EMBERS OF THE FORSAKEN

The Dissembler's Price

The building was made of bones.

Not animal bones—human bones. Thousands of them, stacked and fused together with salt and something that looked like dried blood. Skulls formed the corners. Rib cages arched over doorways. Finger bones dangled from the eaves like wind chimes.

Tommy stopped walking. "I'm not going in there."

Taylor put a hand on his shoulder. "We didn't cross the Fracture to turn back now."

"That's a house made of dead people."

"Yes." Taylor's voice was flat. "The Dissembler has been here for a long time. People come to them for help. Some of them don't leave."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"No. It's supposed to make you careful."

James stared at the bone-house. The Ember in his chest was quiet—not dormant, but respectful. Like a wolf encountering something larger than itself.

The Dissembler is old, the voice whispered. Older than me, maybe. Older than the war. Be careful, vessel. This one doesn't play by the same rules as the others.

"That's comforting," James muttered.

"What?" Taylor asked.

"The voice. It's nervous."

Taylor's eyes widened—just a fraction. "The Ember is nervous?"

"Apparently."

They walked toward the bone-house.

---

The door was a jawbone.

A massive jaw, easily ten feet tall, with teeth the size of James's forearm. It hung vertically, hinged at the top, and when Taylor pushed it open, it swung inward with a sound like grinding teeth.

Inside, the bone-house was warmer than James expected.

A fire burned in a pit at the center of the main room—real fire, not the cold blue flames of the Inquisition. The smoke rose through a chimney made of spinal columns. The light cast dancing shadows on walls of fused skulls.

And in the corner, sitting in a chair made of pelvises, was the Dissembler.

They were impossible to read.

Not old. Not young. Not male. Not female. Their skin was the color of salt, cracked and dry, with veins that glowed faintly silver—the same silver as James's blood. Their eyes were two different colors: one brown, one white with a pupil that didn't move. Their hair was white and thin, pulled back from a face that had no expression at all.

"You came," the Dissembler said.

Their voice was two voices—one high, one low, speaking at the same time. It echoed off the bone walls.

"You knew we were coming?" James asked.

"I know everything that crosses the Glass Sea. The salt tells me. The bones whisper." The Dissembler stood. They were taller than James expected—seven feet, at least—and thin as a skeleton. "You carry the Ember. The last fragment of Emberion. The hungriest of the dead god's children."

"Yes."

"And you want me to remove it."

"Yes."

The Dissembler walked around James, studying him from every angle. Their mismatched eyes lingered on the silver veins in his neck, his wrists, his chest.

"You've already lost much," they said. "Memories. Emotions. Pieces of yourself. The Ember has been feeding well."

"Can you take it out or not?"

The Dissembler stopped in front of him. Their face was inches from his.

"Yes," they said. "But the price is high."

"I don't have money—"

"I don't want money." The Dissembler stepped back. "I want something you have. Something you value more than your own life."

James's blood went cold. "What?"

The Dissembler looked at Tommy.

"No," James said.

"I haven't asked for anything yet."

"Whatever it is, no. He's off limits."

The Dissembler tilted their head. "The boy has catalyst blood. It would be useful to me. I could keep him here. Safe. Comfortable. He would never want for anything."

"He's not a bargaining chip."

"Everyone is a bargaining chip, Ember-child. You just haven't realized it yet." The Dissembler walked back to their chair and sat down. "But I won't take the boy. Not today. That's not the price I had in mind."

"Then what?"

The Dissembler pointed at Taylor.

"Her," they said. "I want her service. For one year and one day. She does what I ask, when I ask, without question. At the end of the term, she goes free."

Taylor laughed—a sharp, bitter sound. "I'm not your slave."

"You would be my apprentice. There's a difference."

"You want me to learn how to do... this?" She gestured at the bone-house. "Take Ember fragments out of people?"

"I want you to learn how to contain them. The Ember-child's fragment is too strong for me to destroy. I can only move it. From his blood to another vessel." The Dissembler's mismatched eyes gleamed. "The transfer requires two people. One to give. One to receive. The receiver doesn't survive."

James's stomach dropped. "You said you could remove it."

"I can. I didn't say you'd live."

Taylor stepped between James and the Dissembler. "You're saying the transfer kills the recipient?"

"Always. The Ember is too hungry. It consumes the new vessel from the inside. The process takes hours. Sometimes days." The Dissembler shrugged. "But the original vessel survives. The Ember is gone. The memories stop disappearing."

James looked at his hands. The silver veins were darker now, spreading up his forearms.

"How long do I have?" he asked.

"Before the Ember eats everything? A few months. Maybe less. You've been using it recklessly."

"I was trying to survive."

"We all are." The Dissembler stood again. "I didn't say there was no hope. I said the transfer kills the recipient. But recipients can be chosen. Volunteers. People who are dying anyway. People with nothing to lose."

"Where do I find someone like that?"

"Here." The Dissembler walked to a door at the back of the room—a door made of leg bones. "I have three candidates. They came to the Glass Sea to die. They've been waiting for someone like you."

They opened the door.

Three people sat in a smaller room, on chairs made of ribs. Two men. One woman. All of them pale, thin, marked by the same silver veins that crawled across James's skin.

Ember-touched. All of them.

"The dying," the Dissembler said. "The last stage of Ember consumption. They have weeks left, at most. Their fragments are weak—almost burned out. But their bodies can still receive a transfer."

"You want me to give my Ember to one of them?"

"I want you to give them a choice. They can die in pain, their fragments eating them from the inside. Or they can die quickly, taking your fragment with them, and save your life in the process."

James walked into the room.

The three candidates looked up at him. Their eyes were hollow—not with hunger, but with exhaustion. They'd been fighting their Embers for years. They'd lost.

"My name is James," he said.

"We know," the woman said. Her voice was a whisper. "The Dissembler told us you were coming. The last vessel. The strongest fragment."

"How long have you been here?"

"Years. Decades. I've lost count." She smiled—a cracked, painful expression. "I was beautiful once. Before the Ember took my skin, my hair, my teeth. Now I'm just a skeleton wrapped in memories that aren't mine."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I volunteered for this. We all did." She nodded at the two men. "We came to the Glass Sea to die. The Dissembler offered us a chance to make our deaths meaningful."

James turned to the Dissembler. "If I do this—if I transfer the Ember to one of them—what happens to the fragment? Does it die with them?"

"No. It returns to the earth. To wait for another vessel. Another generation." The Dissembler's voice was calm. "But it takes time. Decades, maybe centuries. Long enough for you to live a full life."

"A full life without the Ember."

"Yes."

"And what about the person who receives it?"

"They die in agony. But they die knowing they saved someone. For some people, that's enough."

James looked back at the three candidates. The woman nodded at him. The two men said nothing—just watched with those hollow, patient eyes.

"I can't ask someone to die for me," James said.

"You're not asking. I'm asking." The Dissembler stepped past him and knelt in front of the woman. "Sarai has been waiting for this moment for thirty years. Haven't you?"

Sarai nodded. "My husband died in the god-war. My children died of the Withering. There's nothing left for me in this world except pain." She looked at James. "Let me go. Let me go knowing I did something good."

James's throat tightened. "There has to be another way."

"There is no other way." The Dissembler stood. "You can keep the Ember. Let it eat you. Die hollow and hungry, like every other vessel before you. Or you can let Sarai take it from you. She dies. You live."

"And the Ember?"

"Returns to the earth. To wait." The Dissembler's mismatched eyes narrowed. "Unless you have a better idea."

The voice in James's head stirred.

Don't do it, the Ember whispered. I don't want to sleep. I don't want to wait. I want to burn.

"You don't get a vote," James thought back.

I am you. You are me. If I sleep, you lose me. And you need me. The Dying King is rising. The war is coming. Without the Ember, you're nothing.

"Maybe nothing is better than being a monster."

Monsters live. Nothing dies.

James turned to Taylor. She stood by the door, her arms crossed, her face unreadable.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"I think you should do it."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that." She walked to him. "You've been carrying this thing for weeks. It's taken your mother's face, your foster mother's name, your brother's first laugh. How much more are you willing to lose? Your own name? Your own face? Tommy's face?"

James looked at Tommy. The boy was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, his eyes fixed on James.

"Jamie," Tommy said. "I don't want you to die."

"I don't want to die either."

"Then let the lady help you."

Sarai stood. She was shorter than James expected—barely five feet—and so thin he could see the shape of her skull through her skin.

"It's not help," Sarai said. "It's a trade. My life for yours. I've made peace with that."

"Why?" James asked. "Why would you do this for a stranger?"

Sarai touched his cheek. Her fingers were cold—colder than the Ember, colder than the Glass Sea wind.

"Because I had a son," she said. "He died when he was twelve. The Withering took him. I watched him forget my face. I watched him forget his own name. And then I watched him die." Her eyes filled with tears—the first emotion she'd shown. "If someone could have saved him, I would have given anything. Now I can save you. Let me."

James closed his eyes.

The Ember was silent.

"Okay," he said.

---

The Dissembler prepared the ritual chamber in the bone-house's basement.

The room was circular, carved from salt and sealed with blood. Symbols lined the walls—old writing, older than the god-war, older than the Sundered Realms. James didn't recognize the language, but the Ember did.

Sacrifice, the voice whispered. Binding. Transfer. This place was built for one purpose.

"You knew about this place," James thought. "You knew the Dissembler existed."

I knew. I didn't want you to find it.

"Because you don't want to sleep."

Because I don't want to die. And neither do you. Without me, you're just a boy. Weak. Helpless. Easy to kill.

"Maybe. But I'll be a boy who remembers his brother's name."

The Ember didn't answer.

Sarai sat on a stone slab in the center of the room. She'd changed into a white dress—clean, simple—and someone had brushed her thin white hair.

"I'm ready," she said.

The Dissembler handed James a blade. Bone, not metal. Sharp.

"You'll need to cut your wrist," they said. "And hers. Then press the wounds together. The Ember will flow from you to her. It will take time. It will hurt."

"How long?"

"Hours. Maybe a day. The Ember won't go quietly."

Taylor stood by the door, her borrowed knife in her hand. Tommy was upstairs, in the bone-house's main room, with instructions not to come down.

"What if something goes wrong?" James asked.

"Then you both die." The Dissembler's voice was matter-of-fact. "The Ember consumes both vessels and returns to the earth hungry. It's happened before."

"Comforting."

"I'm not here to comfort you. I'm here to save you. There's a difference."

James sat on the stone slab beside Sarai. She took his hand.

"You're scared," she said.

"Yes."

"Good. Fear means you're still alive. Still human." She squeezed his fingers. "When the transfer starts, the Ember will try to convince you to stop. It will offer you things—memories, power, anything you want. Don't listen."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've been through this before. Three times. Three transfers. Three vessels who changed their minds at the last moment." Her hollow eyes were serious. "They're all dead now. The Ember ate them."

"You watched them die?"

"I held their hands while they died." She smiled—a real smile, cracked and sad. "That's why I'm here. I'm not a candidate, James. I'm the Dissembler's assistant. I help the dying make peace."

James pulled his hand back. "You lied."

"I let you believe what you needed to believe." Sarai didn't flinch. "The truth is, there's no one else. The other two candidates died last month. Their Embers burned them out. I'm the only one left."

"You're not dying?"

"I'm dying slowly. The Ember inside me is weak, but it's still there. Still hungry. The Dissembler says I have a year, maybe two." She held out her hand again. "If I take your Ember, I die today. If I don't, I die next year. Either way, I die. This way, my death means something."

James looked at the Dissembler. They stood in the corner, watching, their mismatched eyes unreadable.

"You planned this," James said. "You brought me here knowing Sarai was the only option."

"Yes."

"Because you want her to die."

"Because I want you to live." The Dissembler stepped closer. "Sarai has been suffering for thirty years. Her Ember is a splinter—small, weak, but constant. Every day, it takes something from her. Every night, she dreams of the god-war. She's ready to go. She's been ready for a decade."

"Then let her go. Don't use her death to save me."

"That's not your choice." Sarai's voice was firm. "It's mine. And I've made it."

She pulled the bone blade from James's hand and cut her own wrist.

Silver blood welled up—pale and thin, nothing like the bright molten light of James's veins.

"Your turn," she said.

James took the blade.

The Ember screamed.

NO. I WON'T GO. I WON'T SLEEP. I WON'T DIE.

James cut his wrist.

The silver blood poured out—bright and hot and hungry. It didn't drip. It reached, like a living thing, toward the wound on Sarai's arm.

"Now," the Dissembler said. "Press them together."

James pressed his bleeding wrist against Sarai's.

The world turned silver.

---

He was standing in the field of ash again.

The dead god's domain. The place where the Ember lived when it wasn't inside a vessel.

The silver figure stood before him—taller now, more solid. It had a face. James's face.

You're killing me, the figure said.

"I'm freeing myself from you."

You're killing us both. Without me, you're nothing. A shell. A husk. The Inquisition will catch you. The Syndicate will dissect you. The Dying King will—

"The Dying King can find someone else."

There is no one else. You are the last. The strongest. The only one who can—

"I don't care."

The silver figure lunged.

James didn't move. He couldn't move. The figure's hands closed around his throat.

I WILL NOT DIE.

"Then sleep," James whispered. "Sleep until someone else wakes you. Someone who wants you. I never wanted you."

The figure screamed.

The field of ash cracked. The silver light flickered. And James felt something leaving him—something cold and heavy and old.

The Ember.

It flowed out of his chest, down his arm, through the wound on his wrist, into Sarai.

She gasped.

Her eyes opened—silver, bright, hungry.

"It's in me," she whispered. "Oh, gods. It's so hungry."

"Hang on," James said. "Just hang on."

Sarai smiled. Her teeth were silver now.

"Thank you," she said.

Then her eyes went dark.

---

The transfer took six hours.

James sat on the stone slab, his wrist pressed to Sarai's, while the Ember crawled from his blood to hers. He felt every moment of it—the cold receding from his chest, the hunger fading, the voices in his head growing quiet.

Not silent. The Ember's voice was still there, but distant. Like an echo.

When it was over, Sarai was dead.

Her body lay on the slab, grey and still, her wrist still pressed to James's. The silver veins in her skin had faded to black.

The Dissembler checked her pulse. Then her eyes. Then her mouth.

"It's done," they said. "The Ember is gone."

James pulled his wrist away. The cut was already healing—but slowly, like a normal wound. No silver light. No molten blood. Just red.

Just red.

He started crying.

Not from sadness. From relief. From the overwhelming weight of being alone in his own head for the first time in weeks.

Taylor knelt beside him. "James?"

"It's gone," he said. "The voice. The hunger. It's all gone."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "How do you feel?"

"Like myself." He looked at his hands. The silver veins were fading, retreating back into his skin. "Like I haven't felt since... I don't remember. Since before."

Tommy ran down the stairs. He stopped at the entrance to the ritual chamber, his eyes wide.

"Jamie?"

James stood. His legs shook, but he stood.

"Tommy," he said. "I remember."

"Remember what?"

"Everything." He walked to his brother and knelt. "I remember the day we met. You were crying. You'd lost your parents. And I made you laugh by crossing my eyes."

Tommy's face crumpled. "You said you forgot that."

"I did. But the Ember gave it back." James touched his chest. "When it left, it gave back everything it took. My mother's face. Her lullaby. Your first laugh. Everything."

Tommy threw his arms around James's neck.

They stayed like that for a long time.

---

The Dissembler spoke from the doorway.

"The Ember isn't gone forever. It's in Sarai's body now. When she decays, it will return to the earth. To wait."

"How long?" James asked.

"Decades. Centuries. I don't know." The Dissembler shrugged. "Long enough for you to live a life."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Thank Sarai." The Dissembler looked at the body on the slab. "She wanted this. She's been waiting for someone worthy of her death. You were."

James walked to Sarai's body and closed her eyes.

"I'll remember her," he said.

The Dissembler nodded. "That's all any of us can ask."

---

They left the bone-house at dawn.

The Glass Sea stretched before them, white and cold. Behind them, the Fracture waited. Beyond it, the Bloom. Beyond that, Ravensbrook.

"You're not going back," Taylor said. It wasn't a question.

"No. The Inquisition is still hunting us. The Syndicate still wants me. The Dying King's followers are still out there." James looked at Tommy. "But without the Ember, I'm just a boy. They'll stop looking eventually."

"Will they?"

"Maybe." He started walking. "But we're not going to wait to find out. There are other cities. Other continents. Somewhere no one knows my name."

Tommy ran to catch up. "Where are we going?"

James looked at the horizon.

"East," he said. "As far east as we can go. Until the salt turns to grass. Until the Glass Sea becomes something else."

"Together?" Tommy asked.

James took his hand.

"Together."

Taylor walked beside them, her borrowed knife in her belt, her eyes on the distance.

She didn't say anything.

But she didn't leave.