Sunless had faced countless impossible trials—beasts that clawed their way out of nightmare, curses that hollowed out souls, traps so intricate they seemed spun by gods. The Awakened beasts of the Forgotten Shore, the creatures that would have left most Sleepers torn and broken, had been ground to dust beneath his cunning. A handful of Awakened monsters had followed, lured into death by quiet, calculated cruelty.
Starvation? That had been a mere inconvenience. The Fallen Beast? The Carapace Demon? Crushed. Even the soul-devouring tree—an entity so hopelessly binding it turned warriors into weeping husks—had failed to ensnare him.
He had crossed the Dark Sea on nothing but sheer will and bitter instinct. His courage had never broken. His plans had never failed.
But now... now he was bald.
Well—half bald.
The right side of his head had been scorched clean, the hair burned away completely. The left was a ragged mess of black, tangled and uneven. And worst of all? They were going to arrive in the city before nightfall. A city full of other Sleepers. People. Eyes. Judgments.
After a whole month of traveling, this was the version of himself he had to present?
He scowled at his reflection in the gleaming surface of [Midnight Shard], its dark metal whispering the truth he couldn't ignore.
It was bad.
Normally, this wouldn't have rattled him. He had only begun to care about his appearance after his First Night, when survival had stopped being his only concern. But now? Now it mattered. First impressions mattered—especially when dealing with other Sleepers, those strange hybrids of threat and potential ally.
So he did what little he could. He shaved the ruined half clean, the smooth skin pale against the remaining soot and ash. Then, carefully, he combed the longer hair from the left side across the top, arranging it so that the front looked fuller—longer—than the back. With some effort and subtle manipulation, he made it appear intentional. Tactical.
It wasn't ideal, but it would do.
And best of all, it gave him an excuse to stay apart.
Alice had looked ready to murder him with her eyes alone. Cassie had retreated deep within herself after their awkward embrace. And Nephis… Nephis had yet to wake.
She had been unconscious for a full day now.
He glanced toward her curled form, blanketed and still. The Soul Shard he'd given her—ripped from the vile, world-warping essence of the Vile Thieving Bird's spawn—was far beyond anything a Dormant could normally survive, let alone absorb. That creature had been a Great Devil, three cores removed from sovereigns in scale and power. The shard was potent enough to buy a hundred Legacy Clans, and he'd given it away without hesitation.
Not because he didn't value it—he did. In the Waking World, he might have bargained it for knowledge, power, safety.
But here? Here he had no way to bring it back. Its worth was theoretical, unless he could find a way to return with it or feed it to the Soul Tree.
That's why he'd only given her one.
Even a single shard would saturate her soul core completely.
And now? She slept. Still. Silent.
He frowned again, rubbing a calloused thumb along the edge of his jaw.
He should be planning. Preparing. Thinking ten moves ahead. Instead, he was fussing over his hair.
*Gods, how had it come to this?*
'*'
*It's not the destination that matters, but the journey.*
Her father used to say that. Back then, Cassie had taken it as something wise, something deep—maybe even a guiding star.
Now?
Now she suspected he'd never actually trudged through knee-deep mud in a cursed death zone, blind and aching and unsure of what kind of unspeakable Horror might swoop down from the sky or crawl out of the muck beneath her.
And definitely not surrounded by people who had all, somehow, forgotten how to make noise.
Alice, her bright, chaotic, wonderful mess of a friend—normally the loudest person Cassie had ever met—was silent. Which was wrong. Deeply wrong. Cassie had grown used to her voice, that steady stream of bubbly nonsense, half-thoughts, giggles, and gossip that made her surroundings feel *alive*. It was frustrating sometimes, yes. But also comforting. Predictable. Loudness was safety.
Now the only sounds from Alice were the *thwip* of her bowstring and the odd assortment of croaks and clicks from Puffy.
Nephis was never much of a talker, Cassie knew that. She had always struggled to speak up, but she *had* spoken. Quietly, carefully, with a precision Cassie had learned to understand. She always warned Cassie before she did something. Gave her cues. Stayed close.
Now? Cassie only knew she was there because of the soft, rhythmic crunch of footsteps ahead. No voice. No quiet reassurance. Just distance.
And then there was Sunny.
Sunless.
Her first friend after she lost her sight. The one who never let the quiet take her. Even when he didn't speak, he made sounds—little patterns. A clap, a tap, a soft shuffle—three in a row, always. Like a secret knock. Like a code just for her.
He knew silence unnerved her. He tried to fill it, in his own quiet way. Always a bit too late, sure—she could sense him already through his runes—but it meant something. That he tried.
But now... he was gone.
Not just quiet. Gone.
His presence was like a thread that had been cut—so cleanly that she almost didn't feel it until it snapped. His Attributes vanished from her perception. He hadn't said anything. Hadn't warned her. No footsteps. No knock. Just a ghost in the dark, appearing only long enough to leave something behind… then vanishing again.
Cassie hated this.
She hated the silence. Hated the way it settled into her chest like cold ash. Hated how the world felt too wide, too empty, without his presence marking a boundary.
And most of all… she hated that this was *her fault*.
That she had sent him away—not with words, not even intentionally—but with a single moment of weakness. A single breath of pleasure when she should have stayed strong. When she should have *protected* him.
She wished she could go back.
Back to the Soul Tree, before it had all unraveled.
Before Sunny had ripped into Alice's flaw.
Before she'd drowned in ecstasy and pulled him under with her.
Before she had let him burn.
Before she knew that she would lose him.