The tavern was silent.
Not the silence of an empty room.Not the silence of waiting.
The silence before annihition.
The Inquisitor stood in the doorway.
It did not move.It did not breathe.
It simply was.
And that was worse. Darius' pulse hammered in his ears.
Ais did not move. The innkeeper, the soldier—they had just remembered.
And now, the Thanatarchy had come to correct the mistake. The air shuddered.
Reality began to bend.
The erasure was already starting.
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The soldier's expression twisted. "What... what is that?"
He could see it.
Darius' breath caught. Then that meant he had truly broken the rewrite.
But the Inquisitor was already moving. Not stepping. Not rushing. Just arriving.
One moment, it stood in the doorway.
The next— It was inside the tavern.
The space around it folded inward.
And the first memory was already disappearing. The innkeeper staggered back.
His hands clutched his head.
"No—no, wait, I—"
His voice stopped. The color in his eyes drained. Ais swore. "They're rewriting him!"
Darius lunged. "SAY MY NAME!"
The innkeeper shuddered. His lips parted— And then— He colpsed.
Not unconscious. Not dead. Just gone.
The Thanatarchy had erased him before he could speak.
And just like that— His memory was gone again.
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The soldier backed away.
His hands trembled.
"Wh—what did you do to him?"
Darius turned sharply. "Say my name," he ordered. The soldier's breath hitched. "I—I—" His voice cracked. The Thanatarchy was already pressing into his mind.
Forcing him to forget again.
Ais grabbed his shoulders.
"SAY IT!" The world trembled.
The soldier gasped—his mind fighting against the rewrite.
And then, in a single desperate breath— "DARIUS VAELTHORNE!"
The erasure shattered.
The Inquisitor stopped.
For a fraction of a second— It hesitated.
Darius' vision blurred from the force of it—the collision of memory against the rewritten world. But it had worked. The soldier still remembered.
And the Thanatarchy had not erased him. Ais moved first.
She grabbed Darius' wrist—yanking him toward the back exit. "WE HAVE TO GO."
The Inquisitor turned its head.
The erasure accelerated. The tavern walls began to fade. The ground wavered beneath their feet.
The entire city was turning against them. Darius and Ais ran.
They burst into the alley.
The sky above was wrong.
The stars flickered—as if reality itself was unraveling.
Ais cursed. "They're rewriting Vaelmoor—now."
Darius gritted his teeth. He had pushed too far. The Thanatarchy was correcting everything at once.
And now, the city itself was trying to forget them. Shouts echoed from the streets.
More soldiers.
More people.
They had seen them.
They had heard the name. Now the Thanatarchy would erase them too. Darius' breath was ragged.
They couldn't let that happen.
He turned to Ais.
"We need to get out."
She didn't argue.
Because she knew—the city itself was turning against them. The air shifted. The Inquisitor was already behind them.
Ais's dagger fshed.
But the bde passed through nothing.
The thing did not move.
It simply spoke.
"You will be forgotten."
Darius felt his mind fracture.
The erasure smmed into him.
The weight of being erased.
The sensation of disappearing.
But he had already learned how to resist.
He forced his voice forward—through the unbearable force of the rewrite.
"DARIUS VAELTHORNE!"
Ais screamed it next. "DARIUS VAELTHORNE!"
And behind them—the soldier still in the tavern shouted it as well.
"DARIUS VAELTHORNE!"
THE ERASURE FAILED.
The Inquisitor jerked back. Darius still existed.
The Thanatarchy had not won. Not yet. Darius staggered forward.
The alley opened ahead—leading into the lower districts of the city.
Ais yanked him toward it.
They ran.
And this time, the Thanatarchy truly chased.
