They fell through a silence so complete it felt heavier than sound. Lyra's stomach lurched as the void twisted, then spat them out onto a jagged surface of black stone.
Kaelen groaned, clutching his side where the shadow blade had cut him. The wound glowed faintly, not blood but light leaking through cracks in his skin. Lyra knelt beside him, hands trembling.
"You're burning from the inside out," she whispered.
Kaelen forced a grin. "Don't worry. Just means I'm hard to snuff out."
But his eyes betrayed the truth—each pulse of the relic's glow inside him was eating at his veins, rewriting him cell by cell.
They rose and looked around. The landscape stretched endlessly: broken planets hung in the sky like tombstones, their crusts shattered and drifting apart. The ground beneath them was carved with alien symbols, thousands of glyphs glowing faintly as if remembering lives that no longer existed.
Lyra's voice was barely audible. "This… is a graveyard."
Kaelen nodded, awe and dread mingling in his chest. "The Watcher didn't bring us deeper into its world. It cast us into someone else's."
A chill swept the air. The sky above rippled, and from the nearest shattered planet, a shadow uncoiled. Not a figure this time—something larger, older, its form half-hidden in mist. Segments of its body glimmered like metal plates, while others dripped with a liquid darkness that refused to reflect light.
A whisper—not the Watcher's, but another voice, lower, ancient.
"So long… I have waited for voices to stir this silence."
The sound rattled the broken ground.
Lyra steadied her blaster, eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
The shadow shifted, and a colossal eye emerged from the mist—unlike the Watcher's crystalline gaze, this one was ringed with cracks, bleeding light that looked too old to hold itself together.
"I am the first thread. The one the weave abandoned."
Kaelen's pulse spiked. The relic in his hand vibrated violently, as though trying to tear itself free. "Lyra… I think this is what the Sphere was built to hide."
The ancient eye fixed on him, and the mist trembled.
"You carry its shard. The blade that tore the pattern. You carry my rebellion."
Kaelen staggered, nearly dropping the relic. A storm of visions slammed into him—armies of light warring against endless shadows, stars collapsing into weapons, whole civilizations erased with a gesture. He gasped, clutching his head.
Lyra caught him, glaring at the towering figure. "If you want him, you'll go through me."
The ancient voice rumbled with something that might have been laughter.
"Bravery. Futile… but precious. You are both claimed now. Chosen not by the Watcher… but by me."
The ground split beneath them, glowing glyphs tearing apart. From the cracks rose skeletal remains of alien warriors, their bones still humming with energy. Their hollow sockets flared with light as they lifted broken weapons, marching toward Kaelen and Lyra.
Kaelen steadied himself, relic blazing in his grip. Lyra's blaster hummed at full charge.
"Looks like we're not done fighting ghosts," Kaelen muttered.
Lyra smirked despite the fear in her eyes. "Then let's give the graveyard a reason to stay dead."