The staircase shouldn't exist.
It had never been part of the original village architecture—
and yet here it was, spiraling upward from the altar's cracked jaw,
made of rib-bones and vertebrae, forming steps still slick
with ancient blood.
Inara's stomach twisted.
"Irvine… this staircase wasn't here before."
"It wasn't meant to be," he said, gripping her wrist.
"It's forming because he wants you to use it."
Her pulse stuttered.
"So it's a trap."
"It's an *invitation.*"
His jaw clenched. "And invitations from the Groom are worse."
Below them, the chamber throbbed like a living creature.
Faces in the walls turned to follow every step they took,
mouths widening as if chanting silently.
Thump.
…Thump.
...Thump.
The altar-heart pulsed again.
A voice—no louder than a breath of ash—echoed through the ribcage pillars:
"Leave a vow…
or leave the bride."
Inara felt the words crawl across her spine like cold fingers.
"What does that mean?" she whispered.
Irvine swallowed hard.
His wounded chest burned with a spreading darkness,
black veins snaking upward across his throat.
"It means the altar wants a sacrifice before it lets us leave."
The staircase trembled under their feet.
Suddenly—
A jagged crack tore open on the next step,
revealing something buried beneath the bone.
Something shaped like a book.
No—
not a book.
A wedding ledger.
Its cover stitched from dried skin,
its pages glowing faintly as if inked in molten gold.
A contract.
Inara reached for it—
and Irvine grabbed her hand violently.
"Don't touch that."
"Irvine… look—our names."
The ledger's top page shifted,
words writing themselves in real time:
**BRIDE:**
→ *Inara Lores*
**GROOM:**
→ *Irvine Hale*
→ *The Groom*
Her blood turned to ice.
Both names were written in identical ink.
Both considered "valid."
Irvine's breath hitched.
"It's binding her to *two* grooms," he murmured, voice trembling.
"The altar wants a choice."
Inara shook her head instantly.
"I don't choose him. I choose you. Always."
But the chamber rumbled in warning, as if offended.
Another line appeared below:
**ONLY ONE MAY ASCEND.**
**THE OTHER MUST REMAIN.**
Inara's breath shattered.
"No. No—no, I'm not leaving you."
Irvine closed his eyes, hands trembling as he touched the ledger.
"Inara… listen to me. If this place is built on vows, then it only allows
one soul to pass the staircase at a time."
"Then we go together."
He laughed softly—a broken sound.
"I'm infected, Ina. The Groom is inside my blood.
If I climb that staircase with you… the altar will choose for us."
"You don't know that."
"I *feel* it."
The black spreading across his veins pulsed with each heartbeat.
His eyes dimmed, one flickering with ghost-light.
"He's in me," Irvine whispered.
"And he wants to climb with you."
The ledger snapped open wider—
a gust of dead air ripping across their faces.
Another line burned into the page:
**THE ALTAR DEMANDS A VOW OF LOSS.**
**OFFER WHAT BINDS YOU MOST.**
Inara's lungs froze.
"What… binds me most?"
Irvine answered without hesitation.
"Your memories of me."
She staggered backward.
"No. Stop. Don't—don't joke like that."
He didn't flinch.
"That's what it wants, Inara.
It knows your love is what keeps him from taking you."
Her vision blurred with tears.
"You're asking me to forget you?"
"No," he said quietly, cupping her cheek.
"I'm asking you to survive."
The Groom's shadow stretched up the walls like a rising tide.
The faces in the chamber smirked, mouths stretching wider.
Inara clutched Irvine's shirt.
"Irvine, if I forget you—I'll never find you again."
He brushed his thumb under her eye.
"You already did… once."
Her heart cracked open.
"Irvine, I can't—"
The ledger glowed brighter,
pages fluttering violently,
as if the altar itself grew impatient.
A voice rumbled under their feet:
"Vow…
or bleed."
Suddenly—
the staircase shifted, one step dropping away,
revealing a pit of writhing shadows beneath.
Inara gasped.
"Irvine—!"
He grabbed her elbows, steadying her.
"Inara. Look at me."
Her eyes met his.
And for a second—
there was no Groom, no altar, no death.
Just them.
Just the life they wanted.
Just the love holding the world together.
Irvine leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers.
"If the altar needs pain… then let it take *mine*."
Her breath caught.
"What?"
"I offer my vow," he said, voice steady.
"My memories… of our engagement."
Inara's knees buckled.
"No—no, Irvine—stop—please—"
He smiled softly, brushing his lips over hers.
"Your memories will save you.
Mine will save us both."
But the Groom's silhouette rose behind them,
lace veil unfurling like wings.
He whispered:
"Choose."
The ledger blazed white-hot.
Inara looked back at Irvine,
tears streaming.
"If you forget our engagement… how will you remember why you fought this far?"
He kissed her temple.
"Because I'll remember one thing."
"What?"
"That I love you."
The chamber screeched.
The ledger opened.
And the altar
demanded
its first vow.
The staircase kept building itself.
Not fast.
Not sudden.
But with the slow, horrifying patience of a creature assembling its own spine.
Bones slid into place.
One vertebra at a time.
Each click echoed through the chamber like a countdown.
Inara kept her hand on Irvine's arm, squeezing as if her grip could anchor him.
Or anchor *her.*
"Why bones?" she whispered.
Irvine answered before he could think.
"Because vows in this place aren't written on parchment. They're carved into bodies."
A chill ran down her back.
The chamber around them breathed.
Not metaphorically—
it literally expanded and contracted like a lung.
Every exhale reeked of iron and wilted flowers.
From the altar pit, something wet dripped rhythmically onto the stone.
Drip.
...Drip.
...Drip.
Each drop made the ledger glow brighter.
That human-skin cover pulsed like a heartbeat.
Inara whispered, "This ledger shouldn't exist. This world—this era—it shouldn't have anything like this."
Irvine didn't answer.
He stared at the ledger with a look she had never seen on him:
recognition.
Not curiosity.
Not fear.
Recognition.
"Irvine…?"
Her voice shook.
"What are you remembering?"
He blinked, as though waking from a trance, and stepped back.
"I— Inara, I don't know. But when I look at that ledger… I feel like I've seen it before."
She grabbed his face with both hands.
"No. That's not you. That's him."
A shudder rippled down Irvine's spine.
The Groom's influence pulsed in his veins—an ugly, crawling bloom of black roots spreading under his skin.
Inara's breath hitched.
"Your heartbeat… it's slowing."
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
He wasn't.
The Groom's shadow stretched toward him like a second spine.
Irvine staggered, gripping the bone railing.
His pupils dilated unnaturally—
one swelling with normal darkness,
the other with an eerie, candle-white shimmer.
"Don't look at the ledger again," she pleaded.
But the ledger *flipped a page by itself,* forcing Irvine's eyes toward it.
A new sentence scratched itself into the skin-page as if written by invisible fingernails:
**THE BRIDE MUST ASCEND WITH ONE VOW.**
**THE GROOM MUST OFFER ONE LOSS.**
**BALANCE FOR FREEDOM.**
Inara's chest constricted.
"Irvine… this is forcing us into a ritual."
"It's a wedding," he whispered bitterly.
"A wedding with rules older than the village."
Behind them, the Groom's silhouette rose.
Crowned in decayed gold.
Veil dragging across stone like a trail of smoke.
The shadow's head tilted—watching.
Judging.
Waiting.
Inara's voice cracked.
"What does it mean? A vow of loss?"
Irvine exhaled shakily.
His fingers trembled as he touched the edge of the ledger.
"It wants to take something from us that hurts enough to satisfy it."
She stepped back immediately.
"No. It can't have anything from us."
"It already has my blood, Inara."
His voice was hoarse—raw.
"You can't keep giving it more!"
"If I don't… it will take *you* instead."
The Groom's veil fluttered, though there was no wind.
Faces in the altar pit smiled wider.
And then—
A giant crack ripped across the next bone step,
splitting it into two jagged halves.
Something screamed beneath them.
Not human.
Not animal.
Like a chorus of souls fighting each other to be the one that rises first.
Inara stumbled backward, nearly slipping—
but Irvine caught her waist, pulling her against him.
His breath was warm against her temple.
"Hey. Look at me."
She looked up, eyes wet.
"You're not losing anything," she whispered fiercely.
Irvine shook his head slowly.
"Inara… you don't understand.
If you climb that staircase with me while I'm like this—
the altar will merge us."
"M-merge?"
He forced a small, cracked smile.
"He wants to take my place next to you."
Her knees weakened.
"No. Stop. Irvine, don't talk like—"
"I can feel him in my bloodstream. He knows everything I feel for you.
Every memory.
Every promise.
He wants them all."
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
"No, no, no—"
"I won't let him take them from you," he murmured.
"So I'll give them up first."
"Inara's voice broke into a full sob.
"You're talking about forgetting us. Forgetting *me.*"
Irvine held her face gently.
"Inara… love doesn't live in memory alone.
It lives here."
He placed her hand on his chest.
The skin throbbed with unnatural heat.
She could feel two heartbeats.
His.
And something else pulsing through him.
She recoiled.
"I can't let you lose any memories. They're our life—our beginning—our promise."
He cupped her cheek.
"If a memory is the price, it should be mine. Not yours."
The ledger snapped open further,
slapping its skin pages violently as if impatient.
Another line blazed:
**CHOOSE THE MEMORY TO BE UNMADE.**
**THE ALTAR WAITS.**
Inara screamed.
"No! You don't get to choose what we lose! You don't—"
Irvine pulled her into a trembling kiss, harsh and desperate.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers,
breath shaking.
"If you climb… you live."
"And if *you* forget…?"
"I'll fall in love with you again."
Her soul cracked open.
But the Groom's shadow lunged closer.
The chamber parted like an aisle.
The altar demanded.
And the ledger glowed with burning hunger.
Irvine lifted the quill forming in his hand—
a long, thin bone sharpened to a ritual point.
"Inara…"
His voice broke.
"Tell me which memory to give him."
She shook violently.
"I—I can't choose that, Irvine."
"You have to."
"NO!"
He grabbed her shoulders, desperate, eyes wet.
"Inara, the altar wants a vow of loss. If we don't give it one—
it takes you."
Silence crashed over them.
Faces in the wall grinned wider.
The Groom's veil lifted, as if he inhaled her scent.
She whispered weakly:
"Irvine… please don't forget the day you proposed."
His lips trembled.
"That's the one I want to keep the most."
The bone quill glowed.
Inara sobbed.
"But if you lose it… you'll lose the reason you wanted to marry me."
Irvine kissed her forehead long enough to steady her trembling.
"Inara… you are the reason."
The ledger opened to a blank page.
The altar's heartbeat roared.
The Groom stepped closer.
Inara reached for Irvine's hand—and froze.
A third name appeared on the page.
**THE GROOM'S CLAIM:
— INARA'S HEART**
Irvine's entire body stiffened.
"Inara," he whispered, voice breaking, "write fast.
Before he writes his claim first."
She sobbed harder.
"Which memory, Irvine…?
Which one will keep us alive?"
His eyes locked onto hers—
blue, flickering with ghost-light,
but still *him.*
"The first kiss," he whispered.
"Take that one from me."
Her heart shattered.
"Irvine…"
He smiled through pain.
"It was perfect the first time.
It'll be perfect when I fall for you all over again."
The Groom reached his hand forward—
Veil rising.
Ledger burning.
The altar screaming for blood.
And Inara raised the quill with shaking fingers—
ready to carve away one of the happiest moments of their lives.