea around us shifted, reshaping into walls, into corridors. The battlefield vanished, folding in on itself until I stood in a labyrinth. Endless paths carved from cinder rose in every direction, walls twisting, curling into the heavens. The commander's form dissolved into smoke, scattered by the shifting.
My breath came ragged, each inhale scraping. I took a step forward, ash crunching beneath bare feet. The walls were high, impossible to climb, their surfaces etched with faint carvings—shapes I knew too well.
The faces of the dead.
They stared from the walls in jagged relief: comrades who had fallen at my side, enemies cut down by my hand, innocents caught in the tide of war. Their mouths moved soundlessly at first, then the whispers grew, overlapping until the air shuddered with them.
I pressed my hands to my ears, but it did nothing. Their voices poured into me like water into cracks. Each name, each title, each accusation burrowed deeper.
The corridors twisted, endless. Each turn led only to more faces, more voices. My legs burned, though no true ground supported me. I stumbled, caught myself, kept moving. But no matter how far I ran, the whispers grew louder.
Then one voice rose above the rest.
The wall before me rippled, reshaped. My father's face emerged from the ash, not hollow like the others but vivid, sharp. His eyes—my eyes—looked down at me. His mouth curled into a frown I remembered from childhood, when my mistakes had been too heavy to hide.
"You dishonor me," he said. His voice carried weight, deeper than memory, heavier than truth. "You wear command like a stolen cloak. You bleed men dry for your own pride. You are no son of mine."
I staggered back. My chest tightened, each word a knife.
"You died," I whispered. "You're gone."
"Gone?" His voice cracked the labyrinth. "Gone, yet you carry me still. Gone, yet you kill with my hands. Gone, yet you destroy in my name. Tell me, boy—" His eyes blazed. "When did you ever lead for them? When was it not for yourself?"
"I fight for the South," I snarled. "I fight for them!"
But the words rang hollow, echoing back at me.
The commander's laughter rolled again, this time woven into my father's voice, indistinguishable. "Do you hear it, Ryon? Do you hear the truth? You fight because you fear what you would be without war. You fight because without steel in your hands, you are nothing. Nothing but ash."
The labyrinth trembled. The walls cracked, spilling streams of glowing ember. Faces melted, mouths stretching into silent screams. The corridors twisted tighter, closing.
I ran again, breath tearing in my throat. But the walls bent inward, narrowing, suffocating. I stumbled into a dead end.
The commander stood there.
No longer fractured, no longer shadow. He was whole now, towering, his blade steady. His face was no ruin but strong, unbroken—my face.
"You see it now," he said, voice calm, certain. "You are me. I am you. We are one vessel. Stop fighting, and accept it."
I raised my cracked ash blade, though it trembled in my grip. "I'll never be you."
He advanced, blade low, steady. I backed away, step by step, until the wall pressed against my spine.
The whispers of the dead surged, drowning me. Garron's voice pierced through faintly from somewhere far away: "Ryon—hold. Fight it."
But the commander's fire swallowed the sound. His molten eyes burned inches from mine.
"All vessels break," he whispered. "And yours is mine to claim."
The fever storm raged on.
My body thrashed against the cot, muscles seizing, sweat soaking through every layer. The healers chanted louder, desperate, their voices a chorus to drag me back. Garron held me down, his arms iron, his voice cutting through again and again: "Ryon. Breathe. Do not let it take you."
But in the labyrinth of ash, I was still cornered.
And the blade was falling.