From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World-Chapter 56: Threads Without Anchors

They travelled three hours out from the Chateau when the road changed.

It was subtle at first--roots in odd, braided patterns underfoot, like the trees shared a secret with the soil. The air was heavier now, but it wasn’t cold. Instead, it was intentional, like an invisible being had noticed them and wanted to listen.

In truth, Lucian felt it before he saw it.

His Echoheart System gave a low, steady hum against his hip. It wasn’t alerting him of any danger--just the potential.

"Someone’s following us," Cadrel muttered, hand tightening around his dagger.

"No," Merry corrected, slowing her pace. "We’re being measured."

Lucian raised an eyebrow.

"Measured?"

Merry stopped, crouched low, and brushed snow from the stone path.

His eyes widened.

There it was.

It was a glyph. Ancient, tangled, and barely visible beneath a smear of ash and leafrot. The shape was all wrong, too. It was uncertain instead of broken. Its lines pulsed softly like a half-asked question.

"It’s an inactive trap. Waiting for us to answer it." Merry whispered.

Lucian knelt beside her and focused. "Echo-based...is it an unfinished rite?"

She nodded. "I think so. It’s... looking for something."

[CODEX UPDATE]

Improvised Construct Detected.

Emotion thread: Incomplete

Current Target: Undefined

Alice approached carefully, her scarf pulled high. "It feels... like it wants to get to know me."

Merry flinched. "Don’t let it."

Cadrel pulled out a sliver of bone from his coat and tossed it onto the glyph. For a moment, it just shone with blessed light. Then the glyph twisted upward, blooming like light straining through a fogged window. Lines coiled toward the bone—eager, hopeful.

But unfortunately, the relic was too old and almost empty. It refused the sliver of blessed bone.

Slowly, the light died and the glyph collapsed into dust.

Lucian exhaled. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Will all of the glyphs be like this?

"That," Merry said, standing, "was an echo. Of someone’s grief. Looking for a new vessel. They probably met their end here."

They walked slower after that.

Lucian couldn’t stop looking at the trees. Every branch seemed too symmetrical, and all the fruits looked too enticing. Soon, the path in front of them bent in illogical arcs. The snow hissed softly, like it whispered names no one else remembered.

While they walked, Cadrel murmured to himself. Alice periodically looked up to see if he was talking to her, and then continued in silence.

+

At one point, Cadrel started muttering half-remembered sermons from the olden days, when he was still part of a unit. Alice turned her head and said softly, "are you talking to anyone?"

"I heard her voice," he said. "The one who taught me binding glyphs. She died years ago--but I heard her."

Merry looked grim. "It’s starting."

"Starting?" Lucian asked.

"Imprinting. The Vale’s echoes are testing us."

+

"That’s weird," Merry whispered as they continued walking. "What is?" Alice asked. Merry summoned her Hearthroot Lexicon and opened it, but when Merry brought it close to the soil, it snapped itself shut.

"See that? It’s resisting the soil here."

Glyphs drew themselves crooked, like grief too old to speak straight.

Alice began humming softly. Her fingers moved unconsciously over her coat hem, tracing patterns into the fabric. Merry watched closely.

"She’s picking up fragments. Instinctive healers are like flint in a storm—they draw every spark."

Lucian gently touched Alice’s arm. "What are you drawing?"

"I... don’t know. But it makes my chest hurt less."

He swallowed.

Somewhere ahead, the wind shifted, and a valley appeared through the mist. Faint. Hollowed. Beautiful in a way that didn’t invite peace—only completion.

They were close.

+

Deep in the dungeons below Atreaum, Elian knelt in silence.

The Queen stood at the head of a blackstone chamber, her crown low over her brow. The Spymaster, draped in ink-smoke robes, watched like a crow on the gallows.

"You failed," the Queen said.

"I did not," Elian replied, voice dead. "The mission was never to kill him. It was to retrieve what you lost."

"And did you retrieve it?"

Elian said nothing.

The Shadowrite Compendium hovered behind him, pages open, stained with frost and old sorrow. It sounded remorseful as it continued to reveal what transpired at Chateau Magnifique.

"I heard," the Queen said softly, "that you hesitated. That you even aligned glyphs with him."

The Spymaster gave a low, amused laugh. "The echo cracked."

Elian didn’t raise his eyes. "I still struck the final blow."

"Only because he was beside you."

The Queen descended from the dais.

"You were supposed to be perfect," she hissed.

Elian’s mouth twitched. "And yet you keep calling me back."

She raised her hand.

Blue light flared.

And on his chest, through the fabric of his uniform, glyphs burned into view—deep cobalt, carved into his flesh like stained glass.

Elian gritted his teeth as pain lanced through him.

Merry’s voice echoed in his memory: "But carving it into your skin—"

"—is forbidden," he’d told her.

And still... it had happened.

Dutifully, the Shadowrite Compendium revealed his current status.

[User: Elian Scarborough]

Pain Index: 72%

Emotional Compression Protocol: Reinforced

Disobedience Thread: Contained.

When the glow faded, Elian was still kneeling—but his hands had curled into fists hard enough to draw blood from his palms. Sweat beaded on his brow and fell onto the floor.

The Queen turned away. "Do not make me replace you."

Elian didn’t answer.

The glyphs still glowed, faint and pulsing.

The Spymaster leaned down, whispering near his ear.

"Maybe you’re becoming more like him than you think."

Elian’s eyes closed.

And in the back of his mind, for the first time, the Shadowrite Grimoire did not speak.

+

Across the Vale, the wind shifted once more.

Lucian and the others passed under a grove of ash-twisted trees. Each trunk bore a single, half-formed glyph—drawn not with ink, but with old blood turned to crystal.

The Echoheart shuddered.

[Ritual Echo Contact: Passive]

[Thread Risk Level: Elevated]

[Possible Rite Completion: Imminent]

"We need to camp soon," Merry said. "Before one of these things decides to rewrite us."

"Rewrite us?" Alice asked.

Merry didn’t answer.

Lucian looked over his shoulder.

None of them had noticed, but in the snow behind them... their footprints had changed shape.

Each print had begun to take on two outlines.

One for who they were.

And one for what they might have become—if they’d chosen differently.

The Vale wasn’t just watching.

It was offering a different ending.