The Gap breathes.
I can't explain it any other way. It isn't air, not wind, not sound. It's pressure, pulsing against my ribs, tugging at my lungs until every breath feels stolen. The hole in the street widens the longer I stare, the edges fraying like torn fabric, and inside
Something waits.
The Mark scorches hotter than it ever has. My palm is a star, branding through flesh and bone. My knees threaten to buckle, but I can't move. I can't look away.
Then
"Kaelen…"
Her voice.
Soft. Gentle.
My chest caves. My throat closes. My eyes burn before I realize I'm crying.
Lyra.
No. No, it can't be.
I stagger closer to the edge. The void ripples, and through its shifting black I see her.
She stands barefoot, pale dress brushing her ankles, hair spilling loose around her face. The same face I've dreamed, wept for, begged to remember.
Her smile is the same. Too perfect.
"Kaelen," she whispers again, reaching for me. "You found me."
I choke on her name. It rips from my throat, raw and broken.
"Lyra!"
My legs move without thought. One step. Two. The stones crumble beneath my boots, the edge of the Gap yawning wide.
The Mark sears harder, almost eager, almost hungry.
But something is wrong.
Her eyes.
Gods, her eyes.
At first they are hers, soft gray, lit with warmth. But when I blink, letters shift inside them. Fragments. Names. Words I don't understand, writhing where pupils should be.
I freeze.
"Come closer," she whispers. Her voice doubles, echoes, distorts. "Don't leave me here. Don't forget me."
The words lance straight through me. My body shakes. My heart begs to believe. But the Mark pulses violently, almost like it's warning me.
My hand throbs with every beat.
---
"I miss you."
Her lips form the words I've screamed into pillows, whispered into empty rooms. My chest cracks open.
She takes a step closer. The void doesn't swallow her; it spits her forward, her figure clearer now, solid.
But her feet don't touch the ground.
I see it, her ankles blur. Her hands flicker. Her smile stretches just a little too wide, teeth just a little too sharp.
"Kaelen," she says, voice warping. "You can have me back. All of me. Just"
Her hand extends.
"Give."
The word slams into my skull, jagged and raw.
My Mark flares, veins crawling up my wrist, down my forearm, my elbow. The black lines twitch toward her, hungry, alive.
I stumble back, gasping.
"No."
Her head tilts. Her smile doesn't falter.
"You always were selfish."
---
The fragments hit me like blades.
Memories I never asked for, our first walk along the cliffs, her laughter tangled in the wind. The night she kissed me in the storm. Her scream the night she died.
(Author: The Shadow shows him memories that doesn't exist, kind of like an illusion.)
Each one is sharp, jagged, poisoned. They pour from her like blood, stabbing into my skull, filling me with her and not-her.
I drop to my knees, clutching my head, sobbing.
"Stop! Stop it!"
She kneels with me. Her hand touches my cheek, soft, gentle. Too gentle.
"Kaelen," she whispers, "you couldn't save me then. Save me now. Give yourself to me. Let me live inside you. Isn't that enough?"
For a heartbeat, I believe. I want to believe.
But then her skin flickers, sloughing off in ribbons of letters. Her hand is not warm flesh—it's shifting script, hollow and wrong.
Her smile stretches wider, splitting her face. The words pour from her mouth, hundreds of voices screaming at once.
"…GIVE…GIVE…GIVE…"
The Mark burns white-hot, my palm blazing like a furnace. It knows. It knows this thing isn't Lyra.
I stagger to my feet, bile flooding my throat.
"You're not her."
Her form stutters, fragments misaligning. For a second, the smile falters. The gray eyes vanish, replaced by pits of crawling script.
The voices shriek.
"…SHE WAS MINE…"
"…SHE IS MINE…"
"…YOU ARE MINE…"
The Gap convulses. The void widens, swallowing the street, the buildings bending inward. Shadows pour out, thick and cold, wrapping around my legs, my chest.
And from the depths, something vast rises.
Not Lyra. Never Lyra.
Something with too many mouths. Too many hands. A shape that shifts faster than my eyes can follow.
The Gap screams.
The Hunt has begun.