CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Flesh of Glass, Eye of Fog

Night draped Lucious' workshop, the forge's dying embers casting jagged shadows across steel tables. I hunched over my notebook, quill trembling, ink smudging under my palm. The Prophet's Tongue's jar sat beside me, its crack a gaping wound, the tongue inside writhing, slick and black, pulsing like a second heart. Whispers clawed at my ears—sobs, screams, a child's giggle that wasn't there. My mist leaked, frosting the page, as I scratched another entry, my hand unsteady, my mind splintering.

Experiment #86 — Day 104

Vyrithax blood catalyst → still inadequate. Mana lattice too tight; Tongue's flux ducks the weave, laughs, slips the loop, bites the hand.

Glass shards hold shape (they hum when my eyes wander).

Tongue regenerates on contact, flares erratic—scorch pattern #17-24.

Stability: ???

Conclusion: Vyrithax blood remains strongest available… Best is not enough. Need another rhythm. Why does it keep looking at me?

The words blurred, my notes jagged, as if someone else gripped the quill. I blinked, hard, my crimson core throbbing, grounding me against the voices. A chainrunner's shade, his nose broken from old sparring, flickered in the corner, muttering, "The dark's chewing my name." I ignored him, focusing on the notebook, but the ink seemed to crawl, forming runes that weren't mine. My sanity teetered, a frayed thread stretched too thin.

Blood was the key, or so I'd thought. In beasts, mana cycled through their cores, tight and controlled, flowing from core to veins, a living circuit. Even in death, blood retained this—mana bound, stable yet potent. The stronger the beast, the tighter the control, making crimson beasts' blood a prized catalyst.

Vyrithax, the serpent I'd slain in the breach, was the strongest I'd faced, its blood a deep, shimmering red, like liquid fire. Lucious and Mateo had harvested gallons, preserving it for their rune-forging, treating it like molten gold.

The workshop's preservation system was a marvel, a blend of Araksiun ingenuity and District 97's mana-rich air. Vessels etched with anticoagulation runes, their silver lines glowing faintly, kept the blood fluid, preventing what ancient texts called red blood cell aggregation. The vessels sat in a refrigerated vault, cooled by battery-fed coils, inside a machine that rocked them gently, a soft clink-clink like a heartbeat. The agitation maintained homogeneity, stopping the blood from settling, each vessel a small miracle of craft. I'd watched Lucious' apprentices calibrate it, their hands steady where mine shook, their notes precise where mine wavered.

District 97's records, preserved through time, fueled such inventions. High ambient mana let them experiment with runes that drew power from the air, no batteries needed, unlike the old times of Araksiun.

Lucious was a genius, his apprentices close behind, their workshop a beacon of order in a fracturing world. Yet my experiments faltered. I'd mixed Vyrithax blood with glass powder from the jar's crack, hoping to stabilize the Tongue's mana. The paste glowed, promising, but sparked unpredictably, rejecting the Tongue's slivers. Other beast blood, taken from lesser creatures slain in the breach, fared worse, igniting or dissolving. Vyrithax was my best shot, but it wasn't enough.

The strangest part wasn't the failure—it was the workshop itself. Runes on the vessels twisted before my eyes, their silver lines curling like worms, then snapping back when I blinked.

Once, I lifted a tube, its runes humming, and pressed it to my ear. A whisper slithered through, faint, not human: "Skrit… skrat…" I dropped it, the runes normal again, the tube cold and silent. My core surged, mist frosting the table, but I couldn't tell if the voice was real or born of the Tongue's curse.

Another time, a hammer's rune pulsed red, then green, before settling to silver, as if mocking me. The dead watched, their forms vivid now, crowding the workshop's edges. A forge worker, her apron bloodied, rasped, "My hands won't stop burning." I shook my head, focusing on the paste, but the air grew heavy, like fog pressing through the walls.

No one came here at night anymore. Lucious' apprentices fled at dusk, their lanterns dim, muttering of whispers in the rafters, shadows that moved. Even Lucious, warm but wary, avoided the workshop after dark, his last glance at me heavy with worry.

I worked alone, the forge's glow my only light, the jar trembling on the table. I told myself it would end tonight, that I'd fix this or break it forever. But doubt gnawed: once I started, there was no turning back.

***

I had no fallback, no container for the Prophet's Tongue during this final act. I opened the lid, and the world shattered. Voices erupted, a deafening roar flooding the workshop, spilling into District 97's streets filled with screams, pleas, laughter, layered until my ears bled.

The dead surged, their translucent forms crowding the room, their despair etched in hollow eyes, mouths gaping. A guard, his throat slashed, rasped, "It's tearing me apart!" A forge worker, her hands charred, whimpered, "The flames won't stop!" Their voices weren't just sounds, they were blades, slicing my mind, my core surging to hold me together.

Colors drained from the world. The forge's red glow faded to gray, the workshop's walls leaching to monochrome, like ash settling over reality. Yet the dead gained color, pale skin flushing pink, eyes glinting blue or brown, their robes and scars vivid, more real than the table, the tools, the air.

A child's shade, no taller than my waist, her dress torn, climbed onto the table, her fingers brushing my arm, cold and solid. I flinched, my tentacles twitching, instincts screaming to fight, to strike, but I froze. They weren't just echoes anymore—they were here, breaching the living realm, or maybe I was the one breaching into theirs.

The dead chanted, their voices weaving a new, sickening rhyme, child-like but warped, echoing through the workshop's beams:

"Tick… tear… break the seal,

drink the dark, unveil the real.

Sip the spark, skin the scream,

grind the marrow, birth the dream."

The words burrowed, my head throbbing, the rhyme's cadence steering my hands as I grabbed the grinder, one of the many runic tools made from beasts parts. I smashed the jar, glass shards scattering, each fragment glinting like a dying star. The tongue pulsed on the table, free, its mana flaring in wild arcs, scorching the floor.

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The dead crowded closer, some clawing at the shards, others leaning over the tongue, their colored forms vivid against the black-and-white world. A guard's shade, his helm dented, reached for the grinder, his touch icing my knuckles. I shoved him back, mist bursting, but he laughed, a wet, gurgling sound.

I ground the glass, the runic tool humming, its runes twisting from silver to red, curling like veins, then snapping back. The process was simple but agonizing: the grinder's wheel spun, reducing shards to dust, each particle catching the forge's dim light, glinting unnaturally. It took minutes, but each second stretched, the dead's chant looping, their hands brushing my cloak, cold and real. My instincts roared, my tentacles lashing air, but I focused, sweat mixing with mist, the dust piling in a steel bowl, fine and sharp, like ground bone.

"Done," I rasped, my voice barely mine. "No jar now. All or nothing.". I moved fast, knowing the tongue's existence defied reality, a wound in the world. The Vyrithax blood, heated for hours in a cauldron, bubbled faintly, its red glow the last color in my monochrome hell. I poured the glass dust in, a hissing cloud rising, the blood darkening, mana flaring. With a tentacle, I snatched the tongue, its pulse burning my flesh, and dropped it into the cauldron.

"Burn," I whispered, the word tangling with mana, power humming in the air. The dead leaned closer, their colored forms vivid, curious, some giggling, others weeping. The workshop's walls shuddered, runes carved by my hand—etched to stabilize the merge—twisting, their lines writhing like worms.

New carvings appeared, unbidden, etching into the stone: jagged spirals, eyes, mouths, pulsing with faint light. The air grew heavy, fog seeping through cracks, the dead's chant shifting to a new, riddled song, its words a knife in my mind:

"Drip… drop… slide through the veil,

where shadows breathe and light's too frail."

The cauldron floated, flames licking its base, mana surging, the merge beginning. I stirred with a runic rod, its carvings warping, bending, as the glass dust and tongue melted into the blood. The mixture churned, a viscous, glowing sludge, black and red, sparking wildly.

The process was meant to fuse them, but it was unstable. The sludge bubbled violently, singeing my cloak, cracking the table. The dead danced, their colored forms weaving through the fog, some climbing the walls, their fingers tracing the carvings, their laughter a child's but wrong, hollow.

"Faster," I muttered, my voice shaking, trying to will the merge to hold. The sludge pulsed, a heartbeat, but it fought itself, glass dust resisting tongue, blood sparking, mana fracturing. The runes I'd carved flared, then dimmed, some melting into the stone, others glowing red, accusing.

The workshop trembled, beams groaning, the fog thickening, pressing against my skin. The dead's song grew louder, their colored forms more real than the monochrome world, their hands tugging my cloak, their breath cold on my neck.

Power hummed, a low, bone-rattling drone, the cauldron glowing, flames roaring. Carvings spread, covering the walls, ceiling, floor—runes I hadn't etched, pulsing with mana, forming faces that screamed silently. The merge was failing, the sludge hissing, spitting, mana lashing like a whip. "Reactivity's too high," I rasped, my core burning, mist pouring, frosting the air.

The tongue's power was too much, the glass too brittle, the blood too rigid. I'd destroyed the jar, shattered the barrier, and now the realms bled together. Despair clawed my chest, the world a black-and-white ruin, the dead's colored forms the only truth.

The Shrouded Priest materialized, towering over the table, its tattered robes shimmering, glyphs pulsing in time with my crimson core. The dead retreated, their vivid forms dimming, their voices silenced by its presence. Its hood shadowed all but hollow eyes, white pinpricks burning with sorrow, its skeletal hands still clutching an invisible object. The air hummed, a low, bone-rattling drone, chilling my bones. "Surrender control," it intoned, its voice a riddle, layered and mournful. "Let mana breathe. Cage seeks prisoner, yet prisoner binds cage. Break the chain, not the flame."

"What?" I rasped, my hands shaking as I poured more Vyrithax blood into the cauldron, its crimson sparking, useless. "The catalyst's all I have. Without it, the Tongue and glass won't merge. How does that help?" My voice cracked, desperation clawing my chest.

"The Tongue defies chains," the Priest said, circling, its robes brushing Hazeveil, amplifying the whispers. "Lock not its fire, but shatter the cage's truth. Corrupt the glass, let chaos wed." Its eyes bore into me, sorrow etched deep, as if it mourned my struggle, my failure, my world.

I froze, the cauldron's roar deafening, the dead's colored forms weaving through fog. The glass dust, once stable and unyielding, had been the anchor, chemically inert yet unnaturally resilient. I'd fought the Tongue's chaos, forcing Vyrithax blood to bind it, but the Priest's riddle shifted everything. Not stabilize the Tongue—corrupt the glass. Break its stability, let madness fuse them.

The sludge surged, the cauldron shaking, runes melting into the walls. Without hesitation, I clawed my arm, my claws slicing deep, black blood gushing, black in my monochrome vision, thick and wrong. It sprayed the table, the walls, the cauldron, hissing as it hit the sludge. "Let mana breathe!" I roared, my voice a surge of power, mana draining from my heart core, my reserves burning.

The air crackled, runes flaring—new ones, unetched, spiraling in the fog, glowing crimson, blue, black. My will poured forth, alien yet instinctive, a force I'd never learned, never trained. It felt wrong, like speaking a language I didn't know, yet right, like breathing after drowning. I was binding the reaction, cage and prisoner, glass and Tongue, one truth forged in chaos.

The sludge stilled, its violent bubbling slowing, mana settling into a steady pulse. Most of the liquid vanished, consumed by the reaction, leaving a small, glowing pool, amber-green, shimmering like a living thing. The carvings dimmed, their mouths closing, the walls steadying. Colors bled back into the forge, the beams and even my cloak. The dead faded, their vivid hues draining, translucent once more, their forms retreating to shadows.

Then, my ice magic surged. I siphoned heat in measured heartbeats—draw, wait, draw again, coaxing the glow to thicken. The pool passed through a syrupy gel, then a glassy bud that annealed inside its own steam halo until, at last, a coin-sized crystal winked in the cauldron's heart, translucent and softly pulsing.

The dead stirred, their voices rising in a new, chilling song, child-like yet warped, echoing through the workshop:

"Stay… stray… not ours today.

Walk the road we haunt in gray.

No soil yours, no sky serene,

footsteps echo in between."

I wasted no time, but exhaustion weighed my bones, each movement a battle against the Tongue's lingering hum. The crystal lay on the steel table, its amber-green glow pulsing, a faint heartbeat mocking my trembling hands. I placed it inside Lucious' runic lathe and began shaping the crystal. The crystal resisted, its surface slick, glinting like wet bone, each scrape echoing the dead's fading chant—stay… stray….

Hours bled away. When the lathe fell silent, I took up a cloth and a final alchemical rasp, polishing the surface into a flawless five-centimeter lens that whispered fragments of the dead's fading chant with every stroke.

The circular frame waited, crafted from Dirgethinner ribs, bones of a beast that wove sound, harvested from the breach. Its small runes glowed soft blue, though some curled, corrupted, like veins under skin. I set the lens within, my fingers numb, the bone's chill biting as the runes flared, then dimmed, sealing the bond. I secured it with a Gloomwing hide cord attached to the frame, its leather dark, supple.

The Whispering Lens was born—a cursed artifact, a monocle pulsing with forbidden power. Its translucent lens, amber-green, shimmered, alive, forged from the melded Prophet's Tongue, jar shards, and my corrupted blood.

It thrummed, a heartbeat, its runes flaring when I touched it, the world fracturing as ghosts appeared, voices roaring, then silencing when I let go. It bridged realms, a gateway held in glass, its glow a warning, a promise, a curse. Crafted in despair, it was a marvel of ruin, binding life and death in a single, fragile truth.

The forge exhaled. Every tool—hammer, chisel, caliper—tilted toward the Lens as if acknowledging a newborn tyrant. Outside, the ward surrounding District 97 stuttered once, the runes flickering off-beat, then steadied. A hush rolled down the street; even the wind seemed to pause, deciding whether to breathe again.

As if on cue, the Priest approached, his hood down, revealing a face mutated beyond recognition; Flesh warped, eyes sunken, a broken smile twisting his jaw. He evaluated the Lens, his gaze heavy, then vanished without a word, his hum fading. I stood alone, the workshop silent, the dead gone, but their song echoed in my mind.

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