The hills did not echo.
That was the first sign.
Sound usually carried strangely at night—footsteps repeating themselves, wind inventing voices where none existed. Here, noise simply ended. The crackle of the fire died at its edges. Iscer's breathing did not travel. Even Tareth's heartbeat felt local, contained, as though the world had drawn a tight circle around them and refused to acknowledge anything beyond it.
Containment.
Not protection.
Iscer rose slowly, hand tightening around their sigil-blade. "This isn't audit silence," they whispered. "This is… avoidance."
Tareth stood with them. The weight inside him responded immediately, tightening like a muscle bracing for impact. Pain flared along his spine, sharp enough to steal breath, but he did not stagger.
Whatever had noticed him was not subtle.
The stars shifted.
Not drifting—reordering.
Constellations bent, lines breaking and reforming into patterns that had nothing to do with navigation or myth. The sky wasn't moving forward in time.
It was remembering backward.
Iscer sucked in a breath. "That's impossible."
"Yes," Tareth said softly. "Which is why it works."
The ground ahead of them darkened, shadow pooling unnaturally thick, swallowing starlight rather than blocking it. The shadow stretched, folding inward, becoming depth instead of absence.
Something stepped out.
Not a body.
A principle wearing one.
It stood tall, its form loosely humanoid but constantly misaligned—shoulders a fraction too wide, limbs bending at places joints should not exist. Its surface looked like cracked obsidian layered over something still moving beneath. Where a face should have been, there was a smooth, reflective plane that showed not reflections—
But consequences.
Tareth saw flashes within it. The crater. The ruin. The hovering toy. The bell ringing off-cycle.
It was watching results, not actions.
Iscer's voice shook. "That's… Demon."
"No," Tareth said. "It's worse."
The thing spoke without opening a mouth. Its voice arrived directly inside their skulls, layered and uneven, as though multiple thoughts had failed to agree on phrasing.
—A deviation that absorbs consequence.
A system that refuses erasure.
An unpaid debt that walks.—
The weight inside Tareth surged in response, pulling painfully at muscle and bone. His vision blurred for a moment—but he held.
"I didn't summon you," Tareth said.
The thing tilted its head. The motion was almost curious.
—Summoning is for servants.
You advertised.—
Iscer took a step back. "Advertised what?"
The thing's reflective face shifted. For a heartbeat, it showed them—standing beside Tareth, alive only because the world had hesitated too long to choose otherwise.
—A new rule.—
Tareth felt cold.
"I didn't make a rule," he said.
—You violated one loudly enough to be heard.—
The air thickened. Not pressure—meaning. The world was listening again, but not with ledgers this time.
"With all due respect," Iscer said tightly, "whatever you are, we're not interested in contracts."
The thing turned toward them. The reflection shifted.
Iscer saw themselves burning sigils into flesh, heard screams they had learned to forget.
—You already signed yours.—
Iscer went pale.
Tareth stepped forward, placing himself between them and the thing. The ground responded—this time not accommodating, but bracing, stone tightening beneath his boots as if preparing to absorb force.
"That weight you felt," Tareth said, voice steady despite the pain. "That's not yours to claim."
The thing regarded him.
—Everything that accumulates becomes claimable.—
"Not if it's carried willingly."
Silence followed.
Not emptiness.
Calculation.
The thing's form rippled, obsidian plates shifting, fracturing, reassembling as it processed the statement. Around them, the hills trembled slightly, reacting to a debate they could not comprehend.
—Willing carriers burn out.—
"Eventually," Tareth agreed. "So do parasites."
That earned a reaction.
The thing leaned closer, shadow stretching across the ground without touching it. The reflective surface of its face showed a new image now—
Tareth.
Not as he was.
As he might become.
A figure standing at the center of fractured land, reality bending inward toward him, audits abandoned, demons circling not as invaders but as petitioners.
Iscer saw it too. "Tareth—don't look."
He didn't look away.
"I'm not your solution," Tareth said calmly. "And I'm not your resource."
—You are a convergence.—
"No," he corrected. "I'm a refusal."
The weight inside him surged again, but this time something changed. Instead of compressing, it distributed, spreading through his limbs, his stance, his presence. Pain followed—but it was shared pain, diffused, survivable.
The sword screamed.
Not in protest.
In warning.
Steel flared, light crawling along its edge like living script. The blade had never been drawn for something like this—and it knew it.
The thing recoiled half a step.
—Interesting.—
Behind it, the shadow thinned. The stars overhead snapped back into more familiar patterns, though several remained subtly wrong, scars in the sky that would not fully heal.
—You are not ripe.—
—But you are visible.—
"I know," Tareth said.
The thing began to withdraw, depth collapsing back into shadow. Before it vanished entirely, its voice returned one last time, quieter now, threaded with something dangerously close to anticipation.
—Carry your weight longer.
Break something that matters.
Then we will speak again.—
And it was gone.
The night rushed back in all at once—wind roaring through the hills, fire flaring violently before settling, sound crashing against their ears like a wave.
Iscer collapsed to one knee, gasping. "That—That wasn't a warlord."
"No," Tareth said quietly. He felt hollow now, exhausted beyond anything he had known. The weight remained—but it had… settled.
"That was a principle," Iscer whispered. "One of the old ones. The kind demons follow."
"Yes."
They looked up at him, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe. "You didn't bow."
"I didn't need to."
Silence stretched again, but this time it was ordinary—merely the absence of speech, not the refusal of the world to listen.
Far away, bells rang again.
Not error tones.
Not counts.
Warnings.
Tareth sank back down by the fire, finally allowing his body to shake. Pain coursed through him unchecked, honest and brutal—but he was still here.
He stared into the flames, expression unreadable.
"I think," he said after a long moment, "that whatever I'm becoming… isn't just inconvenient anymore."
Iscer swallowed hard. "No," they agreed. "You're dangerous."
Tareth closed his eyes, feeling the weight pulse once, deep and steady.
"Yes," he said.
And for the first time—
He did not consider that a flaw.