"Husband?"

The word tasted strange on my tongue.

I turned to look at the old woman again. No twitching tail. No hunched posture. No rodent features. Nothing that gave away anything remotely... rat-like. And yet, the crows—those black-feathered eyes encircling her—moved with her breath, her pulse, her thoughts. As if they were fragments of her soul suspended in winged form, waiting to strike.

She smiled at my confusion. A withering, knowing grin, full of smoke and secrets. "Well, boy. I suppose it's time you heard granny's little tale, isn't it? Assuming Balthis here remembered to actually tell you who Vex is. You did, right?"

Beside me, Balthis flinched like a student called out in front of the class. "Umm… N-no," he admitted, voice small.

The woman groaned and gestured broadly, and a murder of crows scattered, only to resettle again. "Archivists," she muttered under her breath. "Good at being cryptic. Useless at context."

She turned back to me. "Then I'll be the one to say it plain. Because if you're chasing pieces of The Dagger and the Dancer, then you've already stepped onto his stage."

A flick of her hand, and the air cracked. Paper danced. A book floated to her palm, pages flipping themselves until it found what it wanted. An image rippled across the pages—a tall man, surrounded by ink and quills, standing amidst a crumbling theatre. His eyes were mad. One with sorrow. One with glee. His grin didn't belong to sanity.

"William D. Vex," she said, with a slow exhale, as if the name still haunted her bones.

"He was once a genius. Not the kind who discovers things. The kind who invents them. Words bent around his will. Stories trembled in his throat. And when he wrote something… it stayed written. Not on the page—on the world."

Balthis nodded solemnly. "He wasn't content to just read tomes or write new ones. He breathed myth. He bled prose. He made fables into facts and plays into prisons."

"He didn't see reality the way we do," the old woman continued. "To him, this"—she gestured around us—"was always a stage. Each of us, a role. A part to be cast. Played. Applauded. Killed off in a glorious soliloquy. He fell in love with sorrow. Made love to despair. And somewhere in all that theatrical madness, he realized that if life was a script… then he could be its final author."

I said nothing. The image on the book page smiled at me, and I hated how real it felt.

"But… if he made the Dagger," I finally asked, "he's the one who wants it back, right?"

The woman threw her head back and laughed—a bitter, cracked cackle that sent crows shrieking.

"Vex?" she said between wheezes. "No, dear boy. That man's far beyond trinkets and tools. He broke the Dagger himself, shattered it, scattered it—because he knew what it could do. Knew others would come looking for it, like hungry wolves sniffing a myth."

Her face darkened. "No, the one who wants the Dagger now is my husband. The King of Rats."

She said it without ceremony. Just like that.

My mouth opened, then closed. "But… you don't look like…"

"Like what? A plague queen? A wretched sewer goddess?" She raised an eyebrow. "You think a king of vermin would marry a rat? Foolish boy. He married a crow."

She gestured to the birds around her. "We eat different dead. That's all."

"But why?" I asked, still trying to catch up. "Why would he want the Dagger?"

Her voice fell to a whisper, sharp as a razor: "To unwrite his own story."

She watched me carefully. "He was born from Vex's pen. A side character in one of his tragedies. A shadowy monarch, never truly free. Just another flick of ink. Another metaphor wrapped in flesh. But my husband—he hated that. He hated knowing his crown was an afterthought, his throne a footnote."

She moved toward me, and the air grew colder.

"He has spent centuries trying to change his fate. But Vex's words linger. So now… he believes the Dagger—his dagger—can sever the narrative thread that binds him."

"And you?" I asked, my voice quieter now. "Why help me? Why tell me all this?"

She paused. Then, softly: "Because you're not chasing the dagger for power, are you? Not really. You want something else. And that makes you dangerous. Not because of what you'll do… but because of what others will do to stop you."

She waved her hand and the book snapped shut.

"Now," she said, turning back toward the hearth, "you have questions. And I have fragments. But before we trade… I want you to remember something."

She looked over her shoulder, eyes all crows and storms.

"Vex doesn't care if you find the Dagger. The King does. And that makes Vex safer than most."

She turned back to the fire.

"And that should terrify you."

I stared at her back—frail under the shawl of feathers, silhouetted against the soft flicker of the hearthlight. The air still carried her final words, thick as smoke: And that should terrify you.

But something gnawed at me.

"…You really married him?"

She didn't turn around. "Yes."

"But… why?"

There was a long silence. The kind that makes you doubt if you actually said something out loud.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Finally, she moved.

She reached down, plucked a crow feather from the hearth, and held it between two fingers. It danced slightly in the heat, the light flickering against its edges.

"I married him because he listened," she said at last. "Before he was a king. Before the rats built him a throne from forgotten teeth. Before he had a name worth cursing. He listened."

Her fingers tightened around the feather. "You think crows don't weep? You think all we do is scavenge and mock? Once… I was human. Long ago. Long before Vex carved me into feathers."

That caught me. "He wrote you too?"

"Oh yes. I was a bystander in a monologue. A chorus line in the background of one of his tragedies. I begged the gods for mercy, for justice, for a name that wasn't borrowed." Her gaze snapped toward me, piercing. "The King heard me. That's when we found each other."

I shifted on the floor. "You were both… created by Vex?"

"No." She cocked her head, as if offended. "Born of his pages, yes. But not created. Vex doesn't create, boy. He reveals. He unearths things that already exist but haven't been spoken aloud yet. That's why his stories are so dangerous. He doesn't imagine monsters. He introduces you to the ones already hiding inside you."

I swallowed. My hand drifted to my chest without thinking. "So the King of Rats… he heard you?"

"Yes." She smiled. "And I heard him. Before he wore a crown of whiskers and plague, he was just a clever little nothing. Forgotten by the world. But clever enough to notice when a side character began screaming from the margins."

She stepped closer again, crouching down so her face was level with mine. The heat of the fire bent around her shadow.

"I loved him because we were both born broken. Not tragic, no. Tragedy implies there was ever a chance for things to end differently."

I hesitated. "But he… he's trying to rewrite his story."

Her eyes narrowed. "Yes. And that's why I stopped loving him."

The words hit like frostbite.

I didn't know what to say.

She rose again, slow, like her bones ached under the weight of memory. Her voice came distant now, as if she were speaking across time instead of a cottage.

"He started carving his name into other people's stories. Whispering to beggars and offering crowns. Sinking cities under dreams of gnawed grandeur. The more he tried to escape the story Vex gave him… the more he became exactly what Vex wanted him to be."

A crow landed on her shoulder. She stroked its head absently.

"He wanted to be free," she said. "So he became a tyrant. He wanted to be remembered, so he filled the world with rot. He wanted to be feared. And now no one loves him—not even the rats."

She turned back toward me. "Do you understand now? The Dagger you seek was once his heart. His hope. A gift from Vex, forged from metaphor and steel. He shattered it the day he realized it couldn't cut the story from his flesh."

I blinked. "Then why does he still want it?"

"To try again," she said. "Because madness isn't always screaming and chaos. Sometimes… it's hope that refuses to die."

The wind rattled against the windows. Somewhere in the distance, a guillotine shrieked.

I drew in a breath. "Did you ever… try to stop him?"

She gave me a look. Not pity. Not sorrow. Something older.

"I left him," she said. "That was enough. Even the King of Rats isn't foolish enough to chase a crow through the Fields of Terror. This is where all things that refuse to die come to rest. And he is still trying to live."

There was silence again.

Balthis spoke for the first time in minutes. "You said you have fragments. Of the Dagger and the Dancer. Will you give them to him?"

The old woman didn't answer right away. She simply studied me.

"Only if you tell me the truth," she said. "Not just the market contract. Why do you, Alexander Duarte, want the Dagger?"

Her voice was soft. No theatrics. No menace.

But the crows quieted. The flames in the hearth froze mid-flicker.

And I knew: I couldn't lie.

Why?

Why do I want the dagger?

The question circles like a vulture overhead—patient, methodical, inevitable. Not shrieking. Not diving. Just waiting for the moment I stop pretending I don't hear it.

Do I desire power?

Yes. Of course I do. Who doesn't?

But not the kind that burns cities, or raises armies, or demands people kneel when I pass. I've never wanted that. Not really. Not in the way that matters. If I wanted that kind of power, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be standing in front of this woman woven from crows and memory, drenched in the scent of ash and old ink. I wouldn't be trembling under her gaze like a secret trying not to be spoken aloud.

So no. It isn't power. Not in the way she's asking. Not the kind people sell souls for, or kill for. Not the kind you can name.

Do I desire prestige?

No. That word doesn't sit right in my mouth. It feels… too clean. Too polished. The kind of thing that's awarded at banquets I don't get invited to. The kind of thing my older siblings might chase—framed on the wall, etched in marble, spoken of in hushed admiration.

But me? No. I was never meant for that. My name isn't the kind they build statues for.

Do I desire fame?

Not really.

I want to be seen. Yes. I want to matter. I want to exist in the narrative, not just orbit it. But fame? That thing that twists people, that puts their smiles in the mouths of others and hollows them out from within?

No.

Fame is a mirror, and I've seen what happens to people who stare too long.

So what do I desire?

I desire to know.

Gods, I want to know. To pull back the curtain and see the machinery behind the stage. To unearth the bones beneath the garden. To feel the shape of truth even if it cuts.

I want to explore what stands before me—not just with my eyes or hands, but with every part of me that still dares to wonder. I want to ask questions that don't have clean answers. I want to look at a thing and not walk away until I understand why it's still breathing.

Why it moves. Why it matters.

I want to solve riddles, not because they promise treasure, but because they were made to be solved. I want to chase mysteries to the edge of the map, where the paper curls into the unknown.

I want to walk into silence and ask it its name.

I want to be free.

Free from the way things have always been. Free from the chains made of expectations and last names and the stories people write about you before you even get a chance to open your mouth.

Free from the memory of the Abbess.

From that breathless terror. From running. Always running.

I want to stop being the one who reacts and start being the one who chooses. Who decides. I want to feel my own agency like a weight in my palm—sharp and solid and mine.

I want to stop being chased by the past and start chasing something of my own.

So.

Why do I want the dagger?

I don't know how to answer her.

Not fully.

Because the question doesn't just ask for logic. It doesn't want a clean motive, or a pretty story. It wants blood. It wants vulnerability. It wants me to peel open my chest and show her something raw and unfinished and not yet named.

The dagger is more than steel. More than myth. More than the pieces she keeps sealed in her home like relics that still remember screaming.

And the answer she's waiting for—the one this moment is demanding—I don't think it's something I can give with words. Not yet.

Because even now… I don't know if I'm chasing the dagger, or if it's chasing me.

Maybe I'm not the author here. Maybe I'm the sentence that hasn't been finished. The page that's still being written. Maybe this isn't about why I want the dagger.

Maybe it's about whether I'm worthy of it.

The question doesn't let up. It keeps pressing, pressing, pressing.

Why do I want the dagger?

Why?

And in the silence that follows… I don't say a word.

Not yet.

Not until I'm sure the answer is mine to give.

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