Theshard pulsed in Kael's palm long after Seliora's silhouette dissolved into the fog.
He stood beneath the bridge as if anchored, unable to move, unable to breathe. The fragment's light had dimmed to a faint ember, violet glow slipping between his fingers like captive starlight. Yet he felt it still—burning through his veins, humming in his bones, threading into his marrow.
The hollow inside him ached where the memory had been torn. He pressed a hand to his lips as though he could force it back, but there was nothing. No taste, no warmth, not even the outline of a forgotten face. Only absence.
And still, he could not let go of the fragment.
Kael turned it over in his palm. Its surface shifted like glass underwater, impossible angles rearranging with each tilt. Sometimes it looked like crystal, sometimes a shard of mirror—reflecting not the world but lives that weren't his. For a heartbeat, he saw himself crowned, shadows kneeling at his feet. Then it fractured, and the image vanished.
He shoved it into his coat pocket and stumbled out from beneath the bridge.
–––
The city pressed close.
Drosyn had always been smoke and iron, soot-slick streets, towers clawing at the fog-choked sky. But tonight, it breathed differently. Windows stretched too long, shadows pooled where no lamps burned, and every passerby flickered like faulty lantern light.
Kael's heart thudded with each step. The fragment whispered against his skin—not words, but impressions: heat, hunger, gravity bending wrong. Every sound sharpened—the clatter of wheels, the hiss of lamps, the ragged draw of his breath.
At his door, he lingered. The cracked frame and warped planks seemed fragile, as though they might dissolve at his touch. He half expected the key to vanish into the lock.
But it turned. The door opened.
Inside, the air was heavy with oil and old wood. He locked the door, drew the shard out again, and set it on the table.
Its glow painted the walls violet.
He stared for a long time.
–––
The first experiment was an accident.
His hand hovered above the shard, trembling. He hadn't meant to touch it, but his fingertips grazed its surface—reality rippled.
The lamp sputtered. Plaster walls stretched outward like a lung drawn too deep. Shadows peeled from corners, bending toward him.
Kael stumbled back, chest seizing. For a heartbeat, the world thinned—taut as paper about to tear.
Then it snapped back.
The lamp hissed. The room was ordinary again.
But he was not.
His veins throbbed with echoes of the ripple. His senses sharpened until painful. He could hear rain drip down the gutter. He could count the uneven seconds between the fractured chimes of the cathedral bells.
And beneath it all, faint as a dying breath, the fragment whispered: more.
Kael pressed his palms to his eyes, but violet bled through his lids. He told himself to throw it out, to bury it, to lose it in the river.
Instead, he reached again.
–––
The second experiment was deliberate.
He cupped the shard and focused above it. He expected light or fire. Instead, he imagined weight—pressure, a hand closing on his will.
The room answered.
The air thickened. Dust motes froze mid-fall, suspended in amber light. The oil flame twisted sideways, bending toward his palm.
Kael exhaled sharply—the moment shattered. Motes dropped, flame righted.
But exhilaration bolted through him, sharp as terror.
He laughed once, too harsh, then bit it back.
The shard lay warm against his skin. His hand shook, but he would not let go.
–––
Night deepened.
The experiments grew bolder.
He muffled pipes until silence pressed heavy as a shroud. He amplified a chair scrape until it shrieked like tearing metal. He stretched shadows, tugging them into pools. He froze a drop of water mid-fall until his focus broke.
Each attempt bled him. His temples throbbed. His nose ran red. His breath tore ragged. Yet with every pull, the shard answered faster. Stronger. It wasn't inert. It wanted.
Kael slumped against the wall, trembling. Blood streaked his hands, but his eyes burned with feverish light.
The hollow gnawed inside him. The hunger that replaced it was worse.
He wanted more.
–––
The bells tolled again.
Kael froze.
Through the fog-smeared window, the cathedral spire loomed. The bells groaned the hour. But the sound was wrong—doubled, fractured, as though realities overlapped out of sync.
In the pause between tolls, whispers bled through.
Not Seliora. Not the fragment.
Something colder.
They see. They see. They see.
Kael stumbled from the window, clutching the shard as if it could shield him. His breath fogged the air, though the room was warm. For an instant, the fractured eye etched across the glass—watching.
He blinked. Gone.
But the whispers lingered.
–––
Sleep would not come.
The shard rooted in his palm; his hand refused to release it. Every time he closed his eyes, visions bled through: faces unknown, cities unwalked, wars unfought. Futures glorious. Futures horrific. All bleeding together like ink.
And through it all—the eye. Watching.
When he woke gasping, dawn had not yet come.
–––
By morning, his reflection betrayed him again.
He leaned over the basin, splashed water on his face. Fever clung to his eyes. The mirror wavered.
This time, it did not smirk.
This time, it wept.
Tears of blood streaked the scarred face that wasn't his. Its mouth moved in silence, words he couldn't hear. Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass—yet the surface beneath his fingers was smooth.
Kael stumbled back, stomach roiling.
The shard pulsed in his hand, eager.
–––
He should stop.
Every rational thought screamed to stop. To find someone—anyone—before the fragment hollowed him.
But what would he say? That myth had touched him? That he had already lost pieces he couldn't name? That he had seen himself crowned, broken, multiplied?
They would call him mad. And if the Custodians heard—
Kael shuddered. He had never seen one, only their aftermath: splintered doorways, vanished families, empty rooms that hummed with unease. They left no bodies. Only silence.
And their sigil. Always the sigil.
The eye, fractured into seven.
The same one that haunted his dreams.
–––
That night, Kael gave in fully.
He set the fragment on the table, placed both hands over it. His pulse thundered. His body ached, but his mind burned.
"I want more," he whispered.
The shard blazed. Violet swallowed the room.
The world split.
Kael saw himself from the ceiling, from the walls, from a dozen angles. His back hunched over the table, hands clawing the shard, face twisted in need.
Then further.
Through the window, the city writhed. Streets curved impossibly. Towers melted into rivers of stone. Faces multiplied, blurred. Time fractured, stuttering forward and back.
And at the center—the eye. Watching.
Kael screamed, but the sound dragged wrong, stretching thin. His hands clutched tighter—
And reality snapped.
–––
He collapsed to the floor, chest heaving. The shard lay dim, spent.
Kael dragged himself upright, bile burning his throat. He tried to remember what he had seen, but already pieces dissolved.
Not just visions.
Something else.
He pressed his temple. No. Not again.
But the hollow widened.
Worse than the kiss.
He couldn't remember his brother's name.
The face blurred. The voice muted. The laughter r gone. Only the outline of absence remained.
Kael's vision swam. His body shook.
The shard pulsed faintly, pleased.
–––
Kael curled against the wall, blood drying under his nose, hands trembling as he clutched the shard.
Terror gnawed at him. Beneath it—beneath grief, beneath the hollow—rose something darker.
Power.
He had bent the world. Seen it fracture. Touched it.
And he could again.
His heart pounded. His lips curved into a broken, hungry smile.
He whispered into the silence, voice raw and certain:
"I'll never stop."