Chapter Text
The earth was still damp with blood when Ruze dug the grave.
His hands, blistered and raw, tore through the soil as if each claw of dirt could erase the memory of what had happened.
Every shovelful seemed to fight him, the wet ground clinging to his fingers like it too refused to let go.
A few hours ago, this patch of land had been alive with screams.
The kind that blistered the air and made the trees seem to shrink away.
His friend’s voice had been the loudest among them.
First human, then something twisted, fractured, guttural.
A voice dragged down into the depths of corruption until it was no longer his.
Now there was only silence.
Silence and the ragged scrape of Ruze’s breath, breaking in his chest like broken glass.
And yet, through that silence, memory bled in.
He saw the two of them, years younger, trudging side by side along some forgotten road.
Dust in their boots, packs light on coin but heavy with stolen food.
His friend had carried a lute, plucking careless melodies that chased away the wolves and drew laughter from passing strangers.
Ruze had laughed too.
An ugly, rough laugh that made his fangs flash, the kind that had always unsettled those who looked too closely at him.
But his friend never flinched.
Not once.
He had clapped Ruze on the back, grin splitting wide beneath the mask, and said, “Half demon, half human, means you get to cheat at both sides of the game, eh? Now c’mon, tell me you don’t love scaring those pompous bastards with that grin of yours.”
Ruze had barked another laugh, shaking his head, but the warmth in his chest had been real.
On nights by the fire, when ale turned their voices loose, his friend’s mask would tilt toward him and they would laugh until the stars seemed to fall closer.
Two wanderers against the world.
One hiding his scars behind porcelain, the other hiding his bloodline behind steel and swagger.
The sound of that laughter, bright, reckless, alive, crashed now against the emptiness around him.
A mocking echo that made the silence heavier still.
Ruze dug harder, faster, as if the soil itself demanded penance.
But no matter how deep he carved, he couldn’t bury the memory of that voice.
Or the truth that it had been his axe that silenced it forever.
The carcass of the Corruption Beast lay nearby, slumped like a mountain of shadow.
Its form was already collapsing, dissolving into flecks of black ash that drifted lazily, mockingly, into the sky.
In its final, hideous moments, Ruze had glimpsed fragments of the person he once knew, an unsteady hand reaching out, the glimmer of recognition flashing in warped eyes.
A plea, maybe.
A farewell.
And then his axe, Zephyr, came crashing down.
He had sworn to end it quickly.
He had sworn to make it painless.
A mercy, not a punishment.
But the beast had not died quickly, and its howl had been anything but painless.
The sound had buried itself under Ruze’s skin, and no matter how he tried, he could not claw it out.
When the grave was finished, he lowered what little remained.
Fragments of bone.
Clumps of ash tarred together.
Fingers that barely looked human anymore.
The world had stolen even the dignity of a body from his friend, and Ruze hated it for that.
Only one thing had resisted the corruption.
A mask.
Cracked, jagged along the cheek, but still recognizable.
Still whole enough to be worn.
Ruze held it in his hands, dirt flaking from his nails as he traced the fracture with his thumb.
A broken line.
A scar frozen in porcelain.
“…You’d laugh at me, wouldn’t you?” His voice was hoarse, as if dragged through gravel.
He forced a chuckle, but it came out thin and hollow, a ghost of humor.
“Big strong Ruze, can’t even dig straight.”
For a moment, silence pressed back against him.
Then, faint, imagined, impossible. He heard it.
A laugh.
Quick, sharp, the kind that used to rattle under that porcelain mask.
The kind that made taverns pause and strangers turn their heads.
Ruze froze. His fingers tightened around the mask, thumb brushing the cracked cheek.
“…There it is,” he muttered.
“That damned laugh. Always too loud, too careless. How many times did I tell you it’d get us in trouble?”
The mask gave no reply, but the sound didn’t fade.
In his mind’s eye, he saw them both again, perched on a roadside fence, boots muddy, tankards in hand.
His friend’s mask tilted toward him, grinning like it always had.
“And how many times did it save our skins, eh? You glared, I laughed. You swung that axe, I played my little tune. Wanderers don’t need plans when they’ve got rhythm.”
Ruze’s breath hitched.
“You’re not here,” he whispered, though the words rang false even to his own ears.
He raised the mask, set it over his face.
The porcelain clung to his skin with a strange warmth, not the warmth of the sun or the soil, but the warmth of someone who had just breathed there, seconds ago.
His chest tightened.
For a heartbeat, he could almost believe his friend had simply stepped away and left it for him.
Then the warmth grew stifling, suffocating.
He yanked the mask off with a curse, chest heaving. “This isn’t yours anymore,” he rasped.
His hand trembled, but he didn’t let go.
He couldn’t.
The grave was filled, the dirt tamped flat until no scar remained.
But Ruze knew better.
The wound had only moved inward.
He stood there, clutching the mask, and the words slipped out, fragile and breaking.
"I’ll carry you with me. Always.”
The wind stirred, curling around him with the faintest sound, laughter.
Or memory.
Or madness.
“…Always,” he repeated, more firmly, almost to reassure himself.
And the laugh answered.
Not aloud, but in the hollow of his skull.
Warmer, closer.
Crueler.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, half-breed.”
Ruze staggered.
His ears rang.
He shook his head violently, snarling.
“That wasn’t you. That’s not you.”
But his muttered words tangled with another tone, not his own.
Sharper, mocking, too precise.
At first he blamed grief, exhaustion, the cracks already spreading through his mind.
Then, in the corner of his vision, he saw it.
A silhouette.
Slender shoulders draped in a tattered cloak, head tilted, the familiar glint of porcelain catching the half-light.
His friend, standing at the edge of the grave as if nothing had changed, as if Ruze had only dreamed the blood, the screams, the corruption.
Ruze’s throat closed. “...You’re...!”
But before the word could form, the figure shifted.
The outline flickered, body dissolving into cinders of shadow, dispersing into the night air like smoke caught on the wind.
The mask’s glint was the last to fade.
The grave was empty again.
Only Ruze remained.
His heart pounded as he clutched the mask tighter.
“No… not real. Not real.”
He told himself, but the air still trembled with laughter.
Soft at first, then clearer.
So clear it could have been standing right beside him.
“Don’t lie to yourself, half-breed. You’ll hear me again. You’ll need me again.”
Ruze stumbled back, his pulse thrumming in his ears.
He shook his head, baring his teeth as if the demon in his blood could scare away phantoms.
“You’re gone. You’re gone.”
The voice only chuckled, low, cruel, and fond all at once.
He squeezed the mask until his knuckles went white.
It was heavier now, heavier than porcelain had any right to be, like the earth itself had pressed its grief into it.
Somewhere deep in the marrow of his cursed blood, Ruze knew the truth.
This was only the first fracture.
And the road ahead would only break him further.