Night wrapped the city in coal dust and shadows. Thirteen days until new prisoner selections at Camp Seven. Thirteen days that felt like thirteen heartbeats.
Kael stood before Marcus Ashwood's studio. Three stories of neglect. Boards crossed windows like closed eyes. Chains wrapped the door in rusted bondage. "Condemned" signs peeled in the humid air.
Should he feel something already? The mill had been empty. The crossroads dormant. But here...
This... the air tasted wrong. Too thick. Too sweet. Like paint fumes and funeral flowers.
His birthmark tingled. Not pain. Not yet. Just awareness. Something waited inside. Something that made reality hold its breath.
The front entrance was chained but buildings had multiple entries. Kael circled to the alley. Found a side door. Boards loose. Gap wide enough for someone thin. Someone desperate.
He squeezed through. Splinters caught his shirt. Tore skin. First blood offered before he'd even entered properly.
Inside was darkness thick enough to chew.
He lit his candle. The flame flickered normal yellow for three seconds. Then shifted. Blue. Cold. Wrong.
Temperature plummeted like falling from summer cliff into winter ocean. Forty degrees. Thirty. Twenty. His breath misted in clouds that hung too long. Moved wrong. Formed shapes that almost meant something.
The studio's entry hall stretched before him. Paintings lined both walls. Portraits. Landscapes. Still lifes. All coated in dust except...
Except they weren't. Kael stepped closer. Ran finger along a frame. Clean. Polished. Like someone maintained them daily.
Who? The building had been sealed five years. Since the night Marcus Ashwood painted his family in blood before adding his own signature.
A door slammed behind him.
He spun. The entrance he'd squeezed through was gone. Solid wall. Seamless. Like it never existed.
Trapped. Good. Meant something was here. Something that didn't want him leaving.
"I'm not here to steal." His voice echoed strangely. Bounced wrong. "I need to understand. To learn."
Silence. But listening silence. Watching silence. Waiting silence.
Kael moved deeper. The hallway opened into the main studio. Easels stood scattered like soldiers. Drop cloths draped furniture. Everything arranged as if the artist had just stepped out. Would return any moment.
Would he? In a way?
The paintings here showed different subjects. More personal. A woman's smile. Children playing. Family dinners. Love made visible through pigment and passion.
Then the darker ones. Same subjects but twisted. The woman's smile too wide. Children's eyes too knowing. Family dinner where everyone stared at viewer with identical expressions.
Before madness. After madness. The progression clear as calendar.
Where was the origin item? Should be obvious. Calling. Glowing with inner light like...
There. Corner of the room. Not glowing but pulling. Drawing his eye despite trying to look elsewhere.
A painting covered by black cloth. Hidden. Protected. Or imprisoned?
Kael approached. Each step through air thick as honey. Cold as morgue. The covered painting waited. Patient. Hungry. Inevitable.
Should he reveal it slowly? Rip away the cloth? Did method matter?
His hand touched fabric. The studio exploded into motion.
Every painting burst from its frame. Not copies. The paintings themselves. Oil and canvas given dimension. Figures stepping out. Landscapes expanding. Still lifes animating.
A portrait of a nobleman lunged. Kael rolled aside. Painted fingers brushed his shoulder. Where they touched, his shirt stiffened. Became canvas. Rough. Inflexible.
This... he'd prepared for combat. For mental trials. Not living art.
More paintings joined the assault. A woman in blue flowing dress. Children with porcelain faces. Horses galloping from pastoral scene. All wrong. All reaching. All trying to make him part of their frozen world.
Kael grabbed a palette knife from nearby table. Slashed at reaching hands. The blade passed through paint like water. No effect. How do you fight art?
You don't. You understand it. Garrett's words. Resolution not victory.
But understanding required survival first.
He dove behind an easel. Knocked it into pursuing figures. They flowed around it. Over it. Through it. Physical barriers meant nothing to paint given purpose.
The room stretched. Walls receding. Ceiling rising. Space expanding beyond architecture's limits. The covered painting remained same distance away. Close. Far. Impossible.
A landscape tried to swallow him. Forest scene opening like mouth. He scrambled backward. Hit another painting. Seascape. Waves crashed out. Salt water. Real water. Soaking. Freezing.
Origin item. Had to reach origin item. But the painted guardians formed ranks. Blocked approaches. Herded him toward corners. Toward capture. Toward becoming permanent exhibition.
What did they want? What did the spirit want?
"I know your pain!" Kael shouted. "The fire! The family! The choice you made!"
Everything paused. One heartbeat. Two. Then resumed with doubled fury.
Wrong words. Wrong understanding. But what...
A child's portrait caught his ankle. Small hands. Strong grip. Dragging him toward its frame. Toward two-dimensional prison.
He kicked free. Scrambled up. Onto a table. Higher ground meaningless but instinct demanded elevation.
The paintings circled below. Waiting. Watching. Why didn't they climb? Could they not? Or choosing not?
This... patterns. Even chaos had patterns. The paintings moved wrong but consistent wrong. They avoided certain areas. Stayed away from...
From other paintings. The darker ones. The madness paintings. Like same magnetic charge repelling.
Kael jumped. Landed near a twisted family portrait. The circling paintings recoiled. Gave space. Afraid? Respectful? Or just maintaining hierarchy?
He grabbed the dark painting. Held it like shield. The other artworks stopped. Waited. Watched.
"You separated them." Understanding dawned. "Before madness. After madness. But they're same people. Same family. Same love underneath."
The studio shuddered. Walls breathing. Reality hiccupping.
But closer. He was closer to truth. To resolution.
Still the guardians blocked the covered painting. Still the room twisted beyond physics. Still his shirt turned slowly to canvas where paint had touched.
New approach. If paintings had hierarchy...
"Where's Marcus?" Kael called. "Where's the artist?"
Temperature dropped further. Negative degrees. His tears froze on cheeks. But there. In the corner. Movement.
Not a painting. A sketch. Rough charcoal on paper. Half-finished. One side detailed perfectly. Other side loose lines. Suggestions. Implications.
The sketch stepped forward. Marcus Ashwood. But wrong. Incomplete. Like someone stopped drawing mid-creation.
"Mine." The word came from everywhere. Walls. Floor. Air itself. "My studio. My work. My guilt. MINE!"
"I know." Kael kept the dark painting raised. "You chose art over family. Saved paintings while they burned."
The sketch-Marcus writhed. Lines rewriting themselves. Details shifting. Pain made visible through charcoal.
"Can't save both. Never both. Always choosing. Always failing."
"But you tried?"
The guardians pressed closer. Paint-smell overwhelming. Turpentine and oils and grief.
"Tried!" Sketch-Marcus laughed. Sound like paper tearing. "Tried to carry everything. Paintings. Children. Wife. Too much. Arms too full. Had to choose."
Choose. The word echoed. Multiplied. Became physical. Pressing.
This... trial wasn't combat. Wasn't survival. Was understanding choice. Impossible choice.
"Show me." Kael set down the dark painting. Opened arms. "Show me the moment. Let me see."
Mistake? Perhaps. The studio exploded into memory.
Fire everywhere. Real fire. Hot. Hungry. Smoke filling lungs. Kael/Marcus stood in burning home. Paintings on left. Family on right. Arms already full of canvases. Masterworks. Life's work.
Children screaming. Wife calling. Flames between them. Growing. Spreading.
Drop paintings? Lose decades of creation? Everything that made him artist?
Save family? Lose art that defined existence?
No time. Choose. CHOOSE!
Marcus had chosen. Saved paintings. Listened to family die. Then added himself to pyre. Too late. Too broken. Too guilty.
The memory shattered. Kael stood in studio. Understood. Felt the weight. The impossible decision.
"You couldn't carry both. Physics failed you. Not heart."
Sketch-Marcus stopped writhing. Stared with charcoal eyes. Waiting.
"But here... here physics don't apply. Here you can change the choice."
The covered painting pulsed. Cloth fell away. Revealed canvas. Empty. Waiting. Origin item primed for new creation.
Kael understood. Picked up brush from table. Dipped in oils that shouldn't be liquid after five years. Approached canvas.
"Paint them together. Family and art. Same frame. Same space. No choosing."
Sketch-Marcus moved beside him. Guided his hand. Together they painted. Not masterwork. Not skilled. But true. Family surrounded by paintings. Paintings held by family. Unity impossible in life made real in art.
The brush burst into flame. Real fire. Skin blistering. Kael kept painting. Blood mixing with oils. Pain feeding creation. Almost done. Almost...
The guardians dissolved. Flowed back to frames. Settled into original positions. Content. Complete.
Last stroke. Family portrait finished. Kael's hand charred. Vision spinning. But done.
Sketch-Marcus smiled. Faded. Dispersed like smoke.
The studio shuddered. Contracted. Reality reasserting. But something settled into Kael's soul. Foreign. Familiar. Power.
Spirit bound. Trial complete. He'd done it.
Then exhaustion hit like hammer. Legs folded. Vision black. Last thought before unconsciousness:
Mya. Still have to reach Mya.
Darkness took him. But not empty darkness. Painted darkness. Colored with possibility.