The sky went wrong too fast.
One moment Alucent was walking back from Fadeheart, still shaken by his encounter with Raya and the whispers that seemed to follow him through the streets. The next, darkness was spreading across the evening sky like spilled ink, moving against the wind, against nature, against everything that made sense.
The temperature dropped ten degrees in as many seconds.
A low hum started somewhere deep underground, vibrating up through the cobblestones and into his bones. The gas flames in the Lanternposts began to flicker erratically, their steady light becoming nervous, stuttering pulses.
People in the Marketplaza looked up from their evening business with expressions of recognition and fear. This wasn't weather. This was something else entirely.
"Runestorm," someone whispered near him.
Then the exodus began.
Shopkeepers abandoned their stalls. Customers dropped their purchases and ran for the nearest buildings. But before they fled, Alucent saw them perform the same ritual. A quick gesture toward the darkening sky, fingers pressed to forehead then heart, lips moving in what looked like desperate prayers.
Runestorm Reverence. The knowledge appeared in his borrowed memories like everything else, unbidden but certain.
The hum intensified, no longer just vibration but sound. Deep, resonant, wrong. Like the world's largest pipe organ playing notes too low for human ears to properly process.
Alucent started toward the nearest building, but that's when the storm truly hit.
Lightning cracked across the sky, but it wasn't normal lightning. Instead of simple bolts of electricity, the air filled with branching patterns of pure energy that traced complex runic symbols across the clouds. Massive script that shifted and rewrote itself with each flash, spelling out words in languages that predated human speech.
The thunder that followed wasn't just sound. It was force. Physical pressure that slammed into him like a wall, sending him stumbling backward as his teeth rattled in his skull.
The Weave Anchor Ring on his finger went from cold to burning in an instant. The pain shot up his arm and exploded behind his sternum, making him gasp and double over. But worse than the pain was what came with it.
Sensation. Raw, overwhelming awareness of the energy coursing through the air above him. The Runeforce wasn't just visible in the lightning patterns, it was everywhere. Flowing through the storm clouds like blood through veins. Pouring down toward the earth in invisible waterfalls of power that made his skin crawl with electricity.
The shimmering haze around him intensified until he could see it clearly, distorting the air like heat waves. His black hair whipped around his face in wind that carried the taste of copper and ozone.
It was terrifying.
It was also intoxicating.
The raw power in the air called to something deep inside him. The same something that had reached out to fix the Glowroses, that had stabilized the wall in Fadeheart. Now it wanted to drink from the storm, to absorb the chaotic energy and make it part of himself.
Another flash of runic lightning, and in its afterimage he saw them. Shapes moving through the patterns of energy. Not human shapes. Not shapes that belonged in any sane reality.
Focus. Get to shelter. Deal with existential horror later.
He straightened up, fighting against the wind and the overwhelming sensory input, and looked around for the nearest building.
That's when he heard the whimpering.
It was barely audible over the storm's roar, but his enhanced senses picked it up. Small, desperate, afraid. Coming from the narrow alley between two Steam-powered food stalls that had been abandoned when the storm hit.
In the flickering light of the erratic Lanternposts, he could make out a small figure huddled against the wall. A child, maybe twelve years old, pressed into the corner like he was trying to disappear entirely.
Everyone else had found shelter. Everyone else had someone to look out for them.
This kid was alone.
Alucent's feet were moving before his brain caught up with the decision. Through the wind and the chaos and the overwhelming assault of Runeforce, he stumbled toward the alley.
The child looked up as he approached. Wide green eyes in a pale, thin face. Messy brown hair that stuck up at odd angles. He was small, maybe four foot eight, and wearing what looked like a patched vest covered in faded runic symbols.
"Hey," Alucent called over the storm's roar. "You can't stay here. It's not safe."
The boy shook his head frantically, pressing his hands to his ears. "Can't... can't make them stop. The whispers. They're so loud."
Whispers?
Alucent crouched down next to the kid, and that's when he felt it. The same resonance he'd experienced with the cultivation house pipes, with the decaying wall in Fadeheart. But stronger. More personal.
This child was like him. Different. Connected to something most people couldn't sense.
"What's your name?" Alucent asked.
"Tavin." The boy's voice was barely audible. "The shapes... they're moving in the air. Can you see them? They're saying things... terrible things..."
Another flash of runic lightning illuminated the alley, and Alucent saw what Tavin was talking about. The energy patterns weren't just random. They were structured. Organized. And in their flickering geometry, something that might have been faces appeared and disappeared too quickly to focus on.
"I can see them," Alucent said. And he could. More clearly than he wanted to.
Without thinking, he reached out and pulled the trembling child against his chest, using his larger body to shield Tavin from the worst of the storm's visual assault. The moment they made contact, the world exploded.
Not literally. But the connection between them, whatever frequency they were both tuned to, amplified everything. The whispers Tavin had mentioned became audible to Alucent. Not words, exactly, but concepts pressed directly into his consciousness.
Pain. Hunger. Ancient fury. Things that had been waiting in spaces between spaces, feeding on the cracks in reality.
The Weave Anchor Ring pulsed in perfect synchronization with Tavin's rapid heartbeat. Through that connection, Alucent could feel the boy's raw sensitivity to the Runeforce around them. It was like touching a live wire, overwhelming and dangerous, but also strangely familiar.
This kid wasn't just scared of the storm. He was drowning in it. Every pulse of energy, every shift in the runic patterns above them, hit him like a physical blow.
"Just focus on my voice," Alucent said, surprised by how gentle his own tone had become. "Don't listen to them. Listen to me."
Tavin nodded against his chest, small hands clutching at his jacket. "They want... they want to come through. The whispers. They're looking for cracks. Places where the world is thin."
Places like Fadeheart. Places where reality was already failing.
"What else do they say?"
"Names," Tavin whispered. "They know names. Old names. Hidden names."
The storm raged above them, runic lightning painting impossible geometries across the sky. Through their connection, Alucent could feel Tavin's terror, but also something else. A strange kind of clarity that came with extreme sensitivity. The boy wasn't just hearing whispers. He was receiving information.
"They're talking about someone," Tavin continued, his voice getting smaller. "Someone important. Someone they've been watching."
"Who?"
Tavin went very still in his arms. When he spoke, his voice carried an echo that didn't belong to a twelve-year-old child.
"Luci..." he whispered, the name barely audible over the howling wind. "They watch... from the cracks..."
The Weave Anchor Ring flared with sudden, agonizing heat. Not the gentle warmth he'd felt before, but genuine pain that made him hiss through his teeth. The whispers intensified, no longer background noise but a chorus of hungry, patient voices.
And in that moment, Alucent understood something that chilled him more than the storm.
They weren't just watching him.
They were waiting for him.
Whatever he was becoming, whatever the ring was turning him into, there were things in the spaces between realities that had been anticipating his transformation. Planning for it. Counting on it.
The storm began to fade, the runic lightning becoming less frequent, the thunder moving off toward the horizon. But the whispers remained, and Tavin stayed pressed against him, trembling not from cold but from the terrible knowledge that had been forced into his young mind.
In the growing quiet, one thought echoed in Alucent's head with crystalline clarity:
The cracks they were watching from weren't just in the world.
They were in him.