Chapter 15: The Child of the Shard
Theme: The Past Never Sleeps / Suspicion and Renewal
The shard gleamed in the morning light, cradled in Kael's calloused hand. It was no larger than a coin, but its presence weighed on the air around them, dense and quiet like a breath held too long. The boy who had delivered it stood silently, his silver eyes watching everything—and revealing nothing.
"Where did you come from?" Kael asked again, softer this time.
The boy tilted his head, as if listening to a voice only he could hear. "From nowhere," he said. "And everywhere."
Seraeth stepped closer, sword at her hip. Her eyes narrowed. "That's not an answer."
The boy looked at her, not afraid. "I wasn't meant to give one. Only the shard."
Kael examined it again. Unlike the original Crownshard fragments, this one was different. It pulsed, yes, but not with raw power—it hummed like a memory just out of reach. A whisper between worlds.
Vaelen arrived from the school, breathless and pale. "I felt it. The moment it arrived." He bent low to inspect it, fingers trembling. "Kael… this shouldn't be possible."
"I know," Kael said.
"I mean it. We shattered them. You shattered them. The Heart was silenced. This—this should not exist."
Kael looked at the boy. "But it does."
---
The city of Elorain buzzed beneath the surface. The return of a shard—however changed—was cause for rumor. Kael tried to keep it quiet, but stories had their own legs.
Some called it a blessing. Others, a curse. Some whispered that Kael had never truly destroyed the Crown, that he'd merely hidden it.
In the market square, an old priest of the Third Flame preached that the gods had returned.
In the backrooms of taverns, alchemists traded hushed theories.
And in a forgotten corner of the old Aetherion archive, a rune began to glow again.
---
Kael sat across from the boy in the forge.
"I need to know who sent you."
"No one," the boy said again. "I was woken. The shard… it called me."
"To do what?"
The boy frowned, genuinely puzzled. "To bring it to you."
Kael stood and paced. "There were thirteen shards. Thirteen seals. When they broke, the Heart released its hold on the world. Magic became what it was meant to be—free. This shard… this could undo all of it."
"Or," Vaelen said carefully, "it could mean something new. A second chance."
Seraeth scoffed. "Or a trap."
"Or a message," Kael said.
He turned to the forge.
And dropped the shard into the coals.
Vaelen gasped. "What are you doing?"
Kael watched it burn.
But it didn't burn.
The fire coiled around it like smoke around a stone, unable to touch it. The metal beneath it bubbled and hissed—but the shard remained untouched.
Then… it spoke.
Not in words. In images.
A mountain of obsidian. A door carved with thirteen eyes. A voice beneath the earth, older than the Heart.
And above it all, a star falling backward through time.
Kael reeled, stumbling away. "There's more," he breathed. "Something deeper. Something older."
The boy stood. "It's waking. Beneath the world. Where the shards were never meant to reach."
Seraeth drew her blade. "Who are you?"
The boy looked up.
And for a moment, his face shimmered—not with illusion, but with layered reality. A hundred faces. A thousand echoes.
Then he was just a boy again.
"I'm its memory," he said. "And its future."
---
That night, Kael couldn't sleep.
He stood alone atop the city wall, staring out toward the east.
Toward the mountains.
He remembered what the Hollowed King had said: What sleeps beneath is not magic. It is memory. And it remembers being a god.
Maybe the shards weren't just locks and keys.
Maybe they were warnings.
---
They left Elorain under cover of darkness. Kael, Seraeth, Vaelen, and the boy.
Their destination: the Black Teeth—a range of mountains so ancient even the First Tongue had no name for them. Where myths said the world cracked open to birth light and shadow.
As they traveled, signs multiplied.
The wind in the forest no longer obeyed the trees. Rivers ran in loops. Fire refused to burn in some places, raged uncontrollably in others.
Magic was shifting.
Reforming.
And always, the boy walked ahead. Silent. Sure.
---
By the seventh night, they reached the base of the Black Teeth.
The air tasted of iron and ash.
Kael saw runes carved into the rocks—runes older than any he'd seen, older even than the Gate. They spoke of the "Unmade Crown," a being not of shards, but of memory congealed into form.
"Not the Heart," Vaelen whispered. "Something… before."
Seraeth touched the runes. "It doesn't want us here."
Kael nodded. "Which means we need to keep going."
---
The ascent took two days.
On the second, they found a corpse.
A man in silver robes, clutching a tablet. His eyes were burned black, his face frozen in awe and terror.
Vaelen took the tablet.
It read:
The Gate Below opens to none. Unless the Crown remembers.
Kael turned to the boy. "That's why you're here."
The boy nodded. "I am the memory. I am the key."
---
They found the Gate Below at dawn.
Not carved into stone—but grown. Formed from black crystal that pulsed with slow, terrible life. It stood at the center of a sunken caldera, where no sun reached, yet every stone glowed with internal light.
The boy approached.
The Gate opened.
Not with sound.
With absence.
The world behind it was silent. Colorless. Realer than real.
Kael stepped forward.
Vaelen grabbed his arm. "If you go through—"
"I know."
"Then let us go with you."
Kael nodded.
Together, they stepped through.
And the Gate closed.
---
Inside was a city.
Not ruins.
A living city.
But it was empty. Buildings made of thought. Streets paved in shifting symbols. Statues of people they recognized—but older. Versions of themselves. Futures unchosen.
And in the center, a throne.
Upon it, a figure.
A man.
Kael.
But not.
Older. Worn. Eyes glowing with the void.
He rose.
"You came back," the figure said.
Kael stared. "Who are you?"
"I'm what happens if you fail."
Seraeth raised her blade. "What is this place?"
The figure smiled.
"The true Heart of Aetherion. Not a god. Not a crown. A cycle. Every era, one like you comes. Breaks the shards. Wakes the boy. Follows the signs."
"And ends up here," Kael said.
The figure nodded. "Some run. Some rule. I tried to fix it. I became this."
Vaelen whispered, "A loop."
Kael turned to the boy. "You knew."
The boy nodded. "You always ask. And you always forget."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then we stop the loop."
"You can't," the older Kael said. "You are the loop."
"No," Kael said.
He drew the last piece of the new shard from his cloak. It pulsed with soft light.
"I am the break."
And he shattered it.
The city trembled.
The air screamed.
Time fractured.
And then…
Silence.
---
Kael awoke on a mountainside.
Alone.
No shard.
No Gate.
Only the dawn.
And the world, quiet again.
But this time, truly free.
---
End of Chapter 15