There was no path.
Only mist.
A pale, blue-gray haze that wrapped itself around the world, softening the edges of thought, swallowing sound, bending time. The Warden stepped through it with caution, cane lowered, senses wide. His breath left his lips in visible trails, not from cold — but from pressure.
The fog wasn't just mist.
It was memory.
It was regret.
It was Nocturne.
He had left the rotting forest behind. The strength of Thorn's fury still stirred in his limbs, primal and coiled. Sol's light steadied his movements. Nyx's clarity sharpened his instinct.
But this place made them all... quiet.
There were no trees here. No stars. No sky.
Only silence, and the gentle sound of something distant — water? Breathing? Crying?
"Nocturne..." he whispered.
His voice came back wrong — thinner, muffled, warped by the fog.
The cane vibrated once in his grip. Its form remained default, almost subdued, as if even it dared not shift too violently in this space. Its razorbill head was closed-eyed, almost mournful.
Ahead, shapes began to form in the mist.
He saw himself — younger, smiling — reaching for a woman with silver eyes and a scar across her cheek. Her laugh echoed, faint and soft.
Alira.
The Warden froze.
He had not thought of her in years.
The fog responded — brightening, then bending the memory. Alira turned away. Blood spread from her back like ink in water. His younger self screamed silently, face twisted in horror.
"This is not real," he growled.
But his hands shook.
A voice whispered through the mist. Gentle. Tired.
"It is real. Just not yours anymore."
The fog peeled away like fabric being lifted.
He stood on the edge of a great mirror-lake — the surface rippling without wind. And at the center of the water, seated upon a throne made of broken instruments and ancient bones, was Nocturne.
He was tall, lean, elegant in a way that didn't belong to flesh. Cloaked in robes of midnight stitched with starlight. His skin was almost translucent — pale with veins that shimmered blue. His eyes were closed, but when he opened them, the Warden saw endless oceans inside.
Not just sadness.
Depth.
"You made me weep," Nocturne said, voice like cello strings under a blade.
"I had to," the Warden replied.
"You locked me away. Buried me beneath fire and reason and rage."
"Because you were pain."
"Because I was truth."
The Warden stepped onto the lake. His boots did not sink.
"Then tell me the truth now," he said.
"You're afraid of becoming whole."
"I've reclaimed the others."
"But not me."
Nocturne stood, arms folded beneath his sleeves.
"Do you remember what you did when Alira died?"
The Warden didn't answer.
The mist surged.
A memory formed beside them.
A battlefield. Alira's body. His own form — screaming, mask half-broken, eyes wild with power.
Then the fifth presence — dark, winged, leeching something from her corpse. Something important.
The Warden's memory-self stepped back. Chose vengeance, not mercy.
"You let her soul be devoured," Nocturne whispered.
"I tried—"
"You chose to forget."
The memory collapsed. The lake rippled violently.
"You built me to carry that guilt. To bury it."
"I did what I had to," the Warden snapped.
"Then why are you here now? To silence me again?"
"To reclaim you. Because without you... I'm incomplete."
"And what happens when you reclaim sorrow?" Nocturne asked. "Will you wield it? Or will it drown you?"
The mist solidified into spears of glass. Dozens.
They launched from all sides.
The Warden shifted the cane — it transformed into a wide mirror-shield, absorbing the first wave. He rolled forward, shifting it again into a trident, stabbing the lake's surface. A shockwave pushed the fog outward.
But Nocturne wasn't attacking to win.
He was attacking to expose.
Images flickered in every wave of mist:
The Warden leaving comrades behind.
Killing without remorse.
Standing over a throne made of Echoes, alone.
"You want unity," Nocturne said. "But you want control more."
"I want redemption."
"Then stop hiding your grief."
The Warden dropped the cane.
The fog froze.
"Then see me," the Warden said. "All of me."
He removed the remaining fragments of his mask.
Revealed his face — lined, scarred, haunted.
Tears rimmed his eyes, not from fear.
From memory.
"I was wrong. To lock you away. You weren't weakness. You were the part that kept me human."
Nocturne stared for a long time.
Then he smiled.
For the first time.
"Then you are ready."
He stepped forward.
The lake shuddered. The air warmed. The fog withdrew from the edges of the world.
Nocturne pressed his hand to the Warden's chest.
A flood of blue light surged inward — cold and calm and heavy. The weight of truth, of sadness, of compassion. But not crushing.
Grounding.
As Nocturne's form dissolved, his final whisper was not in words — but in understanding.
The Warden opened his eyes.
All four Echoes burned within him now — Sol's fire, Nyx's shadow, Thorn's wrath, and Nocturne's sorrow.
And he was different.
The cane shimmered — now bearing new glyphs, new forms unlocked. He could feel it: the next time he fought, it would cut not just through flesh or illusion...
...but through emotion itself.
From the edge of the cleared fog, something stirred.
A ripple in reality.
A shadow cloaked in robes of many mouths.
The Hollowed Court had noticed.
And they were coming.
End of Chapter Five
Next: Chapter Six – The Court Sends a Whisper