THE BURIED GOD
Chapter 27: The Quiet Heart
The heart hung in the center of the chamber, dark and still. No pulse. No light. No hunger. Just stone. Just memory. Just silence.
Damon walked toward it.
His boots crunched on the broken stone.
The shovel hung from his hand.
Vespera followed.
Lyssa followed.
Rook followed.
They stopped at the edge of the light—what little light remained. The red glow had faded to gray, the gray to black, the black to nothing.
The heart was cold.
“Can you feel it?” Vespera asked.
Damon closed his eyes.
He listened.
Not with his ears. With something deeper. Something older. Something that had been sleeping inside him since the day he was born.
“No,” he said.
“The hunger?”
“Gone.”
“The god?”
“Sleeping.”
“How do you know?”
He opened his eyes.
“Because I can’t feel him anymore. Before, he was always there. Always whispering. Always hungry. Now—” He paused. “Now there’s nothing.”
Lyssa touched the heart.
Her fingers were pale against the dark stone.
“It’s cold,” she said.
“The heart was never cold. The heart was always warm. The heart was always hungry.”
“Not anymore.”
Rook stepped forward.
His gray eyes were dark.
“The god is not dead. The god is waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
Rook was silent for a long moment.
“For someone to wake him.”
Damon looked at the heart.
At the cold stone.
At the silent hunger.
“Can we destroy it?”
Rook shook his head.
“The heart cannot be destroyed. The heart is the mountain. The mountain is the world. The world is the hunger.”
“Then what do we do?”
Rook looked at Vespera.
“You bury it. Again. Deeper this time. Stronger this time. Longer this time.”
“How?”
Rook was silent for a long moment.
“With the blade. The blade of ending. The blade that cut the seed.”
“It’s inside me.”
“Then you must cut yourself again. Deeper this time. Stronger this time. Longer this time.”
Damon touched his chest.
The scar was cold.
“The blade is still there?”
“The blade is always there. The blade is part of you now. It has been since you cut the seed.”
“Then why can’t I feel it?”
Rook’s gray eyes dimmed.
“Because you’re afraid.”
Damon was silent.
“I am afraid.”
“Good. Fear will keep you alive.”
“What if I cut too deep?”
“Then you die. And the god wakes. And the hunger consumes.”
“What if I don’t cut deep enough?”
“Then the seed grows back. And the god wakes. And the hunger consumes.”
Damon looked at the heart.
At the cold stone.
At the silent hunger.
“Either way, the god wakes?”
Rook nodded.
“Either way, the god wakes.”