The first time it spoke clearly, I wasn't awake.
I knew I was dreaming because the academy looked wrong.
The corridors were too long, stretching into vanishing points that shouldn't exist. Doors stood where windows should be; windows opened onto starless sky instead of courtyards. The Constellation Web, which usually shimmered above the great hall, hung low over the main corridor, its threads dragging along the floor like strands of light-soaked silk.
My footsteps made no sound.
There was no one else.
Just me, walking through a version of the academy that felt like it had been rebuilt from memory by someone who had only seen it once.
"Arin Vale."
The voice came from everywhere.
Not loud, not booming.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
I stopped walking.
The bond was silent.
No warmth from Lira.
No fire from Seris.
Just me.
"Arin Vale," the voice repeated, a fraction clearer. "Anchor."
My chest tightened.
"This isn't real," I said, or tried to. My voice sounded distant, as if spoken under water.
"No," it replied. "It is… overlap."
The corridor ahead shimmered. Shadows lengthened, and the Constellation Web above shifted, lines rearranging themselves into patterns I didn't recognize—old, tangled, broken in places.
A shape stood at the far end of the hall.
Not a person.
Not exactly.
More like the suggestion of one—edges blurred, details missing. Like my mind refused to fully render whatever it was seeing.
Every instinct I had screamed stay away.
But my feet moved forward anyway.
"You're inside my head," I said. "Or inside the bond."
"Inside… residue," it answered. "A path carved long ago."
I swallowed, forcing my voice to stay steady. "You're the one that tried to break the wards."
"Yes."
No hesitation. No denial.
"Why?" I asked.
The shape tilted its head slightly, as if puzzling through how to answer.
"You are… familiar."
My fingers curled into fists. "You said you remember me."
"I remember… what is inside you," it corrected. "The echo. The missing node."
The fracture.
I could feel it now, pulsing like a faint second heartbeat beneath my sternum—more visible in this dream-state. A small, glowing crack suspended in the air in front of my chest, sashaying with each breath.
"Who were they?" I asked quietly. "The one you're actually remembering."
Fragments of emotion rippled through the air—too jagged to make sense of, like feeling three different temperatures at once.
"Binder," it said at last. "Connective. Mine."
The possessive word made my skin crawl.
"You lost them," I said.
"Yes."
"You're not getting them back through me," I said.
Silence stretched.
The shape wavered slightly, as if distorted by an invisible wind.
"You are… not them," it agreed, voice thinner now. "But you are… connected. Thread of thread."
A chill slid down my spine.
"What do you want?" I whispered.
The Constellation Web above flickered. A few threads broke and rewove into unfamiliar patterns. The shape's voice lowered.
"I want… to exist," it said. "Not in pieces. Not in darkness. I want… whole."
It took a step forward.
The floor didn't react. It didn't cast a shadow.
"Your triad changed the fracture," it went on. "I felt it. Softened edges. New paths."
My heart hammered. "We didn't do that for you."
"It does not matter why," it said. "It matters that it worked."
The fracture glowed brighter, responding to its attention.
Pressure built behind my eyes, as if someone pressed cold thumbs into them from the inside.
I gritted my teeth. "You're hurting me."
"Not… yet."
The way it said yet made my throat go dry.
"I can offer you something," it said. "Strength. Reach. Clarity. I can make your triad… more."
"No," I said immediately.
The shadows around us trembled.
"You refuse… quickly."
"Because I didn't ask for you," I snapped. "I didn't ask for your imprint. I didn't ask to carry whatever bond you lost."
The words spilled out more desperate than I meant them to.
For a moment, the shape was quiet.
When it spoke again, its tone was strange—still cold, still wrong, but with something almost like… confusion.
"You carry loss," it said. "You think it is only mine."
I froze.
A flicker of emotion ran through the fracture—brief, piercing.
It didn't belong to me.
Fear.
Sorrow.
Loneliness so sharp it felt like glass.
The echo of whoever had been bonded before me.
I staggered back, pressing a hand to my chest.
"Get out," I whispered.
The shape tilted its head again. "You are not ready."
"For what?" I demanded.
"To remember," it said.
The dream flickered.
The floor seemed to fall away and snap back into place. The Web twisted and then straightened. The shape's outline blurred, as if pulled by an unseen tide.
Footsteps rang behind me.
"Arin!"
Lira's voice, clear and desperate.
"Arin, wake up!"
Seris, right behind her. "You're not staying in there—wake up!"
Their voices tore through the dream like light through fog.
The bond surged.
Warmth crashed into my chest—Lira's panic, Seris's anger—not at me, but for me.
The fracture pulsed violently.
The shape distorted.
"Anchor," it said again, fainter. "You are… closer now."
The world collapsed.
---
I woke with a sharp inhale, as if I'd been underwater too long.
The room was dark, lit only by the faint glow of a ward-stone in the corner. My heart hammered. Sweat chilled on my skin.
Hands gripped me.
"Easy—easy," Seris said, breath ragged. "You with us?"
"Arin?" Lira's voice shook. "Can you hear us?"
I blinked hard, vision swimming.
Lira sat on one side of the bed, both hands on my arm, fingers pressed tight like she was afraid I might disappear if she let go. Seris was on my other side, one hand braced on my shoulder, the other hovering near my face, unsure whether to touch or not.
"I—" My voice cracked. "Yeah. I'm—here."
"Barely," Seris muttered, but her tone was more relief than reprimand.
Lira swallowed. "You were… tense. Your breathing changed. We felt the bond twist."
"How long?" I rasped.
"You fell asleep not long after training," Lira said softly. "We stayed. Just in case. The bond suddenly… dipped. Like something was trying to pull you down."
Seris's jaw clenched. "We shook you. You didn't wake. That thing had you, didn't it?"
I closed my eyes briefly.
"Yes," I whispered. "It talked to me."
The bond tightened.
Lira's grip shifted from fear to something steadier, anchoring me. "Tell us."
I looked at them—at the fear in their eyes, at the stubborn determination under it.
"It didn't attack," I said slowly. "Not like before. It… showed me something. Or tried to."
"What?" Seris demanded. "Visions? Feelings? Lies?"
"The academy," I murmured. "But wrong. Stretched. Empty. Like it was remembering the place from far away. Or through someone else."
Lira's brows knit together. "And it spoke to you?"
"Yeah." My throat tightened at the memory of that voice wrapping around my name. "It called me Anchor again."
Seris's fingers curled tighter on my shoulder. "That's starting to annoy me."
"It said… it doesn't remember me exactly," I said. "It remembers what's inside me. The echo. The missing bond."
Lira's eyes softened with something like sorrow. "The one from when you were a child."
I nodded.
"And it said something else," I added quietly. "That we changed it. The fracture. That it felt what we did in training."
Seris exhaled sharply. "So it's watching our progress now."
"Listening," I corrected. "Feeling it through me."
Lira shivered. "That means every time we work with the fracture…"
"…it gets more information," Seris finished grimly.
Silence hung for a moment.
I pushed myself upright slowly. Both of them immediately shifted to support me, as if it was second nature now.
"It offered me something," I said. "Power. Clarity. Said it could make the triad 'more.'"
Lira's fingers dug into my sleeve. "You didn't—"
"No," I said quickly. "I refused."
Some of the tension left their shoulders.
"Good," Seris said. "Because if you'd made a deal with whatever that thing is, I'd have dragged you back out of it by your ear."
A shaky laugh escaped me. "I believe you."
Lira's lips trembled with a half-smile. "So do I."
The laughter faded slowly, replaced by quieter emotion.
"There's more," I added reluctantly.
They both looked at me.
"It said I wasn't ready," I said. "To remember."
Lira inhaled sharply. "Remember what?"
I pressed a hand against my chest, fingers curling over where the fracture pulsed faintly beneath my skin.
"Who they were," I whispered. "The one who was bonded before me."
The room felt smaller after that.
Not crushing.
Just… close.
Lira reached up and gently framed my face with her hands, guiding my gaze back to hers. Her eyes shone in the dim light.
"Listen to me," she said quietly. "You don't owe it anything. Not your past. Not your memories. Not your bond."
Seris nodded, her hand moving from my shoulder to rest over my sternum, right above the fracture. "It doesn't get to define what you are. Or who you belong to."
The warmth of their touch melted the lingering cold the dream had left behind.
"I know," I said.
The truth was—I did know.
But knowing and feeling weren't the same thing.
The bond pulsed gently, wrapping around the fracture like soft cloth around a cracked object—protecting it, holding it, refusing to let it shatter further.
"We'll tell Halin," Lira said. "And Dareth. They need to know the entity's changing tactics."
Seris snorted softly. "And if they think they're sending you into that thing alone again, they can fight me about it."
I managed a small smile. "I'd pay to see that."
"You won't have to," Seris muttered. "You'll have front row seats."
The joke lightened the air just enough.
We stayed like that for a while—me sitting between them, their hands still resting on me like anchors, the bond thrumming quietly.
The entity had found a way into my dreams.
But it hadn't entered alone.
They had followed.
Pulled me back.
And as the tension slowly drained from my muscles, replaced by exhaustion and the faint ache of too much resonance, I realized something important:
The entity might be getting closer.
But so were we.
Closer to understanding the fracture.
Closer to trusting each other.
Closer to being something strong enough to stand against whatever it wanted.
"Stay?" I asked quietly.
Lira nodded without hesitation. "Of course."
Seris shifted to lean back against the headboard. "We're not going anywhere."
I lay back down slowly, Lira settling at my side, Seris on the other. Their presence wrapped around me like a shield, the bond warm and steady.
This time, when sleep came, it wasn't empty.
And if the entity watched from the edge of my dreams, it watched a triad—not a broken echo.