Episode 3 – The Priest With No Tongue

.

.

It only slept.

When I woke, I didn’t scream. I couldn’t.

My body wouldn’t let me.

I’d slept beside the star-pool, and when I opened my eyes, the sky hadn’t changed. Still black, still scattered with constellations that didn’t belong to any god I trusted. My back ached—not from pain. From pressure. Like the glyph wanted out. Or in.

I sat up slowly. Every bone felt like glass.

Silne was gone. But she’d left something behind: a sigil, carved into a tree trunk with the edge of her dagger. An invitation.

Or a warning.

I didn’t care. I followed it.

The forest deepened.

No birdsong. No wind. Just breathless cold and the soft crunch of moss beneath my steps.

Then… bells.

Distant. Hollow.

Like they were underwater—or worse, underground.

And then I saw it.

A ruin.

Half-swallowed by vines. Stones etched with language that made my stomach knot just looking at it.

A temple? No.

A tomb.

Inside, something pulsed. Something older than Kaelith. Older than me.

Older than obedience.

I stepped through the arch, and the light died. Not faded—died.

The air inside was damp and alive.

There were candles—black wax, all burned to stubs—but none were lit.

Yet I could still see.

Not with my eyes. With the mark. It glowed, casting a violet shimmer that slid over the cracked stone like breath over skin.

And then I heard him.

No words. Just shuffling. Wetness. Labored exhale.

I turned.

He was on the floor, crawling, robes trailing behind him, skin gray and sunken.

His mouth hung open, and his tongue was gone.

Not cut. Torn.

He saw me and wept.

My instinct said run.

But the glyph pulsed once—hard—and I froze.

He crawled to the base of an altar and scratched something in the ash with one jagged fingernail.

I moved closer, not trusting myself, not even breathing.

The mark on my back buzzed.

Like a hum.

He drew four symbols.

One for Kaelith.

One for me.

One for the glyph.

And the last?

I didn’t know.

It looked like a star caught mid-scream.

Then he looked at me and held out his hand.

In his palm was a mirror shard, dark and slick, wrapped in veins of obsidian and etched with runes I couldn’t read—but the glyph could.

It pulled me forward.

The moment I touched it, the room shattered.

Not physically. In my mind.

Visions.

Kaelith lying in a pool of stars, eyes closed, lips parted, breath shallow.

Chains around his wrists—but loose. Willingly worn.

A dagger in my own hand. Blood on my thighs—not from violence. From ritual.

The priest screaming without a voice.

The glyph on my back stretching.

Opening.

Like a mouth.

I tore away from the shard with a choked gasp.

The priest collapsed, twitching. Gone.

The altar burned. Violet fire, smoke curling in shapes I couldn’t follow.

But on the floor, scratched in ash, was a message I could read:

"The collar is not yours.

You are the chain."

I stumbled back into the forest, lungs raw, vision reeling.

Kaelith had not simply marked me.

He had anchored something in me.

And whatever it was… it wasn’t asleep anymore.

☾

End of Episode 3

Next: Episode 4 – Silne’s Teeth in the Mirror

""The glyph isn’t just opening—

     it’s hungry.""