I wake to honey cakes and burning incense.

  Wrong. Too sweet, too warm. Nothing like Ward Nine's meat-stench or Mercy Hills' antiseptic bite. My body aches differently now—not from restraints or procedures, but from distance traveled. How long have we been unconscious?

  Silk cushions cradle me beneath a canopy of woven starlight. Real starlight, pulsing in golden thread like captured lightning. The air tastes of copper and old magic, thick enough to chew.

  Beside me, Sylene sits upright, studying our surroundings with the intensity of someone cataloging exits. Her ruined hands are wrapped in clean bandages, but I can see the metal pins still protruding through the cloth. She hasn't let anyone remove them.

  "Third Realm," she says without looking at me. "We never left."

  "That's impossible. Mercy Hills was—"

  "A pocket dimension anchored here. Like a tumor growing from healthy tissue." She gestures to the sky above us—deep sapphire, almost purple at the edges. "Look at the light quality. The way shadows fall. Earth's sun doesn't burn like this."

  I want to argue, but something in the air feels familiar. The way it catches in my lungs, slightly too thick, too rich. Like breathing syrup.

  We're in some kind of bazaar. Vendor stalls stretch in all directions, selling things that shouldn't exist. Bottled screams in crystal decanters. Memory threads wound on silver spools. A woman with scales instead of skin hawks "fresh nightmares, still warm from the dreaming."

  The architecture hurts to look at directly—buildings that twist into themselves, bridges that arc impossibly between towers of bone and crystal. Everything pristine, gleaming, wrong. The last time I saw this place, it was ash and rubble.

  "Someone rebuilt," I say.

  "In your image." Sylene's voice carries an edge. "Look closer."

  She's right. The symbols carved into doorframes—simplified versions of marks I don't remember making. The way the streets curve—following patterns that feel like my handwriting made large. Even the burnt honey smell underneath the incense—it's trying to be something I'd like.

  "Who would dare?"

  "Someone who knew you'd return." She helps me stand, movements careful but certain. "Someone who wanted you to feel welcome."

  My legs shake but hold. We're dressed in traveling clothes—rough wool and leather, practical. Someone changed us while we slept. The thought makes my skin crawl.

  People stare as we move through the market. Not human, most of them. Things with too many eyes, or not enough. Creatures of smoke and sinew that whisper in languages that sound like breaking glass. They watch with anticipation, like they've been waiting.

  "—she's returned—" "—the Queen walks again—" "—but is it really her?—"

  "Ignore them," Sylene mutters, but her bandaged hands flex, ready for violence.

  The vendors grow bolder as we pass. A man with fingers of living wood offers me "maps to lost memories, very cheap." A child who might be made of shadows tries to sell us "protection from the coming war, best quality."

  "What war?" I ask.

  The child grins with too many teeth. "The one that starts when the Regent finds out you're here."

  Sylene grabs my arm, pulls me away before I can ask more. But the word echoes—Regent. Someone's been ruling in my absence. Someone who rebuilt my destroyed city into this gleaming lie.

  We're heading uphill, toward structures that grow more elaborate with each street. The crowds thicken. More whispers, more stares. Some drop to their knees as we pass. Others grip weapons beneath their cloaks.

  "Do you remember any of this?" Sylene asks.

  Fragments. Like looking at a painting through frosted glass. These streets, but different. Darker. Filled with things that sang my praises while they bled. The memory slips away when I try to grasp it.

  "No," I admit. "Do you?"

  "Pieces." She sounds frustrated. "They did something to my memories too. Not extraction—more like... smearing. Everything important is there, but blurred."

  The sun begins to sink toward the horizon. The sapphire sky deepens to indigo, and that's when I see them. One by one, like eyes opening—moons. Six of them, each a different phase, hanging in constellation that makes my chest tight.

  The world tilts. Memory crashes through me like a wave.

  Running. Sylene beside me, both of us younger, laughing despite the blood on our clothes. Six moons lighting our way as we race through streets that haven't been rebuilt yet, haven't been destroyed yet. Something chases us—many somethings, their howls echoing off stone.

  "The Hunters found our trail," young-Sylene gasps, but she's smiling. Always smiling when death gets close.

  "Let them come," younger-me replies. Power crackles between my fingers—not the Hollow Wind yet, something rawer. "I'm hungry anyway."

  We skid around a corner and there—a shadow among shadows. Golden eyes in the dark. It paces toward us, and the Hunters' howls cut off like severed throats.

  "Is that...?" Sylene breathes.

  The creature emerges into moonlight. A cat, but wrong. Too big. Too many teeth. Smoke rises from its fur, and its purr sounds like distant screaming. It looks at me with ancient eyes and does something impossible.

  It chooses.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Morwyn," I whisper in the memory. "Your name is Morwyn."

  The memory shatters. I'm back in the rebuilt bazaar, Sylene holding me upright as my knees buckle.

  "Morwyn," I say, louder. "Where is she? Where is my cat?"

  Sylene's eyes widen. "Your what?"

  "My cat! My familiar, my—" The words pour out in a rush. "She chose me when we were children. Killed the Hunters. Stayed with me through everything. Where is she?"

  "I don't—"

  "MORWYN!"

  The name tears from my throat with power I didn't know I still had. The Hollow Wind responds, sending the call through dimensions, through realms, through whatever walls separate us.

  The market goes silent. Even the whispers stop.

  Then, from three streets over, a sound like the world ending. Stone cracks. Glass shatters. Something roars with the voice of every predator that ever lived.

  "Oh, fuck," someone says. "She summoned it."

  "Run!" another voice screams. "The Hellcat wakes!"

  The crowd scatters. Vendors abandon their stalls, fleeing in all directions. Only Sylene and I remain as the sounds get closer. Closer.

  A building collapses. Through the dust cloud charges a nightmare.

  Morwyn, but not as I remember. Twenty feet of muscle and shadow, fur that burns without consuming, eyes like molten gold. Her claws leave gouges in stone. Her teeth could pierce the sky.

  She sees me and moves faster.

  "Get down!" Sylene shouts, trying to pull me aside.

  I shake her off. Stand my ground as death incarnate bears down on me.

  This is right. This is how it ends. Killed by the only thing that ever loved me truly. Better than dying in Ward Nine. Better than becoming another failed vessel.

  Morwyn leaps. Three hundred pounds of hellcat slam into me. I hit the ground hard enough to crack stone, her weight crushing air from my lungs. Her teeth hover inches from my throat.

  I close my eyes. "I'm sorry I forgot you."

  Wet. Rough. Warm.

  I open my eyes to find Morwyn licking my face with a tongue the size of a dinner plate. Her purr shakes the ground, but it's just a purr. Just my cat, happy to see me.

  "I looked for you," she says, and her voice is like gravel in honey, words formed from sounds that shouldn't make speech. "Searched every realm. Every pocket. Every lie they built to hide you."

  "I'm sorry," I say again, reaching up to bury my fingers in her fur. It burns, but the good kind. The kind that reminds you you're alive.

  "Stupid kitten." She headbutts me hard enough to rattle my teeth. "Getting lost. Making me hunt through dimensions. Do you know how many false hospitals I had to destroy?"

  "How many?"

  "Forty-seven." She sounds proud. "They kept building new ones. Kept moving you." Her massive head swings toward Sylene. "You. Knight. You kept her alive?"

  Sylene nods, seemingly unsurprised by the talking hellcat. "As ordered."

  "Good. Then I won't eat you." Morwyn's attention returns to me. "Yet."

  I laugh. Actually laugh, for the first time since waking in Mercy Hills. Maybe for the first time in years. "I missed you too."

  She shrinks as I watch, form condensing from hellcat to merely large cat. Still bigger than any housecat has a right to be, but small enough to drape across my shoulders like a living stole. Her purr continues, vibrating through my bones.

  "The Regent will know you're here now," she says conversationally. "That summoning lit up every detection ward in the city."

  "Good," Sylene says. "I'm tired of sneaking."

  Morwyn's tail lashes. "You've gotten interesting, Knight. I approve." She kneads her claws into my shoulder, just sharp enough to hurt. "The Palace of Contempt still stands. They've turned it into a monument. Tours every hour."

  "Tours?" I can't process this. "Of what?"

  "Your glory days. Very educational. I ate four tour guides before they started posting warnings." She yawns, showing far too many teeth. "The throne room is preserved exactly as you left it. Blood stains and all."

  More memories threaten to surface, but I push them down. One revelation at a time.

  "We need to get off the streets," Sylene says. "If the Regent knows she's here—"

  "Let them know." I stand, Morwyn's weight familiar on my shoulders. "I'm done hiding."

  But even as I say it, I notice how empty the market has become. Not just from people fleeing Morwyn. Something else cleared these streets. Something that knew we'd be here.

  "Trap?" Sylene asks, reading my expression.

  "Probably."

  "Good." She flexes her bandaged hands. "I need to hit something."

  Morwyn purrs louder. "Oh, I definitely approve of what you've become."

  We move through the empty bazaar, six moons rising to light our way. The Palace of Contempt looms ahead, black stone drinking in moonlight. I don't remember building it. Don't remember bleeding in its throne room. But my body knows the way, feet finding paths worn by repetition.

  "Tell me about the Regent," I say to Morwyn.

  "Vore the Sculptor," she says, disgust dripping from every syllable. "Showed up three years ago, claiming to be your chosen successor. Weak little thing, but cunning. Makes art from living bodies. Has a collection."

  "Of what?"

  "People who opposed them." Her claws dig deeper. "People who remembered you fondly. People who asked when you'd return."

  The Hollow Wind stirs, cold and eager.

  "How many?"

  "Hundreds. Displayed in the palace gardens. Still alive, most of them. Frozen in whatever shape amused the Regent most." She pauses. "I tried to kill them. Couldn't get close. They have protections. Old ones. The kind that smell like the Council."

  The Council of Finite Sorrow. Nine members, one for each realm. According to Echidna's memories, they're the real power. Everything else—the Regent, Dr. Terror, Ward Nine—just fingers of their hand.

  "We'll need a plan," Sylene says.

  "No." I stop walking, hand rising to touch Morwyn's fur. "I'm done with plans. Done with careful. They cut me apart, hollowed me out, made me forget my own name. Forgot my cat." The last part comes out as a growl. "I want them to see me coming. Want them to know exactly what they've brought back."

  Sylene studies me for a long moment. Then she nods. "The direct approach, then."

  "You disapprove?"

  "No. I'm just calculating how many we can kill before they overwhelm us." She counts on her bandaged fingers. "Seventeen. Maybe twenty if Morwyn helps."

  "I always help," Morwyn says, offended. "I'm very helpful. Tell her about the time I killed that thing with all the eyes."

  "Which time?"

  "The good one."

  Despite everything—the pain, the lost memories, the city rebuilt as mockery—I smile. This feels right. Not complete, too much still missing. But right. The three of us against whatever waits in the palace.

  "There's another way in," Morwyn says suddenly. "Not through the main gates. Old maintenance tunnels. They think they've sealed them, but stone remembers me. It'll open if I ask nicely."

  "Define nicely."

  "With minimal property damage."

  "That's not—"

  A bell tolls. Deep, resonant, coming from the palace itself. Then another. And another. Thirteen times total.

  "Announcement," Sylene translates. "The Regent calls court."

  More memories surface. That bell, ringing for executions. For celebrations. For the crowning of a Queen who would break the realm rather than bend to it.

  "They know we're here," I say.

  "Obviously."

  "They're inviting us in."

  "Also obvious."

  I look at my companions—my anchor and my familiar. Both deadly. Both mine in ways that matter more than memory.

  "Then let's not be rude."

  We turn toward the palace as the last bell fades. Whatever waits inside, whatever trap they've prepared, it can't be worse than what we've already survived. And I'm curious now. Curious about this Regent who dares to sit where I once sat. Curious about the Council that thinks they can control what they've made.

  Most of all, curious about why the Hollow Wind feels so eager. Like it's coming home to more than just a place.

  Coming home to a purpose I haven't remembered yet.

  The six moons watch our approach, and I swear I can hear them humming. The same tune Sylene hums when she thinks I'm not listening. The same tune that plays in the space between heartbeats.

  A lullaby for the end of the world.