The fire crackled softly, its flames licking the night with lazy tongues of gold and amber.
Shadows danced across Sam's face — long, jagged phantoms cast by the twisting firelight.
He sat still.
Unmoving.
Eyes wide, glassy, fixed on the flickering heart of the blaze.
He looked like a man not just haunted — but hollowed out.
Inside him, something curled.
A knot — dense and sour, like grief left to rot. It pulsed with quiet pressure, aching behind his ribs.
"I… lost my memory," he muttered, voice dry as ash.
A heavy silence followed.
Albert didn't stir. He didn't eat. His spoon hovered mid-air, forgotten.
"You lie poorly," he said at last, his voice low. Controlled.
Like a blade drawn without flair — efficient, precise, dangerous.
"I've seen liars, kid. Hundreds. The smart ones, the desperate ones, the doomed ones.
You? You're not even trying."
Sam's fingers curled into fists.
His palms were slick with sweat.
His heart thudded wildly, slamming against his chest like a caged thing.
He wanted to speak.
To tell the truth.
To tear the weight from his chest and breathe.
But something stopped him—
Kill him.
A voice.
Icy.
Invasive.
A whisper that slithered through his skull like a parasite made of frost.
He's not one of you. He's a threat. Eliminate him. Burn him. Now.
Sam froze.
The world slowed.
His breath caught.
He lifted his eyes — and saw nothing familiar.
Not sapphire.
Not warmth.
Just steel-grey irises staring back at him from the man across the fire. Cold. Foreign. Wrong.
Don't trust him. Don't speak. Don't hesitate. Destroy him.
"Shut up…" Sam whispered.
"What?" Albert's brow furrowed.
"It's not you. It's… him."
Sam pressed both hands to his skull. His fingers dug into his hair, as if trying to claw the voice out.
"There's a voice. Inside my head. It's screaming. Threatening. Demanding…"
Albert was on his feet in a heartbeat.
A blur of movement.
He vanished toward the wagon — metal clanged, wooden crates groaned, frantic rummaging.
Sam knelt by the fire, breath ragged, trembling like a leaf caught between seasons.
He'll turn you in. He'll sell you. Burn him. NOW.
"Shut up!" Sam snarled. "Shut the hell up!"
His voice cracked.
He was shaking now, whole body quaking under the weight of something that wasn't his.
Then — footsteps.
Rushed. Urgent. Crunching dry earth and fallen pine needles.
Albert returned, holding something tightly in one hand — a silver chain, glinting red in the firelight.
A medallion, round and smooth, with a blood-hued gem in the center. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
"Put it on!" he barked, hurling it at Sam.
"What is it?!"
"JUST DO IT!"
Sam caught it. Pressed it against his chest without thinking.
And then — silence.
No light. No blast. No pain.
Just a sudden, staggering absence.
The voice — gone.
Ripped from his mind like a nail from bone.
Sam collapsed.
His legs folded beneath him as he dropped to his knees, forehead pressed against the dirt.
A choked breath left his throat, half sob, half gasp.
"He's… gone," he whispered.
Albert knelt beside him, his tone more measured now, but no less serious.
"Medallion," he said. "Old magic. Absorbs things that don't belong in you. Rare. Ancient.
But real. And it works."
His gaze was different now — stripped of amusement, of distance.
Sharp. Analytical. Watching Sam like a puzzle that had just revealed its edge.
"You're going to talk now," he said quietly. "Everything. Every last word.
And remember this: if you ever take it off… you might not survive."
Sam didn't answer right away.
Then… he spoke.
He told him everything.
About the bridge — the moment the world cracked open beneath his feet.
The blinding fall. The light so pure it hurt.
The voice.
The mark burned into his skin like a second heartbeat.
The girl with sapphire eyes — distant, surreal, unforgettable.
The flickers of magic. The pain. The blood.
Albert listened.
Unmoving.
He didn't interrupt. Didn't ask for clarification.
No gasps. No disbelief. Just the fire, slowly dying between them, and the weight of truth hanging in the air.
By the time Sam finished, the fire had burned low, casting only dull orange glows.
"You're lucky," Albert said at last.
"…What do you mean?"
"You're alive."
He poked at the embers with a stick, eyes distant.
"Most like you don't make it.
The Church finds them.
The mob burns them.
This world has no patience for cracks in its illusion."
Sam's throat tightened.
"You've… seen others?"
"I have."
"One created a spell that made plants sing.
One understood light, and tried to bend it.
One never said a word. Didn't matter. They still burned him.
For thinking too loudly."
He threw the stick into the fire. Sparks hissed, then vanished.
Sam stared at him, silent.
Albert looked back.
"You're different," he said. "You didn't just fall into this world.
You brought something with you.
Something… new."
A pause.
Then he turned to the coals.
"There's a story," he murmured. "A legend, old as dust.
About a man who could shape magic with will alone. No books. No gods. No permission."
"He shared his gift," Albert continued. "Taught people. Believed in them.
And they betrayed him.
So he cursed them.
Ripped the magic from their blood.
Locked it in scrolls, rituals, obedience.
And left the rest of us… broken."
Sam swallowed hard.
"…Is he still alive?"
Albert shrugged.
"Maybe.
Or maybe he's what's been whispering in your mind."
Sam flinched, recoiling from the thought like a blade drawn too close.
"Don't… don't say that."
Albert didn't press.
He stood slowly, the firelight casting deep shadows across his weathered face.
"Then listen carefully," he said. "You hide it.
The mark. The truth. The power.
You bury it so deep it forgets your name."
"…Why?"
Albert turned.
Half his face disappeared into shadow.
"Because if you don't, this world will turn on you.
The Church. The kings. The mobs.
They'll crush you under the weight of a lie they've spent centuries building."
He looked back over his shoulder.
"Do you know why they rule?" he asked. "The nobles. The clergy. The monsters in silk."
Sam shook his head, throat too tight to speak.
"Is it strength?"
"Wisdom?"
"Destiny?"
Albert snorted.
"Bullshit."
"Power," he said, "is illusion.
Like this fire. Step a few feet away, and you wouldn't even know it was here."
"What keeps their world standing isn't truth.
It's fear.
And fanaticism.
Because fear is easy.
It doesn't question. Doesn't think.
It just obeys."
His voice dropped, gravelly and bitter.
"And the worst part?
It works.
Better than blades. Better than laws.
And it will keep working… long after we're both ash."
Sam looked up slowly, voice a whisper.
"…So they know they're cruel?"
Albert smiled.
Not kindly.
"Oh, they know," he said. "And the truth is — they enjoy it.
And that… that's what makes them truly terrifying."
Sam closed his eyes. Let the horror sink in.
"…That's… monstrous."
Albert nodded.
And tossed one last twig into the flames.
"Welcome," he said quietly, "to the kingdom of Santius, kid.
Here, fear is sold at the price of faith."
***
Later, when the fire had died down to red-hot coals and the stars blinked cold above,
Sam lay down beside the embers.
The ground beneath him was warm.
The sky above stretched wide and empty — a canvas of black velvet pierced by stars.
The night whispered with distant wind and crackling branches.
The fire hissed, breathing low and steady like a dying heartbeat.
And then —
A voice.
"I'm here, Samuel," it whispered.
Not malevolent.
Not angry.
Alive.
Steady.
Calm.
And hauntingly… familiar.