The next town was worse.

  Not in the way it looked—no, Bairan still had color in its windows and fires in its hearths. But the people smiled too easily. Their eyes didn’t blink enough. And their voices always came half a second too late.

  Zayd arrived by nightfall, chain whispering behind him, soaked in the last of Ardhmoor’s rain. The clouds parted above Bairan as he stepped through its gates, but the feeling in his gut didn’t change.

  It wasn’t relief.

  It was warning.

  Something here was pretending to be safe.

  He entered a tavern. The room went silent, then loud again—as if someone hit "play" on a sound reel. Patrons laughed, mugs clinked, and music played from a stringed instrument no one seemed to be holding.

  The bartender smiled too wide. “New face?”

  Zayd sat. “Just passing through.”

  “Looking for work?”

  “Looking for memories.”

  The bartender’s smile faltered. Just a twitch.

  “Plenty of those around,” he said. “We’re a happy town.”

  “That’s the problem,” Zayd muttered.

  He placed a marble on the counter. Just one. Small. Black.

  The tavern froze.

  A woman screamed.

  Zayd turned. Her hands shook. She stared at the marble, eyes wide with panic.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “You… you brought it back!”

  “Brought what?” another man snapped.

  The woman backed up. “I saw him. I remember—I remember!”

  The tavern cracked. Just a sound at first—like a floorboard under pressure. Then a window shattered. Someone cried out in pain.

  The illusion had begun to break.

  And Zayd knew exactly where to go next.

  The mayor’s house was too perfect.

  Crisp red curtains. Freshly painted walls. A locked door, but no lock Zayd couldn’t undo.

  He stepped inside.

  Bookshelves lined the walls. Every one filled with blank tomes.

  In the center: a table. And on it, dozens of marbles. All black. All whispering.

  And behind the table stood a man—tall, clean, dressed in white. His eyes were empty.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he said.

  Zayd tilted his head. “Then you shouldn’t have locked them away.”

  The man’s face twitched.

  “I offered peace,” he said. “They gave me their pain. Freely. I only… organized it.”

  Zayd stepped forward. “You stole their will. Their memories. Their guilt.”

  “They were drowning in it.”

  “That’s what makes them people.”

  The man raised his hand.

  From the floor, shadows rose. Thin, humanoid shapes, but hollow—like black glass filled with smoke. They lunged.

  Zayd pulled the sigil rod from his coat. Pressed it to his temple.

  Break.

  The chain on his ankle glowed.

  And time stopped.

  Zayd stepped through the frozen moment, calm. Quiet. Focused.

  He touched each shadow’s forehead. His power unraveled the memory cords connecting them—snapping them back like broken leashes.

  He stood before the man in white.

  “You don’t know how to carry your own sins,” Zayd said. “So you buried them in others.”

  The man hissed. “And what about you, Lockbreaker? What sins do you carry?”

  Zayd looked down.

  “I carry every one I failed to free.”

  Then he placed a marble into the man’s hand.

  And whispered, “Remember her.”

  The man collapsed.

  Screamed.

  Screamed for minutes that felt like hours.

  When it ended, he wept.

  Not the theatrical weeping of someone trying to atone.

  The kind that doesn’t expect forgiveness.

  Zayd walked out into the street.

  The people of Bairan emerged slowly—clutching their heads, holding one another, whispering names they thought they'd forgotten.

  Some wept. Some just sat in silence.

  But all of them were awake.

  The girl from Ardhmoor was waiting for him at the town edge.

  “You knew I’d come here,” he said.

  She nodded. “I didn’t forget you.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “You remember all of them, don’t you?”

  Zayd looked up at the stars. For a moment, his eyes shimmered with something too old to be sadness.

  “I remember enough.”

  The girl hesitated. “Will it ever stop?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then why do you keep doing it?”

  Zayd touched the chain on his ankle.

  “To make sure no one else has to.”

  And as he disappeared into the night, the stars above Bairan glowed a little brighter. Not because the world had been fixed.

  But because, for once, it had been unlocked.