The Realm Between Realms had no sky.
No earth, either. Only light and shadow, suspended in an endless void, shifting like breath. Time was fractured here—a concept stretched so thin that Kael no longer knew if minutes or centuries were passing.
He drifted.
Not in body, but in memory. Echoes of voices, fractured pieces of his past life, surged around him like wind through a broken gate.
> "You were the brightest, Kael. But even stars fall."
He remembered those words.
He remembered the one who said them.
And he remembered the blade that came after.
---
A sharp tug in the fabric of nothingness snapped him forward.
The Realm Between tilted, folded inward like the closing of a great book, and suddenly Kael was falling. Fire coiled around him, not burning but guiding—threads of the gauntlet's power stitching reality together just enough to keep him whole.
He hit the ground hard.
Not crystal this time. Not forest. Sand.
He opened his eyes and groaned.
A barren desert stretched to the horizon, silver under a sickly green sky. The stars here didn't twinkle. They pulsed.
Beside him, Elira stirred, coughing dryly. The second Vessel—the girl they'd freed from the City of Glass—hovered inches above the sand, still unconscious, flames dancing in soft patterns around her form.
Kael pushed himself up. His bones ached in unfamiliar ways.
"You alive?" he asked.
Elira sat up slowly. "Define 'alive.'"
He almost smiled.
---
They built a small camp in the shelter of a jagged stone outcrop. There was no wind, but the desert seemed to breathe, rising and falling beneath their feet with every few hours.
The girl still hadn't woken. Her fire remained steady, unthreatening. Yet Kael sensed something deeper—a pressure within her. A sealed core of wrath and memory not yet stirred.
They didn't speak much.
There wasn't much to say.
Kael's thoughts kept circling the same question:
> Why send us here?
This place wasn't on any map. It existed between realms, anchored by magic older than the gods. He felt it humming beneath the sand, whispering through the bones of the earth.
He stood watch that night, staring at the stars.
One of them blinked.
And moved.
---
The next morning, the girl woke.
She didn't scream. Didn't panic.
She simply opened her eyes—bright orange, rimmed with molten gold—and sat up slowly, fire curling around her fingers.
"What is this place?" she asked, voice barely a whisper.
Kael knelt beside her. "You were trapped in the City of Glass. We freed you."
She frowned. "I don't remember."
Elira handed her a waterskin. "We don't either, really. You were dreaming. Fireborn."
The girl took a slow drink.
"My name is Kael. This is Elira. And you..."
"Aren," she said. "I think."
Kael exchanged a glance with Elira. The name stirred something ancient in him, but not from memory. From prophecy.
"You're a Vessel," he said carefully. "Like me."
She nodded slowly. "I know."
---
They traveled east.
There was no real direction in the Hollow Wastes, but Kael felt the gauntlet pulling—a faint pressure guiding him toward something buried in the bones of this realm. As they walked, the desert changed.
Ruins began to emerge.
Not human, not elven. Structures shaped like spires bent at impossible angles. Glyphs hovered in the air, shifting with every step, refusing to be read. Time broke around them.
One hour stretched into a day.
One breath lasted a lifetime.
Kael heard the whispers again.
> "You were supposed to stay dead."
> "The flame is not yours to wield."
> "She watches."
---
By the third day, Aren began to change.
She spoke more.
Laughed, once.
But her fire was growing unstable. At night, it flared out in sudden bursts, scorching sand into glass. She apologized each time, clutching her arms like she was trying to hold something in.
Kael recognized the signs.
He'd felt that same loss of control, back in the early days. The fire didn't listen to thought—it listened to fear.
"She's burning from the inside," he told Elira quietly. "If we don't help her focus it—"
"It'll consume her," Elira finished. "Like Theren."
He nodded. "But I think this place... it wants that to happen."
Elira frowned. "Then we find a way out. Fast."
---
They reached the center of the Hollow Wastes on the sixth day.
A crater. Immense, carved into the desert like a wound. At its heart, a tower. Tall, jagged, broken at the top—a star had fallen here once. And Kael knew it hadn't been a metaphor.
They descended into the crater, each step echoing louder than it should have. Aren stumbled, flames leaking from her eyes.
Kael caught her. "Breathe. Anchor yourself."
She nodded, teeth clenched.
The tower door opened at their approach.
Not by force. By welcome.
---
Inside, the air changed. Heavy. Cold.
Not from temperature, but weight.
They climbed the broken stairwell until they reached the chamber at the top.
It wasn't empty.
At the center knelt a man. Skin like cracked obsidian, eyes hollow and glowing from within. Around his body, flames curled upward like vines, frozen in time.
Kael stopped dead.
"That's not possible."
Elira drew her blade. "You know him?"
Kael nodded slowly. "That's me."
---
A memory.
No—a fracture of one. Preserved by the Hollow Wastes, trapped in the moment of Kael's death during the last cycle.
This was the price of resurrection.
The Realm had taken part of him and locked it away.
"It's waiting," Aren whispered.
"For what?" Elira asked.
The figure opened its eyes.
"For you," it said, and lunged.
---
The fight shattered the tower.
Kael met himself blow for blow—but this wasn't a mirror. This was wrath, grief, fear given shape. The version of him that hadn't survived. That hadn't healed. That still burned with the desire to destroy everything that had taken from him.
They clashed across the stairwell, flames searing the air.
"You can't move forward while I still exist," the Hollow Kael spat.
"You're not real."
"I'm the part of you that can finish this."
The gauntlet flared.
Kael struck, not with power—but with memory.
Images surged between them. His family. The throne. The fall. Elira. The Vessels. The dream of something better.
He saw the fracture.
And he forgave it.
The Hollow Kael screamed, unraveling into light.
And the tower collapsed.
---
Elira dragged him from the rubble.
Aren hovered above, shielding them with a dome of flame. Her power had stabilized—burning in rhythm with Kael's.
The Realm began to fall apart.
"We need to move," Elira said.
Kael stood slowly, staring at the empty sky.
"The next rift is close. I can feel it."
"Where does it lead?" Aren asked.
Kael didn't look back.
"To the beginning," he said. "To the place the gods broke first."
Together, they stepped into the fire.
And vanished.