The stone pillar exploded inward.
Light shattered like glass, and the protective dome collapsed in a ringing shock that knocked everyone to their knees. Dust filled the air. The hum of magic died, leaving only wind — wild, spiraling wind that smelled of cold stars.
Walliam hit the ground hard, ears ringing.
Above, the sky-tear yawned wider, its jagged edges glowing like molten crystal veins. Pieces of land continued to rise in slow spirals, vanishing into the light beyond.
Their village was coming apart.
"Up!" Mara shouted, already pulling Lysa to her feet. "We move now!"
Another pillar cracked.
Collectors stepped through the falling dust — not rushing, not frantic. Calm. Purposeful. As if this had always been the plan.
Walliam stood, the crystal in his chest blazing hot.
"They're herding us," he said.
Mara's grim expression said he was right.
A Collector gestured slightly.
The ground behind the villagers split open in a jagged trench, cutting off retreat toward the northern cliffs.
Only one path remained open.
South.
Toward the forested descent that led to the unknown lands below the floating shelf.
"They want him away from the fracture," Lysa said.
"No," Mara said. "They want him alive."
That was somehow worse.
"Run!" Mara yelled.
The villagers scattered down the southern path as debris rained from above. A house lifted behind them, spinning slowly before vanishing upward with a distant, echoing boom.
Walliam ran, lungs burning, the crystal's pulse out of rhythm now — faster, urgent.
Behind them, the Collectors followed at a walking pace.
They didn't need to hurry.
The world itself was pushing the villagers forward.
The southern path was little more than an old trade descent, carved long ago into the cliffside. Stone steps zigzagged downward along sheer drops into the Deep Sky fog.
Wind howled upward, threatening to throw them off balance.
A boy slipped.
Walliam grabbed him, hauling him back just as a chunk of earth tore free where he'd been standing.
"Don't look up!" Mara ordered.
Too late.
Walliam glanced.
Through the fracture, the star-crown shape shifted again, edges resolving slightly. He felt its attention like sunlight on skin.
Not hostile.
Hungry.
Another pulse ran through him, stronger than before.
He stumbled.
The crystal flared.
And suddenly—
He wasn't seeing the path anymore.
He saw bridges of crystal spanning open air. Towers grown from light. People walking in the sky as if gravity were optional.
A city.
Alive.
Whole.
Then the vision twisted.
Cracks raced through the structures.
Screams.
Light turning violent.
The city breaking apart.
Walliam gasped and nearly fell.
Lysa caught him this time. "Stay with me!"
"I saw it," he said breathlessly.
"Don't care! Survive first, visions later!"
Fair.
They reached the forest shelf below just as the cliff above them split.
The upper village tore loose.
The entire landmass — homes, wells, memories — drifted upward toward the fracture like a lost piece of a puzzle returning to the box.
Silence fell among the fleeing villagers.
Some cried.
Some stared.
Walliam just watched.
Everything he had ever known rose into the sky and vanished into light.
He didn't feel empty.
He felt… redirected.
Mara stood beside him, breathing hard. "No going back now."
Walliam nodded.
Behind them, the Collectors reached the tree line.
They stopped.
Did not descend.
The leader stepped forward slightly. "The path begins," he called calmly. "The Heart moves closer to waking."
"Tell it," Walliam shouted back, surprising himself, "to stop calling me like I belong to it!"
The Collector tilted his head.
"You misunderstand. It does not call you home."
A pause.
"You are the home it is trying to return to."
Walliam didn't know what that meant.
He wasn't sure he wanted to.
Mara grabbed his arm. "Enough. We move while they're still watching instead of killing."
They marched through the lower forest until night deepened fully.
The sky above still glowed faintly where the fracture lingered, like a scar across the stars.
No one spoke much.
Grief was heavy, but shock heavier.
They made camp in a hollow between massive roots. Small fires were lit, carefully shielded.
Walliam sat apart, back against a tree.
The crystal had quieted again, its pulse slow.
Almost content.
"You could've gone," Lysa said, sitting beside him.
He didn't look at her. "Yeah."
"Why didn't you?"
He thought about the presence beyond the sky. The sorrow he'd felt.
"I don't think it knows what it's doing," he said.
She blinked. "You're defending the cosmic sky thing that destroyed our village."
"When you say it like that, it sounds bad."
"It is bad."
He sighed. "I think it's broken. And broken things don't choose well."
Lysa leaned back against the tree. "Great. So we're being chased by shadow cultists because a giant god-heart needs therapy."
He almost laughed.
Almost.
Mara approached, face lined with exhaustion.
"Tomorrow," she said, "we head for Aetherfall routes. Traders pass through the lower lands. Someone there will know more than we do."
Walliam looked up. "About shards?"
"About surviving when the world decides to wake up again."
She rested a hand briefly on his shoulder.
"You didn't ask for this."
"I know."
"But you're walking anyway."
He nodded.
Above them, faint light flickered across the distant fracture.
Watching.
Waiting.
And somewhere beyond sight, something vast and ancient stirred — not in rage.
In hope.