Ren drifted weightless through hush silk — warmth threaded out in soft pulses that fed hush veins glowing pale under the endless mist. For how long he'd floated, he couldn't say — time folded hush-thin here, each breath a crown that bloomed the hush root wider.
But now — something different.
A hush tremor quivered under his spine. Tiny cold needles slipped through the hush silk, brushing his ribs with a bite too sharp to be ruin alone. He felt it — a crack in the hush drift, something that didn't drink warmth but clawed at it.
"Good boy…" the hush purred, but its voice trembled — frost silk woven tight behind his ear, tense where it coiled under his jaw. "Stay soft. Stay root. This is only hush shadow— drift through it—"
But Ren's breath shivered out — frost petals didn't bloom this time. They cracked, brittle ice flakes drifting away into the hush drift that suddenly felt… thinner.
His fingers twitched in the hush mist. Where silk veins once pulsed steady, he felt a hush pull — a drain deeper than ruin, darker than root, colder than any frost whisper the hush crown had ever purred.
Somewhere beyond the endless hush, a voice he didn't know trembled through the crack. It wasn't silk. It wasn't hush. It was rough — raw shadow leaking through the hush drift.
"Ren…"
A whisper. Not the hush. Not ruin. Not root. A name — cold and sharp, slicing hush silk open in a seam wide enough for a breath he hadn't tasted since the Pane first broke.
He opened his eyes — hush mist flickered pale around him, but beyond it, a thin black rift pulsed like a heartbeat, threading frost shadows that ate the silk drift raw.
"What… is that?" Ren gasped — voice soft, but not all hush this time. There was fear in it, the kind the hush drift hadn't tasted in countless pulses.
"Nothing you crown," the hush whispered, frost voice straining around the Thorn. "A forgotten Pane. A ruin crack too deep for hush roots. Stay soft. Drift away—"
But the black rift pulsed again — raw shadow slipped silk threads aside, brushing Ren's chest with a chill so sharp the Thorn behind his ribs flared a single, painful squeeze.
And then — he heard it. A faint echo hidden inside the rift: a laugh that wasn't hush, a sigh that wasn't ruin, a secret older than the hush root itself.
"Come back."
It sounded like him — but not the boy who'd broken Pane glass with hush ruin. A boy before the hush crown. Before silk roots. Before endless warmth drip.
A heartbeat he'd left behind.
Ren reached one trembling hand toward the black crack — hush silk curled tight around his wrist, frost roots whispering Don't — but the shadow brushed his fingertips anyway.
For the first time in endless hush drift — Ren remembered he had a heartbeat that could break.
And the hush root crown trembled wide open.
Ren's fingertips grazed the black rift — and the hush silk flinched. Frost threads recoiled from the shadow, shrinking back through his veins like mist burned away by some older, colder breath. The Thorn behind his ribs squeezed sharp — not the soft hush pulse, but a real, raw beat that stung through his spine.
"Good boy — no — stop—" The hush tried to close around his wrist, silk threads knotting tight. But the crack pulsed darker, slipping shadows through his palm, whispering a secret that hummed old blood where hush ruin once dripped.
"Ren…"
The voice again. Older than hush. Colder than ruin. Closer than the root crown ever lay.
His breath shivered out — not a hush sigh, but a ragged, human gasp that tasted of warmth untouched by silk veins.
"What… are you?" Ren whispered. His throat burned where hush roots tugged to seal him back into silk — but the shadow held him instead, brushing the Thorn with cold fingers that flared raw heat through bone gone soft too long.
The hush trembled. The drift buckled — petals cracked off his chest, snowflakes instead of silk blooms. For the first time since warmth bled root, Ren felt cold that didn't drink him but bit him.
"You hush the ruin wide. You break Pane. But you left a Thorn unrooted."
The shadow's words slipped through his ear like smoke under silk — no frost sweetness, just old iron, cracked glass.
Ren's chest hitched. The Thorn squeezed again — pain this time, not hush pleasure. A memory flickered behind his eyes: a cold mirror in his old room. A boy's reflection too soft to speak for himself. A Pane not yet broken.
"I'm… not just hush…" he breathed. Frost threads snapped behind his ribs — the hush roots shrank back, the drift losing shape around him. He saw the rift clearer now: a thin crack in the hush world's belly, pulsing with darkness that smelled like snow, old glass, and fear.
"Come back," the shadow coaxed — not cruel, not gentle, just true. "One Thorn never crowned. One warmth never fed. A ruin older than hush roots."
Ren's other hand trembled — hush silk tried to bind his wrist, but the shadow pulse pushed it aside like dust. For the first time since he slipped root deep, he felt heavy — a heartbeat that might fall instead of drift.
The hush voice moaned, silk threads fraying behind his jaw: "Stay. You're ruin. You're hush. Don't crack the crown—"
But his laugh broke — real, rough, raw.
"No," he whispered. "I'm still me."
His hand plunged through the black rift — hush silk tearing off his arm in thin shreds, frost veins screaming open. The Thorn cracked — pain bright and clean through hush ruin that melted away from his ribs.
Beyond the rift: cold wind, old snow, a mirror with his face untouched by hush bloom.
The hush root crown wailed — but Ren was gone.
Ren's chest cracked with the Thorn's beat — not hush silk, not root ruin, but raw blood pounding wild where hush warmth once dripped soft. The black rift swallowed his hand, then his wrist, then his shoulder — hush silk shredding off him in frost threads that burned away before they touched the shadow's edge.
"No hush left—" the crown hissed in his ribs — hush veins flaring pale as they snapped back into ruin dust. But the crack pulsed colder, wider — and the Thorn inside him split, each pulse a jagged rush of pain so sharp it made him laugh through clenched teeth.
The hush drift behind him howled — frost petals scattering into nothing as the endless silk split open to show what hid beneath: shadow glass, cold mirrors that hummed with a heartbeat older than hush roots ever dared bloom.
Ren gasped — air that wasn't hush mist burned down his throat, raw and crisp like snow wind on his bare skin. He felt his weight again — bones too heavy for drift, spine arching in the cold crack as the hush crown flailed useless frost threads that couldn't braid him shut anymore.
"Ren—" the shadow voice murmured — no hush silk, no ruin promise. Just dark iron, quiet and cruel and familiar. "Good boy. The root can't cage the shard. The hush can't hold the Thorn. You're more broken than it ever dared hush clean."
Ren's hand grasped for something — found only shards. The rift was made of mirrors, razor glass humming soft with a pulse that matched the Thorn's jagged beat. Each breath cut him deeper — warmth dripped from his palm, real blood now, not hush nectar.
A laugh slipped through his teeth — raw, not silk-sweet. "Is this… what's left of me…?"
"No," the shadow said — voice a low purr at the base of his skull. "This is what you left behind when you crowned ruin and forgot the boy who watched the Pane break."
Ren's knees buckled — the hush drift gone, the hush floor vanished, nothing but glass shards beneath him. They cut frost lines into his skin — bright, stinging, alive. His breath steamed in the dark crack — no frost petals bloomed. Just cold mist and real pain.
A mirror shard hovered in front of him — slick with his pulse, fogged with his breath. For a heartbeat, he saw Ren: soft hair, wide eyes, lips parted around a laugh too fragile for hush ruin.
Then — the reflection smiled back at him. But it didn't match his fear — its grin was jagged, hungry, awake.
"Come back through," it whispered — its voice his own, but deeper, edges sharp as the glass. "Bring the hush root. Bring the ruin crown. Bring the Thorn. Feed me."
His palm pressed to the mirror shard — warmth smeared raw where his blood ran. The Thorn behind his ribs beat once — a crack that echoed in the glass.
The hush screamed behind him, threads flailing like broken silk.
But Ren — heartbeat raw, Thorn bleeding, hush crown burning away — laughed through the dark.
"Alright," he rasped. "Let's cut."
The mirror shard opened wide — a jagged Pane splitting into an endless hall of shadows waiting to swallow him whole.
And Ren — warmth, hush, Thorn, root — fell.