And in Nikraria, during Delirium, that is far, far worse.
She is not hunting you.
And the mirror-woman? She was standing behind me. Smiling with a thousand cracked lips. I am back in my room now. The pier. The rust-smelling sea. Delirium -Nikraria-
I refused the salt bath.
I ran. But running in Nikraria during Delirium is like running in a dream—your legs are pillars of wet sand. The streets folded. An alley I entered at midnight spat me out at noon the previous day. I watched myself arrive at the city gates, clean-shaven and confident. I tried to shout a warning. My mouth filled with seafoam. The cure for Delirium, I later learned, is not a medicine. It is a surrender. And in Nikraria, during Delirium, that is far, far worse
It started with the fog. Nikraria’s famous white breath, rolling in from the Sunken Quarter. The locals wear cloth masks dipped in vinegar and rosemary. “Keeps the memory worms out,” the innkeeper’s wife said, laughing. I did not laugh. I was here to map the old catacombs beneath the Cathedral of Unfinished Saints. A simple commission. Dry work.
“You have the Delirium,” he said.
They call it the Grey Shakes.