The ruins thinned into barren flats, the ash stretching out like a dead ocean.
Cael followed Eren and Nyra in silence, every step stirring small, lazy swirls of dust. His head still rang with the aftershock of whatever he'd done to the Echo. His fingers twitched now and then, as if feeling for something just out of reach.
The whispers hadn't gone.
If anything, they were louder now.
"...bones forgotten..."
"...names devoured..."
"...you called us..."
Nyra kept glancing at him, wariness plain on her face. Even Eren, for all his swagger, kept a careful distance—walking ahead, but never out of reach if he needed to strike.
Cael knew the look they gave him.
He'd seen it before in the Wastes: the way scavengers looked at corpses that hadn't fallen yet.
As they crossed a cracked stone bridge hanging over an endless crevasse, Eren slowed, motioning for silence. He knelt, brushing aside the ash.
A sigil. Fresh.
Veil-work.
"This wasn't here yesterday," he muttered.
Nyra stiffened. "Raiders?"
Eren shook his head. "Worse."
Before Cael could ask what he meant, the ash beneath his feet shifted.
He staggered back as something clawed up from the ground—long, twisted arms made of bone and blackened sinew. A skeletal figure, its mouth sewn shut with rusted wire, dragged itself halfway out of the earth.
It didn't move toward them. It reached for him.
"...caller... binder..." the whispers moaned.
Cael stumbled back, heart hammering.
Eren drew his blades, his expression grim. "Don't touch it. It's not attacking. It's begging."
The corpse thing shuddered, hands clawing the air. The runes stitched into its flesh glowed faintly.
Cael felt sick.
"What is it?" he asked, voice rough.
Nyra answered in a whisper. "A Bound Remnant. They're souls caught halfway—marked by the Veil, but never freed."
Eren's gaze sharpened. "You didn't just command that Echo back there. You marked yourself. They think you're their master now."
The Remnant moaned again, dragging itself forward on broken elbows, leaving trails of ash like blood.
"...save us... free us... bind us..."
Cael's stomach twisted. He stepped back, but the thing kept crawling after him, leaving pieces of itself behind.
"Kill it," Nyra said sharply. "Before more come."
But Cael stood frozen.
The Remnant's blind, broken face turned toward him, and for a heartbeat—through the tangle of whispers—he heard something clear.
A child's voice. Small. Pleading.
"...help me..."
His knife slipped from numb fingers.
Eren swore under his breath, stepping between Cael and the creature. With one swift, brutal slash, he severed its head.
The Remnant fell still, crumbling into black ash that scattered in the dead wind.
Silence fell.
Cael stood there, staring at the ash as it blew away, feeling something cold coil tighter around his soul.
Eren wiped his blade clean and looked at Cael with grim finality. "You want to survive out here? Lesson one: Mercy kills faster than any blade."
Nyra turned away, her face unreadable.
Cael said nothing.
But inside, something cracked.
The power inside him wasn't a gift.
It was a curse.
And now the dead would never stop finding him.