I stared at the anchor.

  Up close, it felt wrong in a different way than the other one. Not violent. Not hungry. Just heavy. The white gold light pulsed softly, like a breath taken by something that did not know how to exhale.

  “So…” I said quietly. My voice sounded too small in the chamber. “What do we do with this?”

  Daeryon didn’t answer right away.

  He stood a few steps from it, eyes narrowed, his gaze cutting through the layers of light wrapped around the core.

  “I will have to absorb it,” he said.

  I turned to him. “Absorb it? Why would you absorb it? I’m pretty sure there’s a way to destroy it. Right?”

  “No, Daniel, there isn’t.”

  Daeryon’s eyes never left the shield. “The anchor was not formed with abyss chi alone. It was stabilized using refined vitality. The life force he took from the people.”

  I stared at the shield and suddenly understood why it felt so heavy. It wasn’t power. It was weight.

  “How many?” I asked, even though I didn’t want the answer. “How many people had to die to create this... shield?”

  “So much more than you would think,” he said.

  “He manipulated and refined their energy, holding it in a state that should not exist.”

  My chest tightened. The light didn’t look clean anymore. It looked trapped. “So if you leave it here?” I asked.

  “It will remain here,” Daeryon said. “Slowly degrading. Twisting. Eventually, it would become something far worse than the one who made it.”

  I shook my head, a cold unease crawling up my spine. “And absorbing it stops that?”

  “It returns what was stolen back into circulation,” he said simply. “Through me.”

  That last part landed deeper than I expected. “Through you,” I repeated.

  Daeryon finally turned to face me. “There is no other stable method.”

  Something hot and sharp flared in my chest. “Daeryon, no. You’re talking about absorbing…” I hesitated, the words slipping away from me.

  “They’re not just energy. They’re not corruption. They’re people. They are…”

  He stepped closer, his presence steady and grounding. “They will not have to suffer anymore.”

  That was all he said.

  It should not have been enough. Somehow, it was.

  Still, my hands tightened. “And what does it do to you? Will you be okay?”

  Daeryon paused. Just a fraction. “It will not do much. I will be okay, Daniel.”

  He looked back at the anchor, then spoke again, quieter. “It is not a pleasant process. But it is necessary.”

  I stared at the light, at its slow, patient pulse. “You say that like it’s nothing.”

  “It is not nothing,” he replied. “It is simply my responsibility.”

  The word settled into the space between us like a stone dropped into water.

  Daeryon stepped closer to the anchor.

  The white gold light responded immediately, its pulse tightening, sharpening, as if it sensed intent. Along its surface, the light shifted, lines reweaving themselves in slow, deliberate patterns.

  Then he stopped.

  Just short of reaching out.

  For a moment, he stood perfectly still. The cave held its breath with him. Then he looked back over his shoulder at me.

  “Before I do this,” he said, his voice steady, “there is something you should consider.”

  A knot formed in my chest. “What now?”

  He turned fully this time, his gaze settling on me with a weight that made my spine straighten without thinking. “Absorbing this would change very little for me,” he said.

  “But for you, it would be a great opportunity.”

  I just stared at him. “Daeryon, what do you mean?”

  “Maybe you should absorb it instead.”

  I froze. The words hit like cold water. My throat tightened. My eyes locked on him, as if willing him to take the words back.

  Time stretched, hollow and heavy. I could hear nothing but my own heartbeat.

  Daeryon's hand drifted toward the anchor.

  When he looked at me, his voice was low, almost soft. “Your foundation is still forming. This amount of refined vitality would have a far greater effect on you than on me. It would accelerate your growth. Stabilize your chi. Strengthen your core.”

  My heart started pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. “No… no, Daeryon, I can’t.”

  “You could,” he said. Not urging. Not persuading. Just stating a fact, the way gravity states itself.

  I shook my head hard. “I don’t even know how. And even if I did, I don’t want them inside me.”

  My hands curled at my sides, nails biting into my palms. “I don’t want to carry…” My voice caught, the word dissolving before it could form. “I don’t... even know what they are anymore.”

  Daeryon studied me for a long moment.

  There was no judgment in his eyes. Only attention. “I will not force you,” he said at last.

  “But understand this. If you want to stop cruelty like this from happening again, you will need the strength to face it when it appears.” His tone did not accuse. It did not challenge.

  Still, it landed.

  I looked back at the anchor.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  At the light that should have gone somewhere else. At the thought of leaving it here, sealed and waiting, until time or greed twisted it into something worse.

  I didn’t look at Daeryon.

  I couldn’t.

  My gaze stayed fixed on the slow pulse of white gold, on the way it breathed without lungs, alive without mercy. For a moment, the cavern blurred again.

  Small hands.

  Too still.

  Eyes that should have been loud with fear, or anger, or hope, staring at nothing because someone had decided they were useful parts instead of people.

  My jaw tightened.

  If I walked away, this stayed.

  If I hesitated, it waited.

  And sooner or later, someone else would come and decide it was theirs to use.

  My throat tightened. “I don’t want this,” I said again, quietly. The words felt thin, but they were true.

  My fingers curled slowly at my sides. “I don’t want to carry what was done to them.”

  I drew a slow breath. “But… I don’t want this to happen again.”

  The light pulsed.

  Once.

  Twice.

  I took a breath that felt heavier than it should have. “If accepting this means even one child doesn’t end up like that,” I continued, my voice steadier now, “then I’ll do it.”

  I looked into the light. “I’ll take you with me.”

  The pulse of white gold seemed to slow, holding its breath with me. For a long, suspended moment, the chamber did too, as if waiting to see if I would falter.

  Silence stretched behind me.

  Not empty. Not cold. Just waiting.

  Then Daeryon spoke.

  “Very well.”

  That was all.

  The air loosened.

  For the first time since we entered the chamber, my lungs didn’t feel like they were working against something unseen.

  As Daeryon stepped away from the anchor, the tension that always clung to him pulled inward with the motion, leaving the air strangely unburdened.

  He moved to my side.

  The anchor’s light flickered, uncertain, as if sensing the shift in the room.

  Daeryon lifted one hand, and the ambient chi stilled, its violent edges smoothing as the chamber settled into a tense, fragile calm.

  “I will guide the flow,” he said, already turning his attention to the patterns of light. “But the choice remains yours. If at any point you decide to stop, it will end.”

  I nodded, my eyes never leaving the shield.

  Daeryon’s hand rose slowly.

  Toward me. “Sit,” he said.

  I lowered myself onto the cold stone. The moment I settled, I felt it. The anchor noticed me. The pulse shifted again, faintly uneven, like a heartbeat reacting to a presence it did not recognize.

  Daeryon crouched behind me, close enough that I could feel the pressure of his chi even while restrained. “Daniel, listen carefully,”

  he said. “This is not absorption as you understand it.”

  I didn't answer. I just kept looking at the anchor.

  “You will not pull,” he continued. “You will not contain. Nor dominate. You will open your core and allow circulation. If you try to control what comes, it will tear you apart.”

  “That’s reassuring, Daeryon,” I muttered.

  I felt his gaze sharpen. “This is not meant to reassure.”

  He lifted two fingers and pressed them lightly against the back of my head.

  The contact sent a jolt through me. Not pain. Alignment. My breathing changed without my permission, slowing, deepening.

  “Your chi is still unstable because it is still new to you. You treat it as something separate from yourself,” Daeryon said.

  “Do not do that here. If you reject what surfaces, the flow will collapse.”

  I nodded once.

  He stood and turned to the anchor. The white gold light responded instantly, threads unraveling from the core like luminous veins.

  “Do not look away,” He said quietly.

  The threads reached me.

  The first contact felt warm.

  Then heavy.

  Then wrong.

  My breath hitched as the impact brushed against my core. It did not rush in. It pressed. Patient. Expectant. As if waiting for permission I did not know how to give.

  Daeryon’s voice anchored the space. “Focus and open it.”

  I exhaled.

  The pressure slid inside.

  The world tilted.

  My vision blurred as sensation flooded inward. Not power. Weight. Countless impressions layered so tightly they felt like a single presence bearing down on me.

  My chest burned.

  My core screamed.

  I clenched my teeth and held.

  Then it started.

  A strange sensation.

  The sound of metal scraping against concrete.

  My hands twitched.

  That smell. I remembered it burning through my nose. Smoke and dust, and something sharp beneath it.

  No.

  I tried to pull back. I wanted to run. The pressure spiked violently. Pain lanced through my spine and my vision fractured.

  “Daniel, do not turn away,” Daeryon said, his voice tight with worry.

  The images sharpened anyway.

  Small shoes.

  Too close to the ground.

  My breath stuttered.

  The anchor’s weight pressed harder, as if responding to my resistance. My core felt stretched thin, trembling at its edges.

  I shook my head. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t hold this.”

  The silence came next.

  That empty, unbearable pause where the world should have reacted and did not.

  My chest collapsed inward.

  I felt myself slipping, not falling but loosening, like fingers letting go of a ledge because holding hurt too much.

  “I don’t want to see this,” I said hoarsely. “I don’t want to be here. That’s enough.”

  The pressure surged.

  Then everything stopped.

  The weight did not lift.

  But it steadied.

  Someone appeared in front of me.

  Her face was the same as it had always been in my memories, but quieter. Not smiling. Not crying. Just looking at me.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  My hands shook. “I’m sorry,” I said. The words came before I could stop them.

  She didn’t answer.

  She reached out and placed her hand over mine.

  It was warm.

  Real.

  “Why are you sorry?” she asked.

  My throat closed. “I... I don’t want to see you like this.”

  Her fingers tightened gently around mine. She tugged. Just a little at first. Then again. Firm, steady, refusing to let go.

  I wanted to shut my eyes.

  But she didn’t stop.

  She kept pulling me. Holding my hand.

  So I opened them.

  The fear.

  The moment of hope.

  The moment it died.

  I felt it all again. I stood there, frozen and useless and alive when I shouldn’t have been.

  My breath came ragged.

  Tears burned but didn’t fall.

  I didn’t turn.

  The pressure shifted, its chaos smoothing, as if something knotted had finally been allowed to untangle.

  The anchor’s pulse slowed.

  My core stopped screaming.

  I stayed.

  The memory ended on its own.

  When I finally inhaled, it felt like my lungs had been waiting years for permission.

  The white gold light flowed steadily now, no longer pressing, no longer resisting. It moved through me and out, cycling, dissolving, returning.

  Daeryon’s presence closed around the process, firm and precise.

  “Good,” he said softly.

  The light faded.

  The chamber exhaled.

  I slumped forward, hands braced against the stone, shaking with exhaustion that felt bone deep.

  My core felt different.

  Heavier.

  Daeryon stepped into my field of vision, studying me with an intensity that made me straighten despite myself.

  Daeryon did not speak.

  The silence stretched, but it was no longer heavy. It felt settled. Like it had reached a conclusion and was now being acknowledged without ceremony.

  The pressure in the chamber smoothed, as if the space itself had accepted an outcome.

  He reached out, not touching me, but letting his awareness brush against my circulation.

  He shifted his focus deeper, following the flow through my core. His expression changed, growing more intent.

  “Your chi is different. It’s heavier now,” he continued. “It carries inertia.”

  I frowned faintly. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It is dangerous,” he corrected. “Your circulation has gained pressure faster than your body can safely endure.”

  I swallowed. “So… what does that mean?”

  “It means if you force output, your channels will fracture,” he said calmly. “Your bones will take strain they are not yet prepared for. Your core will respond explosively.”

  That explained the way my chest still burned.

  “So… that means I could kill myself,” I said slowly.

  “But Daeryon… I’m a ghost.”

  I looked down at my hands.

  “I don’t even know if I have bones.”

  “Daniel, you felt pain under my chi. That alone means your body can react. You must learn control.”

  I let out a slow breath. “Okay. Okay. I’ll do my best. Other than that, I have you.”

  “Yes. I’m here for you.” He gave a firm smile.

  But something else pressed at my thoughts. “Daeryon,” I said quietly. “When you first absorbed things like this…”

  He paused.

  It was brief. Barely there. But it was the first hesitation I had ever seen from him.

  “Yes,” he said. “I saw... things.”

  I looked up at him. “How did you deal with it?”

  His gaze did not leave me this time. “I stopped trying to assign meaning to the pain.”

  That wasn’t the answer I expected.

  “I remembered that suffering does not ask to be preserved,” he continued. “It asks to be ended.”

  The tightness in my chest eased, just a little.

  “You do not need to carry their final moments,” Daeryon said. “If you do, they will anchor you to a place you cannot remain.”

  He straightened. “What you should carry is what came before.”

  I closed my eyes.

  The fire flickered at the edge of my mind, but it did not take hold. It sank instead, settling deeper, heavier, until it rested inside my core like something finally placed where it belonged.

  My breathing slowed.

  There were other memories beneath it. Quieter ones. Hands pulling me up after I fell. A voice calling my name. Laughter, light and careless, from a time before fear learned how to speak.

  My chest loosened.

  When I opened my eyes, the chamber felt steadier, as if a strain I had been carrying in my heart had shifted, no longer pulling me apart.

  I drew a slow breath.

  And this time, the weight moved with me.