Chapter 8: The Ash That Speaks
Theme: Power Corrupts / The Past Is Never Buried
In the distant Ashlands, where the earth was blackened with memory and the sky bled crimson at dawn, something ancient began to awaken. The Shard's song had carried far, even across burned soil and broken time. Every echo of its note stirred the cinders, calling to what lay dormant.
And the Hollowed King listened.
---
Beneath the Obsidian Tomb, in a chamber carved not by hand but by grief, the creature that once bore the name Maelorn rose from a throne of scorched bone. Shadows moved like breath around him, forming fingers, whispers, fragments of dying dreams.
His eyes were pits—voids of thought, devourers of light. Yet as the shards were gathered one by one, light returned to those depths.
"Three awakened," he murmured. His voice cracked the stones around him.
A whisper answered from the dark: "The boy carries them."
"And the Moonbreaker walks again."
"Yes, master."
His skeletal hand curled slowly into a fist. The bones ground together like a mill crushing ash.
"She sealed the Sea Shard with her own breath, yet now she dares guide another to claim it."
The whisper dared not answer.
"I dreamed of her once," the King said. "I dreamed of her weeping, and her tears turned the ocean black. I wonder if she dreams of me now."
He stood.
Around him, chains unraveled from the ceiling, falling like silver rain. Each one was inscribed with a name.
With a single step, the Hollowed King vanished into flame.
---
Far across the mountains, Kael and his companions journeyed toward the Skyglass Bridge. Wind howled at their backs, but the air carried a strange stillness, as if the world waited for something.
Kael walked at the head, the Sea Shard tucked close to his chest, pulsing with a rhythm too regular to be natural. It felt less like magic and more like… intention.
Vaelen watched him from behind, eyes narrowed.
"You feel it too," he said.
Kael nodded. "It's like someone is pulling the string. Gently."
Seraeth didn't speak. She kept her eyes on the trail, her jaw tight.
"Are you alright?" Kael asked.
She hesitated. "I'm remembering more than I want."
"About Meridien?"
"No. About the Fourth Shard."
Kael slowed. "You know where it is."
She looked at him, her expression unreadable. "I think I always did."
---
They made camp beneath the roots of a fallen stone colossus—one of the old Titans, now no more than moss-covered ruin. As the fire cracked, Seraeth sat apart, polishing her blade.
Kael sat beside her.
"You don't have to carry it alone," he said.
She didn't look at him. "You think I'm afraid of guilt?"
"I think you're afraid of being forgiven."
At that, she turned. Her eyes shimmered. "I don't deserve it."
"Maybe not. But the world needs you anyway."
She laughed bitterly. "That's what they said last time. Before I gave in to the shard."
He stared. "You used one?"
"Briefly. The Echo Shard. To see what might come."
"And?"
"I saw the Hollowed King rise. I saw fire and ice at war. I saw you… broken."
Kael said nothing for a long time.
Then, quietly, "So why help me?"
"Because you haven't failed yet."
---
That night, Kael dreamed.
He stood in a field of ash. The sky bled silver. Shadows gathered at the edges of his vision.
Then, he heard it: a voice that spoke without sound.
"Kael. Son of fire. Child of storm."
He turned.
The Hollowed King stood behind him, tall as the mountains, cloaked in nothingness.
"Do you think they will love you when they see what you become?"
Kael tried to summon flame—but it fizzled.
"You bear three," the King whispered. "Take the fourth, and you will burn the sky."
Kael stood his ground.
"I'd rather burn than serve you."
The King laughed. "You say that now. But the shards do not choose lightly. They mold. They twist. They need only one moment of doubt."
He reached out a hand—and Kael woke gasping.
The Sea Shard pulsed violently in his chest.
---
Morning brought no peace.
Seraeth was already standing, blade drawn.
"What is it?" Vaelen asked.
She pointed.
In the distance, a rider approached. Cloaked in glass, face hidden behind a veil of chains.
"A Seeker," Seraeth said. "From the Queen of Glass."
The rider halted twenty paces away.
"I come with a message," the Seeker said, voice hollow.
"Speak, and be gone," Vaelen growled.
The Seeker removed its hood.
Its face was smooth. Blank.
And it wore Kael's.
Kael staggered back. "What—?"
"You will fall," the doppelgänger said. "By your own hand. Before the moon bleeds, your soul will fracture."
Then it exploded into shards of mirror.
No one moved.
Vaelen knelt and picked up a fragment.
"This wasn't illusion," he said. "That was a vision cast forward. A warning—or a temptation."
"From the Queen of Glass?" Kael asked.
"Or someone older," Seraeth whispered.
She was staring into the forest.
"Something else is watching."
---
By noon, they reached the edge of the Skyglass Bridge—a great arc of crystal spanning a chasm so deep, no light reached its bottom. It shimmered with colors not found in the waking world.
As they stepped onto it, the Sea Shard pulsed.
A voice echoed through the canyon: "Four steps left. Two steps wrong."
Kael froze.
"What was that?"
Seraeth's face went pale. "The bridge speaks in riddles. It tests worth."
"Four left, two wrong?" Vaelen muttered. "It's a puzzle. One mistake, and we fall."
Kael stepped forward.
And the bridge shifted.
Colors changed.
The glass beneath him showed scenes—memories. Kael as a child. Kael running from a burning village. Kael the night he found the Ember Shard.
"Don't trust what you see," Seraeth called. "It's all echo. Choose your truth."
Kael kept walking.
Each step showed a version of his life.
In one, he was a tyrant.
In another, a martyr.
In one, he gave the shards to the Hollowed King willingly.
He clenched his fists.
"I am not your puppet."
He stepped left.
The bridge shimmered.
Then he stepped forward again.
Right.
Forward.
The voice returned: "Truth chosen. Path revealed."
The bridge lit up with pale gold light.
Seraeth and Vaelen crossed behind him.
Kael exhaled.
"Was that real?"
"Yes," Vaelen said. "And it will not be the last time you face yourself."
---
On the far side, the land changed.
No longer ash or forest—but something in between. The land of Echofell.
There, hidden in the ruins of a temple carved into the cliffs, lay the next shard.
The Echo Shard.
The one Seraeth once touched.
The one that remembered.
---
Far away, the Hollowed King smiled.
"The fourth awakens. Send the Revenant."
A figure stepped from the flames, cloaked in red, eyes burning with borrowed light.
"I serve."
"It served you first," the King whispered. "And it will again."
---
End of Chapter 8