Chapter 33
Oswin sat inside the town hall—the same one where last night's conference had been held. The tables had returned to its usual purpose: dining.
He shared the meal with Aria, Ignis, Arthur, and the leader of the settlement herself on one of the tables. The food was humble—wheat and lettuce porridge, with mashed potatoes mixed with pork lard. It wasn't delicious. In fact, it was worse than Aria's lockdown-era cooking, even the prison food of his previous life was better, which said a lot. But it was filling, that was enough.
Arthur was mentally chattering away with Aria, words trickling directly into her thoughts. Oswin couldn't hear the conversation—telepathy didn't carry to eavesdroppers—but he could see Aria smiling.
It was a rare sight.
Ever since he'd inherited Fray's body, Oswin had rarely seen that expression on her face. She hadn't smiled much at all. Maybe it was Arthur's endless stream of nonsense, or maybe it was just his way of talking—word by word, spaced apart—that made her let her guard down. Oswin wasn't sure.
He didn't say anything.
The leader of the settlement had warned him—through Arthur, of course—not to be careless. The settlers didn't know the truth that Caro had spared him. That he still had his voice and if they found out, they might not be kind.
An exception had been made for him maybe by accident but not everyone liked exceptions.
Even the simple act of the settlement leader dining with them was a message. A quiet gesture, but one the rest of the settlement would notice. It meant the newcomers were accepted.
Around them, the other settlers sat at their own tables, quietly eating. No one stared. No one whispered, they couldn't even if they wanted to. Just people minding their own business, spooning up the same bland porridge.
Last night, Arthur's endless blabber had actually included some useful bits—Things about how the settlement worked. Who held authority, how tasks were divided, what rules were unwritten but still strictly followed.
For instance, the population of the settlement hovered around six hundred.
Six hundred people, dividing the work among themselves. A closed loop.
The system reminded Oswin of communism from his old world—at least, in theory. Everyone contributed. Everyone received. But here, in a community this small, it actually worked. There wasn't enough room for corruption, not enough distance between people for power to hide behind.
There was no hierarchy, not in the way Oswin was used to. Just the settlement leader and the four elders. No governors, mayors, or chains of command. Even the bards and performers —weren't treated as anything special.
And honestly, without the ability to sing, without a working voice, most bards and performers were just… mundane now. Even if some of them still carried lingering blessings from the Spirits, they walked the same paths and ate the same gruel as everyone else.
The leader and the four elders—that was the government here. The judiciary, the parliament, the lawmakers. All rolled into five quiet figures who didn't speak.
Once, they'd been high-ranking bards of the Church. Higher than Ignis, even.
If Ignis had once held the rank of a lieutenant in the hierarchy, then the leader of the settlement—this calm, expressionless woman—would've been something like a deputy chief. The elders? Possibly captains. Maybe more. Oswin didn't know the exact ranking system of the Church this was just his guess.
But that was decades ago.
They had been the first to be captured. The first to fall to the fiends. Brought here—before the settlement even existed. Caro had taken them, like she took everyone else.
They were left to fend for themselves while Caro experimented on them.
But the five didn't break.
They were bards of the Church. Trained in divine hymns, steeled by faith and years of discipline. Their will was stronger than iron.
Instead of giving up, they endured. They survived the experiments, survived the silence, survived the isolation and from the ashes of their captivity, they built something—anything—to hold onto. A living space. Shelter. Structure.
Order.
Then Caro kept bringing in more people and slowly, that space grew until it became this, The settlement.
The leader believed others might've been taken too, that somewhere across this warped world, other fiends had made other prisons, Other settlements.
Wait! Did I ever tell her what I learned from Depri.
No, I didn't, That information… it could be important.
But how do I share it without raising alarms?
I can't just blurt out that I got it as a reward for passing some twisted test by the fiends. That'd sound insane. Or worse—suspicious.
Oswin stirred his porridge.
He needed to think this through. His eyes flicked toward the leader. He needed a way to feed her the truth… without feeding her suspicion.
A sudden commotion rippled through the entrance of the town hall.
Oswin glanced up, still absentmindedly stirring his porridge.
There she was—the woman nearly his height, the one he'd fought just yesterday for Depri's favor.
The bruises around her neck were unmistakable. Oswin's own marks, the result of the fight… and the test.
Beside her stood the young girl—no older than nine—the second vessel of Depri.
Settlers crowded around them in silence, hands reaching out to gently touch the bruised woman's throat or wrap her in quiet embraces.
They couldn't offer words of comfort. None of them could speak.
But in their own way, they reassured her. A shared language of presence and touch.
Because , that was all they had.
Oswin quickly looked away, a tight knot forming in his chest.
Embarrassment prickled at his skin—he had choked her, after all, even if it was part of Depri's twisted test. But beneath that was something colder. Fear.
Do they remember?
Were they still Depri? Or had he left them behind, like a shed skin?
He didn't know. That uncertainty lingered in his gut, heavy and sharp. He kept his eyes on his bowl, stirring the porridge into a useless swirl, hoping neither of them noticed him.