Chapter Twenty-Nine:
“The Promise Remains”
The whispers suddenly turned into screams.
John clutched his head, breath fracturing as the voices surged—deafening, suffocating.
“SAVE HIM!!! SAVE EVERYONE!!!”
The Hall of Whispers spun. The floor tilted. The air burned.
“Can’t you hear that?!” he shouted, but his own voice was swallowed by the noise.
Hands steadied him—Akira’s, grounded and firm. Rai’s, sharp and commanding. But their expressions told him everything.
They didn’t hear it.
“THE VOID! NERATHE! FIND ROLAND!”
The screaming rose into something unbearable, not sound but force, shredding through his thoughts. And then...
Silence.
The voices cut off as suddenly as they began.
John staggered, gasping, the absence of pressure almost worse than the weight itself. The room came back in blurs. Akira’s voice echoed faintly through the ringing in his ears.
“John?”
He nodded, barely, still shaking.
“I’m okay,” he lied.
Rai studied him, her brow furrowed. “What just happened?”
John looked down at his hands. They trembled. But beneath the chaos, something else stirred, clarity.
“I know what I have to do,” he said.
Akira folded his arms. “What is it?”
“I don’t know how to explain it yet. But I need to get to Realmweaver. And I need to find the path to Nerathe, wherever that is. I think... I think it’s the way to The Void. I have to save Roland... somehow.”
A long silence followed.
John turned to Rai, to Akira, to RW—who had padded close, flame flickering low. “I know how insane this sounds. I know. But I have to try.”
Before anyone could answer, Rai glanced toward the windows. “He hasn’t moved.”
John followed her gaze.
Far beyond the edge of the village, Sterling’s armada still hovered in the sky—thousands of ships, silent, waiting.
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“Why hasn’t he attacked?” Rai asked quietly.
Akira’s voice was flat. “He’s waiting. For what, I don’t know. But he is.”
The silence settled again. Not peace. Not relief.
Tension.
John exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
“I’m going,” he said.
No one argued.
The Hall of Whispers faded behind them.
John walked as if carrying something far heavier than his pack. Every step echoed—not loud, but final. The weight of what he’d heard hadn’t passed. It lingered, threaded through his chest like something woven into him.
The streets of Kagemura were half-ruin, half-rebirth.
Smoke still clung to the rooftops. Ash lined the gutters. Villagers moved like ghosts—some dousing stubborn fires, others staring up at the sky, waiting for the next assault.
Kaori walked ahead, silent. Her massive form barely fit through the tight alleys, but she moved with precision, not brute force.
Haru kept to the shadows, his tail flicking restlessly, though his ears were pinned low. He hadn’t spoken much since the battle. He didn’t need to. His grief was loud enough.
They reached the Jade Lantern just as the moon slid behind the Sterlings fleet. The once-pristine sign was cracked through the center. Smoke damage painted the windows. But it stood.
Inside, the light was soft. The shelves were half-empty. The incense smell couldn’t hide the burn marks along the walls. But it was still the Lantern. Still familiar.
John brushed a hand across the counter. He could almost hear Yumi laughing again.
“This is where I bought it,” he said quietly. “The feather. The one I gave away last night. If I hadn't... I...”
Rai moved beside him. “And I'm sure it saved someone else. That’s what she would’ve wanted.”
Haru spoke, finally. “Takeshi and Kei were our anchors. They kept us from falling apart. Now they’re gone, and we must carry that weight.”
Kaori exhaled, low and long. “We carry it forward. That’s all we can do.”
RW hovered at the edge of the counter, her voice hushed. “We’ll have to go back. To where it started. What Gameweaver called Nerathe."
John nodded. “That’s where I’ll find the path to the Void. To Roland's soul.”
He didn’t look at the others as he said it. He knew it sounded crazy.
But they were already with him.
Haru, gently, slid a vial across the counter toward him. “For the road,” he said.
Kaori passed him a salve without a word.
Akira, who had been standing silently near the door, finally stepped forward. He reached into his cloak, pulling out a small, wrapped bundle. "Tools," he said. "Just in case the path to the Void isn't as metaphorical as we want it to be." His voice was dry, but there was a flicker of concern beneath it.
He set it down beside the vial and salve. "And I’m not letting you go alone. We do this together. Like always."
Rai stepped forward too, arms crossed. "You think I’d let you walk into the underworld without backup? I’m coming too."
Kaori placed a hand on Rai’s shoulder, then looked to John. "We'll handle Sterling. Whatever comes next, we’ll hold Kagemura with everything we've got. That’s our part to play."
Haru nodded, his voice quiet but steady. "We’re counting on you to finish what we started. Make it right, John. For all of us."
John moved through the narrow aisles in silence. The shelves were patchy, the inventory scattered. A few scrolls. A handful of herbs. Most of the glass display cases were cracked, their contents long since reclaimed or ruined.
He ran his fingers along the edge of one of the counters.
A low voice reached them from behind the counter.
“I think you dropped this.”
John turned. A small Kitsune girl stood there, clutching something dark in both hands. Her fur was a soft russet-orange, her ears twitching as she stepped closer. She didn’t look afraid. Just solemn.
She offered him a charm—carved wood, roughly hewn but unmistakable.
A fox.
John stared at it, unmoving.
“It’s for you,” she said. “She saved us. She was our hero.”
His throat caught. He reached out, took it gently, turning the charm over in his palm. Yumi's charm.
His knees hit the floor.
He didn’t sob. He just held the charm against his chest, head bowed, as the breath left him in jagged pulls. The ache didn’t rush this time. It settled. Deep and still.
“Thank you,” he whispered, voice shaking.
The girl nodded, then quietly stepped away.
No one spoke.
The Jade Lantern’s quiet hum returned—smoke, dust, and sacred silence.
And John, holding the last piece of her he hadn’t expected to find.
