Not because of pain, not anymore. That had passed the way a river passes a stone, slowly, surely, until the stone wasn’t there anymore. Just silt.
And that was what he was now.
Merlin didn’t cry. He couldn’t. That part of him had gone quiet hours ago. Or days. Or however long he’d been here. Time was waterlogged.
He knelt in the middle of nothing. No forest. No sky. Just dark, wide, flat.
Even the system stayed quiet.
’So this is it. This is what it feels like when memory stops being a story and starts being your skin.’
His hands were steady.
That was the worst part.
No tremble. No collapse. Just the same numb stillness that had crawled into Rathan’s bones over decades and now made a home in his.
Just the heavy press of a world that no longer wanted to witness.
The air shifted, thinly.
Merlin turned his head.
Not a shadow. Not a memory.
Not bloodied. Not young.
The same face. A few inches taller maybe. Eyes like burned copper. No fire. Just the look of something that had run out of reasons.
They stared at each other.
Merlin didn’t say anything.
"Thought you’d fall faster."
His voice wasn’t sharp. Not mocking. Just... tired.
"I almost did," Merlin said.
Rathan stepped forward once. Then sat. No grandeur. Just knees to the ground, arms resting across them.
"You’re not from here," Rathan said.
"But you came anyway."
"Didn’t have a choice."
"You always have a choice," Rathan said, tilting his head. "That’s the part they don’t tell you. You can always walk away. You just don’t get to live with it after."
His throat still worked. That surprised him.
"I didn’t think your memories would—" he stopped.
"Be this bad?" Rathan offered.
"Yeah," Rathan said. "Most people forget that pain remembers better than we do."
They sat there for a long time.
Then Rathan looked at him again.
"You saw everything?"
Merlin nodded. "The cells. The deaths. The villages. The gods."
Rathan didn’t ask for judgment.
He just let the quiet return.
Finally, Merlin asked, "Why didn’t you stop?"
Rathan breathed in once. Long. Deep.
"They made me into a knife. And then they looked surprised when I cut."
"I’m not saying it was wrong," Merlin said.
"I just... wanted to understand."
Rathan looked over. Not angry.
"I wanted to stop. But I didn’t remember how. I buried too much of myself in graves I didn’t dig."
His palms were clean.
But he remembered what it felt like when they weren’t.
"I don’t think I’d survive if I lived it for real," he said quietly.
Rathan tilted his head. "You’re surviving now."
"That’s not the same."
"No," Rathan said. "It’s worse."
They sat again in silence.
Except it wasn’t empty now.
Waiting for the next truth neither of them wanted to say.
Rathan leaned back on his hands. His eyes never left Merlin’s.
"I know what this is," Merlin said.
Rathan raised an eyebrow.
"It’s not just memory," Merlin added. "This is transfer. You’re handing it over."
"Yeah," Rathan said. "Took you long enough."
Merlin didn’t rise to the jab. He looked down at his own hands instead. They still felt like his. Somehow.
"Don’t need you to be."
Rathan’s voice had a finality to it. Not dramatic. Just... decided. Like someone who already knew the ending, even if Merlin didn’t.
Merlin looked back up. "Why me?"
"That’s not an answer."
Rathan shifted his shoulders, like something about the question didn’t sit right. "You held on. You didn’t break. That’s enough."
Merlin scoffed, quietly. "I screamed. I begged. I almost gave up."
"But you didn’t," Rathan said. "You walked through all of it. You saw what I did. What I became. You didn’t run."
"You could’ve," Rathan said. "Plenty do. They turn away before the weight sets in. You didn’t."
Merlin didn’t say anything.
He wasn’t sure he agreed.
But he wasn’t sure he didn’t, either.
’He thinks I’m strong. But I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t look away because there was nowhere else to look.’
"You don’t have to like me," Rathan said, watching him. "I didn’t."
"You hated yourself?"
"Not at first," Rathan said. "I justified it. Over and over. Until the justifications were the only thing keeping me upright."
He tilted his head, cracked his knuckles lazily.
"And one day I woke up and realized I hadn’t thought a single good thing in years. Not about anyone. Not about myself. Not even about the sky."
Merlin looked at him.
His face. His posture. Everything.
And for the first time since this started, he didn’t see a monster.
He saw a man who’d run out of roads.
"What happens now?" he asked.
"You carry it," he said. "You walk out of here with everything I remember. Every piece of it. Not just the images. The weight."
Merlin’s stomach twisted. "You’re saying this like it’s good news."
"It’s not," Rathan said. "It’s duty."
"Because someone needs to remember me for who I really was," Rathan said. "Not just the version the gods burned into stone."
Then: "Why not let it die with you?"
Rathan’s smile was dry, crooked.
"It doesn’t die. It festers. If I take it with me, it’ll rot inside the underworld for another thousand years. Then someone else will come along, some unlucky bastard, and they’ll have to dig it up all over again."
"This way, I choose who carries it. And I choose someone who’s already seen what happens when memory goes sour."
Merlin swallowed, throat rough. "You want me to become you."
"No," Rathan said. "I want you to be better than me."
Not heavy. Just full.
Merlin’s jaw tightened.
’Better than him. Like that’s something I can just decide.’
"You’ll pass it all on?" Merlin asked. "Everything you knew?"
Rathan nodded once. "The mana structures. The techniques. The instincts. The scars."
Merlin exhaled slowly.
"I don’t want the rage."
"You already have it," Rathan said. "You just don’t use it like I did."
Merlin stood. His legs ached in ways they shouldn’t. His bones remembered someone else’s time.
"I don’t know what I’m going to do with all of this."
"That’s not comforting."
He looked taller now.
But the exhaustion never left his eyes.
"I don’t need you to be comforted," he said. "I need you to be aware."
Rathan stepped forward.
Stopped a foot from him.
And for the first time since this started, he reached out.
Like passing a torch.
Merlin stared at the hand.
He didn’t feel ready.
But his own hand lifted.
The moment their palms met—
Something started to shift.
Merlin gritted his teeth as the heat kicked in.
Like liquid instinct poured straight into his spine.
He felt it crawl into his fingertips first, then behind his eyes, coiling in patterns his body didn’t recognize but understood. Without translation. Without thought.
He stayed standing anyway.
"Don’t brace," Rathan said. "Let it flow."
’Easy for you to say. You’re not the one feeling your nerves rearrange.’
Still, Merlin relaxed his jaw, tried to unclench his fists.
And just like that, the sensation shifted. Became less like a current, more like... alignment. Like something inside him was being locked into place. Click by click. Layer by layer.
Images. Words. Reflexes. All stacking.
A movement he’d never done, but now knew.
A rune he hadn’t seen, but felt the shape of.
A scream he’d never heard, but knew had once come from his own throat.
Not until the worst of it slowed.
Then he looked at Rathan. "This is... a lot."
"You think this is a lot," Rathan said, smirking. "Wait until you try to use it."
Merlin exhaled, slow. His pulse was erratic. His skin felt too tight. He rubbed his neck.
"Why do I feel like I just lived three lifetimes in a blink?"
"Because you did," Rathan said. "And if your bones don’t hurt yet, they will."
Merlin blinked hard, trying to focus. But his brain wasn’t entirely cooperating. Too much at once. Too many fragments bouncing off each other.
He pressed a palm to his chest.
Still his. Still real.
’This doesn’t change who I am. I’m still me.’
Rathan watched him for a second longer. Then dropped onto a nearby stone like his knees had finally said enough.
"Sit down before you fall down," he said.