They move him before the crowd can change its mind.
Not roughly. Not gently either.
Tyrian places a hand on Callum's shoulder and guides him away from the open square, steering him through a narrow passage between leaning stone walls. The touch is firm, deliberate. Anchoring. Like he is reminding both Callum and the world that yes, this person exists, and yes, he is being claimed.
Behind them, the murmurs start up again.
Lower now.
Callum catches fragments as they pass.
"Zha'kel-ta.""Marked him?""No mark. Worse.""Then why does the ground—"
Tyrian doesn't slow.
The alley twists, opens briefly into a small courtyard, then narrows again. Callum's heart is still hammering, every sense stretched thin. He keeps expecting someone to grab him. To shout. To throw another stone.
None do.
Eventually, the sounds of the crowd fade.
They stop beneath a half collapsed archway. Moss clings to the stone, glowing faintly blue in the angled light. Tyrian releases him and steps back, finally giving Callum space.
Silence settles.
Callum realizes his hands are shaking.
He shoves them into his sleeves.
"…Okay," he says. His voice cracks despite his effort. "So. You speak English. That's good. That's… really good."
Tyrian watches him carefully.
"You should assume that is temporary," he replies.
Callum blinks. "What?"
"Languages drift," Tyrian says. "Yours will too, if you stay."
That does not help.
Callum laughs weakly instead. "Right. Of course it will."
He rubs his face with both hands, then looks up again. "So. Where am I?"
Tyrian does not answer immediately.
Instead, he gestures outward, beyond the archway, toward the layered ruins and distant smoke.
"You are in Eidyrn," he says at last. "On the continent of Laskerreth. In a city that has been broken, rebuilt, and broken again more times than its people bother to count."
Callum's stomach sinks.
"…That wasn't the answer I was hoping for."
"No," Tyrian agrees. "It rarely is."
Callum exhales slowly through his nose.
"Eidyrn," he repeats, testing the word like it might crack if he presses too hard. "Never heard of it."
Tyrian doesn't react.
"That doesn't mean much," Callum continues quickly, filling the silence before it can swallow him. "There are places I've never heard of. Tons of them. Remote regions. Old names. Places that don't show up on maps unless you really look."
He gestures vaguely around them.
"This could be… I don't know. Somewhere deep in Europe. Eastern maybe. Or one of those abandoned heritage zones they don't let people into. France has places like that. So does America. Big countries hide things."
Tyrian watches him with an expression Callum can't read.
"And the people?" Tyrian asks mildly.
Callum hesitates.
"They could be… insular," he says. "Different language. Dialect. Maybe something old. Like Basque or—" He trails off, realizing how thin it sounds even to himself.
He looks at the stonework again. The way it curves where it shouldn't. The symbols that don't resemble any alphabet he's ever seen. The light that refuses to sit where it's supposed to.
"And the sky?" Tyrian asks.
Callum's jaw tightens.
"…Atmospheric anomaly," he mutters. "Light pollution. Refraction. I don't know."
Tyrian tilts his head slightly.
"And the way you arrived?"
Callum goes still.
He remembers the cold. The pressure. The way the air folded in on itself like reality blinking.
"…I passed out," he says, not meeting Tyrian's eyes. "Stress does that. Hallucinations. Dissociation."
Tyrian lets the silence stretch.
It presses in from all sides, heavier than the stone walls.
Callum finally looks up at him, frustration bleeding through the denial.
"You're telling me this like it's obvious," he says. "Like I'm supposed to just accept it."
"I'm telling you," Tyrian replies calmly, "because you asked."
Callum laughs once. Short. Sharp.
"Yeah, well," he says, "people don't just end up in places that don't exist."
Tyrian steps closer.
Close enough now that Callum can see the faint scars along his hands. Old ones. Earned.
"They do," Tyrian says. "Just not from where you came from."
Callum's chest tightens.
The words circle him, tightening like a snare.
He swallows.
"So this isn't…" His voice dips, barely above a breath. "…Earth."
Tyrian does not hesitate.
"No."
The word lands cleanly. Final.
Callum stares at the stone beneath his feet.
Not concrete.Not asphalt.
Stone worn by centuries.
He exhales slowly, chest tight. "Okay. Okay. That's fine. That's… that's fine."
It is not fine.
"I didn't take anything," he blurts suddenly. "If that matters. I didn't steal. I didn't break anything. I didn't even want to be here."
Tyrian's brow furrows slightly.
"That," he says, "matters more than you think."
Callum looks up.
Tyrian meets his gaze. "Most who arrive here come through contracts. Summons. Gates. They leave marks. Traces. Promises carved into them whether they agree or not."
"And me?" Callum asks quietly.
Tyrian hesitates.
"You appeared," he says carefully. "Without gate-song. Without crest. Without chain."
Callum winces. "That sounds bad."
"It is," Tyrian says. "For you. And for them."
He turns slightly, peering back toward the city. "Eidyrn is a world that remembers its rules. People who break them tend not to last."
Callum's throat tightens. "I don't break rules. I barely exist."
Something flickers across Tyrian's face at that. Too fast to name.
"Come," Tyrian says. "We should move again."
They walk.
As they do, Tyrian explains things in fragments. Not lectures. Observations. Answers only when Callum asks.
Eidyrn is old. Not ancient. Broken ages stitched together by necessity. Power here is not free. It listens. It costs. People fear what does not obey its patterns.
Callum listens, numb.
Eventually, they reach a low building half embedded in the rock. Smoke curls from a vent. The interior is dim, warm, smelling faintly of herbs and oil.
Tyrian gestures for Callum to sit.
He does.
The moment he does, exhaustion crashes into him like a wave. His body slumps forward before he can stop it.
Tyrian watches him closely.
"You should know something," Tyrian says. "What happened in that square will spread."
Callum lifts his head weakly. "What happened?"
"You were noticed," Tyrian says. "Without being introduced."
Callum laughs bitterly. "That's new."
"It will not stay that way," Tyrian replies.
Silence stretches.
Callum finally asks the question he's been avoiding.
"…If I stay here," he says, "what happens to me?"
Tyrian studies him for a long moment.
"If you do nothing," he says, "you will fade."
Callum stiffens.
"Not die," Tyrian clarifies. "Worse. People will forget you. Slowly at first. Then all at once."
Callum's breath stutters.
"That's—" He swallows. "That's already happening to me."
Tyrian's eyes sharpen.
"Then this world will accelerate it."
The words hit harder than anything before.
Callum curls his fingers into the fabric of his sleeve. "So what do I do?"
Tyrian steps closer.
"You bind yourself to memory," he says. "To people. To actions. To names."
Callum looks up. "Names?"
Tyrian nods. "A name anchors you here."
He pauses.
"You arrived without one that this world can hear."
Callum hesitates. "…I have a name."
Tyrian shakes his head slowly.
"Not one that will hold."
He reaches out, resting two fingers briefly against Callum's chest. Not a spell. Not yet. Just pressure.
"This world will not remember you as you were," Tyrian says. "So it will rename you."
Callum's heart pounds.
"And what name is that?"
Tyrian meets his eyes.
"Odysseus," he says. "One who wanders worlds not meant for him."
The air shifts.
Callum inhales sharply.
"And Constantine," Tyrian continues. "For endurance. For staying."
The pressure lifts.
The name lingers.
Callum sits there, stunned, the syllables echoing inside his chest in a way his old name never did.
"…Odysseus Constantine," he repeats quietly.
The world does not reject it.
Tyrian exhales.
"Good," he says. "It accepted you."
Callum looks up, fear and something else tangled together.
"So," he asks, voice unsteady. "What now?"
Tyrian allows himself a small, grim smile.
"Now," he says, "we teach you how not to disappear."