The game continued.
One after another they came at him. Men in silk. Women in jewels. Faces he had seen in the frozen streets, moving now, alive now, hungry now. They sat across from him at the wooden table that should not have fit so many people. They laid down their stakes. Gold. Land. Contracts. Futures. Things that glittered and gleamed and promised everything.
He bet against them all.
The white light burned in his chest. Alice had given him something infinite. Something the Domain needed to exist. Fate essence. The raw material of value. The currency that underlay all currency. The Domain consumed it to keep itself running. To keep the golden sky lit. To keep the frozen people frozen. Every transaction fed it. Every trade kept it alive.
And in exchange, it gave you coins. Not gold. Something better. Domain currency that could buy anything because the Domain decided what anything was worth.
Lucid pushed his essence across the table. The Domain converted it. The coins stacked themselves in his hands. Glowing. Warm. Multiplying faster than he could count.
However there was a problem, each time he did that. A pain flared up within his chest. His head hammered in pain. Blood came from his eyes. It is as if the very power he was accustomed to using, was now detrimental to his health.
The man across from him raised an eyebrow. Set down a diamond the size of a fist. "A single diamond."
'Oh that's the bounty on that stupid kid... or somewhere close... my head hurts.' His thoughts were growing more hazy by the minute.
Lucid smiled. "Sixty."
The man's face tightened. He had been winning all night. Beating smaller players. Building his pile. Now he sat across from someone who could not lose.
"Seventy," the man said.
"Eighty."
"You cannot have that much. No one has that much."
Lucid pushed more light onto the table. The Domain hummed. The coins appeared.
"One hundred thousand."
The man stared at the stack. At the boy who should have been bankrupt three rounds ago. At the impossible wealth that kept growing.
He slammed his hand on the table. Stood up. "This is rigged. You are cheating. No one—"
He stopped.
Mid word. Mid motion. His body froze in place. His arm extended. His mouth open. His eyes wide. Suspended in the golden air like a statue carved from rage.
Lucid looked at him. At the frozen man who had tried to call him a cheat in a place where the only law was value.
'He will thaw eventually. When the Domain decides. Or maybe he will not. Maybe he will stand there until the light fades and the city crumbles and no one remembers his name.'
He collected the man's stake. Added it to his pile. Turned to the next player.
A woman lunged at him from the side. Her hand was raised. Her face was twisted. She had been sitting at the table two seats down. Watching. Waiting. Her stake had been small. Her patience had been shorter.
"You are destroying everything!" she screamed. Her fist came down.
Lucid did not move.
Her arm stopped in the air. The Domain caught it. Held it. The force of her swing reversed. Folded back on itself. Her bones snapped. Her flesh twisted. Her arm became something that was no longer an arm.
She opened her mouth to scream.
The Domain took that too.
She froze. Suspended. Arm mangled. Mouth open. Eyes locked on something only she could see.
The voice spoke. Not from anyone. From everywhere.
"Acts of violence are prohibited inside the Domain."
Lucid looked at the woman. At the arm that had tried to hurt him. At the face that would never close its mouth.
'Oh my god...'
The thought passed through his mind without weight. He had seen too much in the last hour to care about one more frozen woman. He turned to the next player.
"How much are you betting?"
The man across from him was pale. His hands were shaking. He looked at the frozen woman. At the frozen man. At the pile of coins that should not exist.
"Ten thousand."
Lucid pushed the light. The Domain converted. The coins appeared.
"Ten thousand."
The man's stake vanished. His coins transferred. He sat there for a moment. Empty handed. Empty faced. Then he too froze. His eyes went blank. His chest stopped moving. Another statue for the Domain's collection.
Lucid moved to the next. And the next. And the next.
He bet against them all. Each time the same. Each time the outcome identical. They put something on the table. He put more. The Domain converted. The coins appeared. The other player sat there for a moment. Then froze. Then disappeared.
Not all at once. One by one. They faded like morning mist. Their faces slack. Their eyes empty. Their bodies dissolving into the golden light that had consumed them.
'They are gone. All of them. Everyone who sat across from me. Everyone who thought they could take what I have.'
Then suddenly he collapsed on the ground, he threw up a mouthfull of blood. His eyes were blurry. Sweat matted his forehead. His head hurt.
Then he stood, he limped.
But he stood.
He looked at his pile. It had grown beyond counting. Beyond meaning. It was not gold anymore. It was just number. Just weight. Just the thing that kept the Domain fed. The essence of the Domain.
Wealth.
***
He stood. The table was empty now. The chairs were empty. The frozen street stretched out in all directions. Buildings that should not exist. A city that was not a city.
He walked.
The street curved in ways streets did not curve. The buildings leaned toward each other like they were sharing secrets. The golden light filtered through windows that had no rooms behind them.
A large building appeared at the end of the road. It had not been there before. It had always been there. Both things were true at the same time.
Lucid stopped at the entrance. The door was wood. Old. Worn. Carved with symbols he had seen somewhere before. On the box. On the key. On the hat that dissolved into light.
He pushed it open.
Inside was a room. Large. Circular. Lit from above by a hole that showed only golden sky. In the center stood a pedestal. On the pedestal sat a book. Open. Pages turning on their own. Wind that was not wind.
He walked toward it. His footsteps echoed off walls that should have absorbed sound.
The book was old. Leather bound. Pages yellowed. The ink was black and thick and it moved as he watched, forming words, sentences, names.
His name.
At the top of the page. Written in bold. Large. The ink was fresh. Still wet. It glistened in the golden light.
Underneath, in smaller letters, a list. Names he knew. Names he did not. The merchant girl. The fat man with the rings. The woman with silver hair. Arthur. Ayame. The boy with yellow hair. The boy who had pushed him in the plaza. The boy who had traded his future.
Next to each name, a word.
DEATH. FRAY. DEATH. LOSS. DEATH. DEATH. DEATH.
He turned the page.
More names. More words. The ink was darker here. Thicker. It pooled in the margins like something that had tried to escape and been caught.
In the center of the page, written larger than the others, underlined, circled, surrounded by symbols he did not recognize:
LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE.LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. LUCID THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE.
He stared at the words. They did not change. Did not fade. Did not become something else.
'The Congregation. The ones who burned the orphanage. The ones who killed the children. They see me. They know me. They have already written what I will become.'
He turned another page.
The blue forest, Lucid could see an image of two individuals running shackles on their feet and throat as if they had just escaped.
'This can't be...'
'The village... we stopped by...'
It was the village that sacrifced travelers to a purple flame, how could he forget.
Then something else caught his eye.
A portrait.
A woman. Veiled. Purple hair falling past her shoulders. Small stature. Delicate hands folded in her lap. She was sitting in a chair that looked too large for her. Her face was hidden behind the veil but he could see her mouth. Small. Pink. Smiling.
The painting moved.
Her head turned. The veil shifted. Her eyes were not visible but he knew she was looking at him. Could feel her gaze like pressure against his skin. Like something that had been waiting for him to arrive.
He took a step back.
His heart was beating too fast. His breath was coming too quick. The white light in his chest flickered. Dimmed. The coins in his hand dissolved into nothing.
'No. No. I have more. I have everything. I cannot lose. I cannot—'
The woman in the portrait tilted her head. Her smile widened. Her hand rose from her lap. Her fingers extended. Pointed at him.
He looked down at his chest. At the place where the light lived. It was gone. The white fire that had burned so bright was just ash now. Dust. Memory.
'Where did it go? I had everything. I had more than everything. I could not lose. The Domain said I could not lose.'
The book turned its own pages. The ink wrote new words. His name appeared again. Underlined. Circled. Surrounded by symbols that burned.
THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE. THE MARTYR. OUR GIFT. OUR GRACE.
He looked at the portrait again. The woman was standing now. Her veil had fallen. Her face was young. Her eyes were old. Her smile was the smile of someone who had already won.
He ran.
The door was behind him. He crashed through it. The street was empty. The golden light was fading. The buildings were dissolving. The frozen people were thawing. Melting. Becoming nothing.
He ran until the ground gave out. Until the sky fell in. Until he was falling through darkness that smelled like blood and tasted like fear.
He woke up in the alley.
His shirt was wet. His hands were shaking. He touched his stomach. The wound was gone. Healed. Closed. But the blood was still there. Dried. Flaking. Proof that it had happened.
He sat up. The sun was setting. The market district was quiet. The chaos of the day had ended. The night trade had not begun.
Whatever he saw, what was inside that room.
Shock him.
They knew about him.