The fire had gone out, but Soren didn't move.
He sat still beneath the crumbling arch of an abandoned waystation, stone cradling his back, blade balanced across his lap. The dawn light hadn't cracked the horizon yet, and the trees outside leaned in like they were listening.
From his coat, something shifted.
A pale snout pushed free—scaled and narrow, with one clouded eye and antennae that twitched like thread in the wind. Ash. The moth-lizard hissed softly, clawing at his chest once before retreating back into warmth.
Soren reached into the coat and dropped a dried beetle into the pocket. Ash caught it with a soft click of teeth and silence followed.
Routine.
He hadn't slept. Not really. His mind was a thin wire stretched between memory and pressure. The mark over his chest pulsed faintly, like a second heartbeat. It never stopped. Not since Hollowreach. Not since the shard had burned into him like a pact written in gold and rot.
He didn't summon anymore.
Not by choice.
But something inside him moved, and that was worse.
The stone under him whispered. Not words—echoes. He'd noticed it more recently: how the ground seemed to know he was there. How trees grew slightly wrong near his shadow. How people forgot his name even after speaking it aloud.
The shard wasn't just a power. It was an influence.
And it was growing.
By the time Cael arrived, Soren had already packed his things.
She emerged from the edge of the wood in her usual way—quiet but not cautious. She wasn't hiding. She never did. Her long coat was stained with bloodroot and fresh cuts, and she dragged something behind her.
A burlap sack. Leaking black petals and the sharp stink of old ink and magic.
Soren didn't flinch. "Another one?"
She dropped it with a wet thud. "Third this week."
He didn't ask what was in it. The stain it left on the ground told him enough.
Shard-corruption.
Not bound. Not accepted. Just raw memory clawing its way into flesh until it burned through the soul.
"They're waking too fast," she muttered, wiping her gloves on her coat. "If this keeps spreading—"
"It's not spreading," Soren interrupted. "It's answering."
Cael paused. Her expression hardened. "You think this is because of you?"
Soren didn't respond.
She didn't push. She knew better than to try.
Instead, she turned toward the trees. "Another flare went off two miles east. Same signature. Same twisting. Could be another failed bearer. Could be worse."
"Worse?"
She gave him a look. "A willing one."
Soren slung his coat back over his shoulders. Ash climbed higher into the collar, nestling beneath his jaw.
He didn't say it, but he knew.
This wasn't a coincidence. The world had felt the shard awaken in Hollowreach.
And now it was sending something back.
They found the trail before noon.
It wound through the trees like a fracture—bark torn open by claw or spell, leaves darkened by glyph-burn. Whatever they were following, it didn't care about stealth. It wanted to be found.
Cael crouched near a trunk scored by a circular mark—charred at the edges, pulsing faintly beneath the surface. "This is fresh. Three hours at most."
Soren stood just behind her, eyes on the wind. His mark was humming. Not loud. Not painful. But insistent, like someone knocking from the inside.
"He's waiting," he said.
Cael rose. "Then let's not keep him."
The clearing opened slowly—a bowl of dying grass and upturned stone, littered with bones that hadn't aged properly. Some still steamed. The air was dry, heavy. Like breath held too long.
At the center of the clearing stood a man. Cloaked in prayer-robes, arms bare, chains wrapped around his wrists like jewelry. He stood with his back to them, staring at a half-buried statue. Around him, six bodies floated midair—limp, suspended by unseen threads. Blood ran in perfect lines from their eyes, mouths, and hands.
Soren felt the shard pulse harder.
The man turned.
His eyes glowed pale white. His face was blank, serene.
"I felt you dreaming," he said.
Cael drew her blade. "Don't talk to him. That's not a man anymore."
But the man didn't move. He smiled, wide and slow. "You carry the First Shard. I carried it before you. You remember me, don't you?"
Soren narrowed his eyes. "You're dead."
"I was." The man opened his arms. "And now I am reborn. Not as a bearer. As a believer."
Ash hissed. Low. Alarmed.
The mark on Soren's chest went white-hot.
"Move," Cael shouted—
Too late.
A black tendril erupted from the ground beneath Soren, slamming into his chest and launching him across the clearing. He hit hard, skidding through dirt and roots. His vision blurred. The air was gone from his lungs.
He heard Cael shout—saw steel flash.
But none of it mattered.
The world around him faded.
And something inside him opened.
"Let me judge."
Veyr.
It wasn't speech. It was permission asking for release.
Soren couldn't breathe. But he could feel.
He reached into the shard—not with thought, but with need.
And the crown answered.
The ground shattered in a circle around Soren's body. Not from force, but from presence.
A glyph—unreadable and massive—lit beneath him, scrawled in gold and violet light that didn't shine, but bled. It spiraled outward in jagged rings, burning symbols into dirt and stone. The clearing convulsed. Trees bent toward him. Roots surged from beneath, drawn to the center of the storm.
The shardbearer staggered back.
"What—no, this is too soon—"
But Veyr had already arrived.
It didn't manifest with flesh or form, not entirely. Instead, it projected itself from Soren like a living memory. A towering figure cloaked in dusklight and cracked porcelain, wings of bone and light flaring wide from his back. Its face was a shattered mask. No mouth. Just a single hollow flame where the eyes should be.
Soren stood beneath it.
Or perhaps inside it.
And when he spoke, it wasn't just him.
"You failed the pact. You bled your will. You are no longer sovereign."
"You will kneel to the throne you once betrayed."
The man—no, the echo of him—screamed. Not in pain. In denial. He launched another tendril, this one laced with flickering glyphs. It never reached Soren.
Veyr moved.
In a blink, the echo was on his knees. Roots had pierced his legs, wrists, spine. Golden chains writhed across his chest, dragging him forward like a heretic at trial.
Soren stepped close.
Ash clung tightly to his shoulder, silent, shivering.
The echo looked up, blood pouring from its mouth—but it grinned. "You think you've won. But every shard you conquer brings you closer."
Soren stared.
"I am closer," he said.
And chose.
The glyph beneath the echo shifted—responding to his will. Not with words. With judgment.
A new symbol etched itself into the air: CROWN.
Roots surged upward, swallowing the echo whole. Its body crumbled. Its essence flared once in protest.
Then silence.
In the root-network beneath the glyphs, a new branch grew—one of black wood and crimson sap.
The Hollow Throne had accepted its first vassal.
Veyr turned to Soren—still formless, still half-dream—and bowed.
"It begins."
Soren blinked.
And found himself on his knees in the same clearing. The ground was quiet. The bodies were gone. Only Cael remained—breathing hard, blade still drawn.
She stared at him, not with fear. With recognition.
"You didn't just kill him," she said. "You took him."
Soren didn't deny it.
He stood slowly, brushing dirt from his coat. The mark over his heart pulsed once—slower now. Steady.
Ash blinked.
In the distance, the trees whispered.
And below his skin, something new had rooted itself.