Vail didn’t believe Shab.

He couldn’t believe him.

Trill was too strong to be beaten by the likes of the Selenwrights. Too hard-headed and stubborn to give up. Of all the Academics, Trill was the last one Vail thought could die.

When Vail appeared before a subtle cottage that held none of the damage he’d seen at Karaa’s and Shab’s, his relief was palpable.

He ran up to the intimately familiar heavy wooden frame he’d cut himself and pounded. “Trill, it’s me,” he shouted.

She always preferred the homely look of the small cabin, but that didn’t make her any less of a researcher. Below his feet were hundreds of metres of rooms set aside for experiments, all hidden beneath an artificial garden.

Vail’s gaze trailed to the window beside the door. It was locked. Trill never closed that window; she liked to have the scent of her garden waft through the building to wash off the sterilisation when she exited her elevator.

Trill could teleport easily enough, but always complained about the sensation. It made her uncomfortable. Vail could never figure out if that was just her way of teasing him, or if she truly didn’t enjoy the touch of the dimensional string that he’d poured so much of his life into studying. But he never cared much. She had her own way of doing things, and with how headstrong she was, often refused to have anyone over when she was deep in her work.

The past decade or so especially. Vail had been barred entry into her home as she was apparently working on something big. Something that took so much of her time that she couldn’t even take a day’s break.

He never blamed her. It’s not like he hadn’t gotten engrossed in his work for similar times.

No response came to his banging.

Even if she was down in her labs, there was no way she couldn’t hear him. He knew the alert system worked. He’d installed it himself.

She’s probably just making her way up that slow elevator. Vail had been planning on replacing it the last time he was over.

Time continued to pass. Dread built. Vail watched the gradual crawl of death over his body. He was close to being covered now. It stretched up his arms, down his chest, and even wound down one leg now. If he had a mirror, he was sure he would see the roots growing through his face.

He didn’t have the time to wait.

Trill had made it abundantly clear over the years that he wasn’t allowed to just teleport into and around her home however he liked. But he was sure she would forgive this single transgression. He needed to see her.

Vail froze as soon as the cabin appeared around him. No longer was it the cozy lodge she’d designed it to be. There was none of the furniture, rugs, or any of the other odds and ends she kept around to give the place that feeling of warmth. The cabin was stripped clean.

His knees buckled beneath him.

She was gone.

He didn’t know where she’d disappeared to, but it was now hopeless. Vail had failed to pass on his memories. His body would fail from just a few more teleports; he could feel it. Without knowing where she was, finding her would be impossible.

Vail and the dozens of ancestors that built his memories, their lifetimes of effort, hopes and desires were all crumbling into thin air. All their memories would die with Vail, and there was nothing he could do about it.

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His failure would be punished with the death of his soul.

Unlike Karaa, whose soul was somewhere out in the vastness of space, the death mark meant true death.

Vail kneeled in defeat as the black scar stretched over an eye, immediately cutting off half his sight. The branching death spiralled around his foot, leaving the sole to flop to the ground, no longer wrapped properly.

As his end approached, Vail could only hope that Shab was lying, and that Trill was still alive. Somehow.

The familiar sound of a hiss had him snap his eye up. Trill? He hoped beyond everything that she would walk through the fake wall that led to that elevator.

But it was not to be.

A boy, no older than sixteen years, stepped into the bare room. In his hands, he held a blade of exquisite make. Clearly Trill’s handiwork. But she would never make a weapon.

“What is your name?” the boy asked, raising the blade to Vail’s neck.

Didn’t he see that death had already taken him? A boy and a stolen blade were hardly going to be acknowledged as a threat.

“Vail.” He saw no reason to hide it. “Why are you here? Come to steal Trill’s life work?”

The boy dropped the blade to his side and lowered to crouch before him. “She told me about you. Said you’d come around eventually.”

This boy spoke to her? Was he not a thief? Vail latched on to that little hope. “Where is she? I need to find her.”

Vail hadn’t even been able to reach his feet again before the boy’s next words knocked him back down. “Dead.” His gaze wavered, and he clenched his jaw. “She’s dead.”

His entire world crashed around him. Vail was doomed to eternal death. Everyone he knew was dead, or had given up on life entirely. How had humanity fallen to such lows?

“She went with them, willingly,” the boy continued. “She agreed to follow them, and they hung her.” He was clearly mad about it, but it seemed he’d had time to accept it. Just how long had it been since Trill’s death? “They came back here, looking for her experiments. She’d told me to run away, but I couldn’t. I disabled the entrance from the outside and removed the interface. As far as the Selenwrights know, this was nothing more than a cabin.”

“Who are you?” Vail asked.

“I am Tavil. I was Trill’s student.”

Trill took on an apprentice? That’s why she’d locked herself away for so long? He thought she’d wait another two decades, like he was planning to.

But wait… wasn’t this an opportunity?

“How far did she teach you in soulbinding?”

“Not much,” Tavil admitted. He breathed out a puff of soul energy from a marble of soulstone Vail could tell he held in his pocket. His breath was unrefined and weak, but it was proof enough that he truly was her student.

A tinge of hope rose in Vail’s chest. It would be hard; he would have to be the one to guide every memory through the boy’s brain and mould it into a vessel able to wield that knowledge. The cost to himself would be immense, but he might as well make use of his soul before death consumed it.

Vail reached his head forward, trying to make contact, but Tavil leapt back, wary.

“Please,” he pleaded. This was the only thing he could do to keep humanity alive. They may have ruined everything, but despite everything, Vail couldn’t hate them. He didn’t want them to fall prey to their mortal enemy.

Hesitation gripped the boy’s features, but as death continued to climb over Vail’s body, he finally nodded and kneeled before him.

A tear escaped Vail’s unmarred eye as their foreheads touched. He knew there would be no survive this. Gifting memories was one of the most intensive things on both mind and soul for both parties. It was usually reserved for those who’d already forged their minds into something that could handle the depths of their research. Those who’d ascended.

For a child as young as this, it was unthinkable. Normally. Vail had a few options before him that would make the process easier on the boy at his own expense. He could transfer his memories instead of copying them. He could multiply his efforts to shape the boy’s mind closer to what was needed. He could lower the soulstrain by padding it with energy.

All options required sacrificing parts of his soul. Something he never would have considered if his soul hadn’t suddenly become an extremely fleeting resource.

Gaps started appearing in his head. First were all the previous generation’s memories, then were his own. He had to leave a small section of himself untouched to throw at the boy all at once and hope he’d adjusted adequately by that point to integrate it himself. As when that happened, Vail’s soul would be no more.

Even through the difficulties of the process, the infinitely low chance that Tavil would ever reach a level where he could use Vail’s memories, and the weight of the world bearing down on the boy’s future, Vail felt hope. There was a chance for humanity’s future, and that’s what he latched on to.

As Vail’s mind and soul were stolen from existence, he felt hope.

Death consumed his body, eternally leaving a black scar on the world where Vail’s body had taken its last breath.

Vail had told his story.