The transformed fear eaters stayed.
For the first three days, they barely spoke. They huddled together in a corner of the fortress library—the room I'd claimed as my own, filled with books and natural light and the smell of old paper. They seemed to need that light, need the warmth, need proof that they were no longer creatures of shadow.
I visited them every few hours, bringing food they didn't eat and water they didn't drink. They weren't sure, yet, what sustained them. What they'd become.
On the fourth day, the smallest one—a wisp of a creature who'd once been the most terrified of the group—spoke to me.
"What are we?" she asked. Her voice was soft, like wind through leaves. "We were fear eaters for so long. We don't remember anything else."
I sat cross-legged on the floor across f
