The dark took Ainen the same quiet way it always did, and when it let him see again, he stood once more in the small grey room, four tiles glowing where five had once hung.
[Choose one deck to rebuild. This process cannot be reversed.]
Feast Golem. Communal Feast. Spiceweave. Cellar Aged.
He read them over slowly, without the urgency his first rebuild had carried. No fresh loss was pushing him toward an answer this time. This time the choice was about a question he'd been circling his whole life without ever quite naming it.
His eyes settled on Communal Feast, and he thought of every meal he'd ever offered a stranger, and how little of that generosity had ever once been treated as a weapon rather than a kindness.
"Feeding someone was never just feeding them," he said slowly. "Every kitchen I ever ran understood that better than I did."
"Communal Feast," he said, and touched the tile.
[Communal Feast: erased.]
