Lucien and Sebas traveled toward the next village, the fifth one this month. There has been no news of the curse besides just the typical folklore rumors, so they just kept on traveling between villages. their horses' hooves thudding rhythmically against the dirt path. The morning mist clung to the ground like a shroud, obscuring the jagged peaks of Solennea in the distance. As they rode, Sebas remained uncharacteristically quiet, his brow furrowed in thought until he finally broke the silence.

  "Sir, I understand the physical aspect—people fall asleep, and their flesh turns to crystal," Sebas said, adjusting his reins. "But what does it mean that their dream turns to salt? I’ve heard the phrase, but it sounds more like poetry than a medical condition."

  "I never really got a clear answer to that either," Lucien replied, his eyes fixed on the horizon. "I still don’t have a full understanding of the curse. What I do understand from my past life is that the curse isn't just external. The inside of a person's head—the very seat of their consciousness—is turned into a fine, crystalline salt."

  "That salt is an addictive substance," Lucien continued, his voice dropping to a grim tone. "When someone ingests it, they don't just get high. They experience vivid, hyper-realistic dreams of that person’s life. But more than that, they see their potential life."

  "What do you mean by 'potential' life, Young Master?" Sebas asked, a look of genuine unease crossing his face.

  "Humans are full of 'what ifs,'" Lucien explained. "People have big dreams of what they could become—the most powerful person in the world, finding the love of their life, or even their deepest, darkest nightmares. The salt captures all of it: the reality and the fantasy. It’s likely the root cause of the legends saying their dreams turn to salt. It’s quite literal. Their hopes and fears are distilled into a mineral that others can consume to escape their own boring lives."

  Sebas shivered despite the morning sun. "To be reduced to a drug for the living... that is a fate worse than death."

  "It’s why the Church sealed the archives," Lucien said. "They weren't just protecting the public from a curse; they were protecting a market. In the future, that salt was worth more than gold among the nobility. When the curse appeared, this salt became the hottest commodity. "

  The carriage ground to a halt in the village square, kicking up a fine, gray dust that seemed to hang in the air longer than it should. As Lucien and Sebas stepped out, the atmosphere hit them. Damp, stagnant, and profoundly depressing. It was a town that had already accepted its own funeral.

  They walked toward the local inn, the only building showing a flicker of light. Inside, the usual tavern bustle was replaced by a low, rhythmic humming from the patrons, many of whom sat with glazed eyes. Lucien walked straight to the counter.

  “Where is the village elder?” he asked, his voice crisp and out of place in the gloom.

  The innkeeper, a man whose skin looked like dry parchment, stopped wiping a glass. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I am here to ask about the curse.”

  The air in the room grew stiff. The low humming stopped instantly. All at once, heads turned, and eyes filled with a sharp, jagged hostility settled on the two newcomers.

  “So, you came to poke around, huh?” the innkeeper spat, leaning over the bar. “Come to get yourself some salt, have you?”

  The hostility in the room surged. Lucien’s brow furrowed. “Salt?” he asked, his mind flashing back to the future. “Has someone already turned to crystal?”

  The sound of chairs scraping against the floor echoed like gunfire. Men stood up, their shadows stretching long across the floorboards as they boxed Lucien and Sebas in.

  “You know about it,” the innkeeper said, his voice laced with ice. “You’re all good for nothing. Nobles come here just to disrespect our people and strip the dead.”

  Lucien turned to Sebas, completely ignoring the men closing in on them. “It seems the curse has begun to spread, and the spread begins here,” he noted calmly. He looked around at the hollowed-out faces of the villagers. “But to think that nobles are already coming to acquire salt… as I thought, this is deliberate.”

  Lucien looked back at the innkeeper, his gaze hardening. “Why is the Kingdom not involved? Surely they know the gravity of the situation.”

  The innkeeper was thrown off by the question. This wasn't the typical arrogance of a noble; it was the interrogation of a strategist. He raised a hand, and the villagers stopped in their tracks, waiting.

  “Why are you really here?” the innkeeper asked.

  “I am here to stop the curse,” Lucien said.

  “You?” The innkeeper let out a harsh, bitter laugh, scanning Lucien’s small frame. “How can a twelve-year-old do anything about this? You’re a child playing at being a hero.”

  Lucien’s jaw tightened. He knew exactly what the man saw, but he didn't have time to play the part of a helpless boy. “Just because I am young doesn't mean I am incapable.”

  The innkeeper snorted and waved a dismissive hand. “Leave. Stop wasting my time before you get hurt.”

  One of the larger men, a blacksmith by the breadth of his shoulders, stepped forward to drag Lucien toward the door. He reached out and grabbed Lucien’s arm, intending to haul him out like a sack of grain.

  Lucien activated his Equilibrium.

  In an instant, Lucien became as heavy as a boulder. The man’s face contorted as he pulled, his boots sliding across the floorboards, but Lucien didn't budge a single inch. It was as if he were bolted to the very core of the world.

  The man gasped, his face turning beet-red as he put his entire weight into the pull. Lucien remained a statue. Then, with a sudden, violent shift in his weight's direction, Lucien grabbed the man’s arm and flung him.

  The blacksmith went airborne, crashing into the bar and sending the innkeeper scrambling backward. The innkeeper paled, staring at the twelve-year-old boy who had just tossed a grown man like a ragdoll without breaking a sweat.

  “I am not here for the salt,” Lucien said, the shadows under his eyes deepening. “I am here for the source. Now, tell me where the elder is before I stop being polite.”

  The innkeeper slumped against the bar, his hands trembling as he looked at the boy who possessed the weight of a titan. The hostility in the room had evaporated, replaced by a suffocating, desperate hope.

  “He... he is currently with a priest of the church,” the innkeeper stuttered.

  “So the Church is already involved,” Lucien said, his voice cold.

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  “Yes. 3 years ago, one of our own fell into a deep slumber. He crystallized over time, turning into glass. We begged the Church for help, but they were powerless. Then we lost a few more. It was a plague of silence.” The man swallowed hard, his eyes darting to the floor. “Then, half a year ago, we noticed the graves were disturbed. When we dug them up, our people were gone. Their bodies... stolen.”

  “We managed to catch one of the thieves,” the innkeeper continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. “He screamed that they were after the ‘salt in the head.’ I don't know what that means, but those servants were desperate. They treated our dead loved ones like gold ore. We reported it, and the Church has been patrolling more frequently. A Lightbearer is permanently stationed here now to keep guard.”

  Lucien’s eyes narrowed. In his previous life, the Lightbearers were the elite inquisitors of the Solennean faith. If one was stationed in a backwater village like this, they weren't just guarding the people—they were guarding the "mine."

  “Are there any current victims?” Lucien asked.

  “Yes,” the man nodded toward the north side of the village. “On the edge of town. A florist. Her son said they heard the wailing from the garden, and then he fell into a deep sleep. It has been two months. The boy hasn't woken up. It’s only a matter of time before the skin starts to harden... before he turns to crystal.”

  Lucien acknowledged the innkeeper with a short, sharp nod and turned toward the door.

  “Sebas, we’re moving,” Lucien commanded.

  “Already on it, Young Master,” Sebas replied, his hand moving away from his weapon, but his posture remaining vigilant.

  As they stepped back out into the stagnant gray air, Lucien headed toward the florist’s home. He knew the timeline.

  “Two months,” Lucien muttered as they walked, his gaze fixed on the humble cottage ahead. “The boy will be fully crystallized in eight more months. From what I remember, it took exactly a year for the body to complete the transition. Since the curse hasn’t fully erupted across the Kingdom yet, this village is likely the testing ground. The fact that other villages have started hearing the wailing means the 'broadcast' is expanding. They'll be hit soon.”

  As the first stone houses of the village came into view, Lucien slowed his horse. The atmosphere here was stifling—heavy and stagnant, as if the very air were a thick, invisible syrup intended to lull them into a permanent rest.

  They approached the door and knocked. A disheveled, slovenly man appeared, the stench of cheap alcohol clinging to him like a second skin.

  “What are you doing here?” the man barked, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused.

  “I have heard from the locals that your son has fallen to the curse,” Lucien said, his voice level and devoid of pity. “That he remains in a deep sleep and has not woken up.”

  The man’s grief curdled into a drunken rage. “And you came here to gawk at him? To see the freak show?!” he bellowed. “Leave!”

  He swung a heavy, clumsy fist at Lucien's head. Lucien didn't even blink; he simply tilted his head, letting the blow whistle past his ear. Before the man could recover, Sebas moved with the fluid grace of a predator, stepping in and restraining the father’s arms behind his back in a firm, painless lock.

  “Please excuse the intrusion,” Sebas murmured politely to the struggling man.

  Lucien stepped past them and into the house. The interior was dim, save for a single candle flickering by the bedside. There, he saw a grieving mother sitting motionless next to her son. The boy lay on the bed, his expression one of absolute serenity.

  What a kind curse, Lucien thought, looking at the child’s peaceful face. Hopefully, they are not tormented by nightmares.

  He approached the boy. The mother looked up at Lucien with listless, hollow eyes, but she didn't move to stop him. She had the look of someone who had already lost everything and was simply waiting for the silence to claim her, too.

  The air in the room grew heavy, the atmospheric pressure doubling as Lucien’s Equilibrium flared. He wasn't aiming for physical weight this time; he was aiming for the boy’s metaphysical essence.

  The physical walls of the cottage seemed to blur as Lucien reached into the boy’s internal energy. He saw it—a writhing, oily shadow coiled around inside the child’s head, pulsing in time with the distant wailing. Lucien reached out with his own spirit and squeezed the parasite with a crushing force.

  The boy’s back arched. His eyes snapped open, clear and terrified.

  "Mommy?" he whispered, his voice cracking.

  The mother let out a strangled cry, jolting from her stool to gather him in her arms. "My baby! You’re awake! Oh, gods, you’re awake!"

  "Sebas!" Lucien barked, not letting the sentiment distract him. He knew his grip on the curse was slipping; he was holding back a flood with a single hand.

  Sebas released the father and immediately pinned the mother’s arms, pulling her away from her son. "Forgive us, Madam, but time is short!"

  "Mommy!" the boy screamed, reaching out.

  Lucien ignored the heartbreak in the room. He grabbed the boy’s jaw, forcing the child to look him in the eye. "What did you hear? Before you fell asleep... what did you hear?"

  The boy began to sob, his small body shaking. Lucien didn't have the luxury of patience. He took the boy’s arm and twisted it—just enough to snap the child out of his shock with a jolt of pain.

  "Tell me! What did you hear?"

  "A woman!" the boy yelped, tears streaming down his face. "I heard a woman crying in the garden!"

  "That's not new," Lucien hissed. "What else? What did you do? Do you remember anything? Speak, damn you."

  "A song..." the boy gasped, his eyelids already beginning to droop as the curse surged back with a vengeance. "A man... a man was singing a lullaby."

  Lucien’s heart skipped. A man? The folklore spoke only of the Weeping Mother. "What did he sing? What were the words?"

  "He sang... about the stars... falling into the well..." The boy’s voice trailed off. His pupils dilated, and the unnatural sheen returned to his skin.

  Lucien’s Equilibrium buckled. The "tilt" he had forced into the boy's soul vanished as the boy slumped back into the pillows, his breathing slowing until it was almost non-existent. The deep, magical slumber had reclaimed him.

  The father sat in a drunken, terrified stupor on the floor, but the mother broke free from Sebas. She threw herself at Lucien’s feet, clutching his cloak with white-knuckled desperation.

  "Wake him up!" she begged, her voice a ragged scream. "You did it once! Please, bring my boy back! I’ll give you anything—just don't let him go back to the dark!"

  Lucien looked down at her, his face a mask of cold iron, though his mind was racing. There was "wailing" from mother’s grief; there was a male voice with a "lullaby" in there as well. That's certainly something new

  "I can't wake him again," Lucien said quietly, his voice carrying a clinical coldness that masked his internal exhaustion. "If I force it, his body will shatter like glass, even though the physical transition hasn't finished yet."

  The boy was sweating profusely, his small frame shaking with the aftershocks of Lucien’s violent intervention. The process had clearly taken a toll on the child's physical vessel, but as the boy’s breathing stabilized into that eerie, rhythmic sleep, Lucien saw the silver lining. The parasitic shadow had been bruised. He had bought the child a few more months of life.

  Suddenly, a smooth, melodic voice drifted from the doorway behind them.

  "Well, this is certainly interesting."

  Lucien didn't flinch. He slowly turned around to see a handsome man framed by the afternoon light. He wore the immaculate white and gold vestments of the Church, but his posture lacked the stiff humility of a common priest. He stood with the effortless poise of a man who held the power of life and death in his hands.

  Lucien looked the man up and down, his eyes finally settling on the sun-crest pinned to the man's collar. A Lightbearer.

  The priest tilted his head, a thin, curious smile playing on his lips. He looked at the sweating boy, then at the terrified mother, and finally at the twelve-year-old who spoke with the authority of an emperor.

  "A child who plays with souls," the priest murmured. "And a butler. You’ve caused quite a disturbance in the 'silence' of this village, young master."

  "We have much to talk about," Lucien replied, ignoring the thinly veiled threat. He stepped away from the bed, his face a mask of iron. "But not here. Lead me to a comfortable place. I assume the Church has a private office.”

  The Lightbearer’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. His eyes sharpened, flickering with a golden light that suggested he was finally taking Lucien seriously.

  "Follow me then, Lucien D’Roselle," the priest said, turning on his heel. "Let us see if your tongue is as heavy as your presence."