The glass tower loomed above Kael, impossibly tall, impossibly thin, like a needle driven through the skin of reality. Its cracked surface reflected the wasteland in fractured mosaics: broken dunes stretched into jagged peaks, clouds bent into spirals, Kael's own body stretched and distorted until he looked like a dozen versions of himself walking in disjointed rhythm.
The air tasted of copper and dust. Every breath rasped against his lungs, as if the wasteland itself resented his presence. He tightened his grip on the humming book at his side, the vibration steady, guiding, like a heartbeat against his palm.
What is this place? he thought. Is it even a story at all… or something else?
A low wind dragged itself across the sands, carrying with it faint voices, whispers that rose and fell like sighs. He couldn't make out words, but he felt their intent: longing, regret, a thousand half-formed prayers from mouths that had long since turned to dust.
The tower's base was buried in cracked stone, massive slabs scattered as though once arranged into something purposeful—a plaza, perhaps. Kael crouched, brushing away sand from a faint engraving etched into the stone. The lines shimmered faintly, like veins of trapped starlight. He traced them with his fingers.
Not words. Not symbols. Fragments of illustrations. Pages.
The entire plaza was a book, shattered into stone.
His breath caught. He had walked into the skeleton of a story that had once been magnificent, and now lay fossilized, half-consumed.
"This isn't just a ruin…" Kael whispered to himself. "It's… a grave."
A sudden tremor rippled beneath his feet. He stumbled, catching himself on one of the slabs as a crack fissured through the stone, glowing faintly with pale blue light. For an instant, he swore he saw movement beneath the glassy surface of the plaza—shadows writhing like ink in water.
The whispers grew louder, not carried by the wind now, but rising from the ground itself. They coiled around him, brushing against his ears like cold fingers.
"…he waits…"
"…chains unbroken…"
"…the story devours itself…"
Kael's heart hammered. He pressed his back against the tower's surface, cold and slick like ice despite the heat of the wasteland. The glass pulsed faintly under his touch, alive.
The hum of his book responded, louder now, resonating in perfect counterpoint, as though in defiance of the whispers.
"Is this what Seraphine warned me about?" Kael muttered, his voice shaking. "A story so broken it doesn't want to be saved?"
His reflection in the cracked glass stared back at him—only, it wasn't quite his reflection. Its eyes glowed faintly, and when he moved his head, the reflection lagged behind, tilting in its own time. His chest constricted. He reached out and touched the glass, and the reflection's lips parted.
"You shouldn't be here," it whispered. The voice was his, but distorted, stretched thin like parchment too long in the fire.
Kael yanked his hand back, stumbling a step away. The reflection flickered, then dissolved into shadow, leaving only the fractured wasteland staring back at him.
The hum of his book steadied him, anchoring his panic. Still, his mind raced. If this place was a story, whose story was it? And why does it feel like it's watching me, instead of the other way around?
As he circled the base of the tower, the landscape shifted. The dunes weren't dunes at all, but collapsed spires of glass, half-buried in sand. Each one glimmered faintly as if something inside still fought to shine through. He paused at the largest fragment, its edge sharp as a blade, and peered inside.
For an instant, he saw a figure—no more than a silhouette—kneeling, arms stretched, wrists bound by heavy chains of molten ink. The figure's head tilted up slowly, as if sensing Kael.
The vision shattered. Only darkness remained within the shard.
Kael staggered back, his heart pounding. His legs trembled, but the hum of the book steadied him, urging him to continue.
Not far from the shard, half-buried in the sand, lay a broken pedestal. Unlike the plaza stones, this one bore words, though many had been eroded. He brushed away more sand, lips moving as he read aloud:
"…to preserve… not to bind…"
"…light into glass… memory into chain…"
"…beware the one who waits within, for he is both author and prisoner…"
Kael froze. The words cut deeper than he expected. Author and prisoner?
The sand whispered as he rose, his mind racing. This wasn't just a fading story—it was something more dangerous. Something imprisoned deliberately.
And yet, some part of him—the part that still carried the reckless heat of defiance, the same spark that had saved Eira—ached with sympathy. A story locked away, silenced, forgotten. Didn't it deserve to be freed?
He shook the thought from his head, forcing his gaze upward. The tower's surface was cracked, fissures running like lightning all the way to its unseen summit. Between the cracks, faint glows shimmered, as though words themselves were trapped inside, trying to bleed through.
The whispers returned, louder now.
"…Kael…"
"…you already know me…"
"…open the page… break the chain…"
He stumbled back, clutching his head. They knew his name. The voices here weren't fading—they were awake. Waiting.
For him.
A sudden gust howled across the wasteland, scattering sand in a vortex. From the storm rose shadowy forms—tattered silhouettes, like broken characters torn from forgotten scripts. Their bodies were riddled with gaps, as if whole passages had been ripped from them.
They staggered toward him, their mouths gaping, but no words came—only hollow echoes.
Kael's breath caught. He opened the book in his hands, praying it might help. The pages glowed faintly, threads of light weaving into the air. The shadows recoiled but didn't retreat.
His chest tightened as he whispered to himself: "I'm not just exploring a broken story. I'm standing in the middle of a war it lost."
The shadows closed in, their movements jerky, their silence deafening. Kael raised the book higher, its hum intensifying, and for a heartbeat, he thought he saw Liora's face flicker in the glow, her lips forming silent words he couldn't hear.
Then the shadows lunged.
And Kael ran—into the tower's broken entrance, where the whispers grew louder, and the promise of the chained figure waited, unseen, in the heart of the glass.