Three nights passed.
In that time, the world changed again.
The third star that had ignited above them was no ordinary shard. It cast a light that did not shine, but pulled. It tugged at memory and dream alike, bending the land toward it.
It was not just calling them.
It was challenging them.
And so, Lior, Rhéa, and Soren left the safety of their broken sanctuary and journeyed into the deepest fragment of the Forgotten Lands — a place once sealed away by Dreamers themselves.
A place where giants slept, dreaming the remnants of empires no one remembered.
---
They called it Silencemarch — the land beyond the Veil's breath.
No birds flew. No wind stirred.
Only the distant rumble of something breathing… something massive.
Lior led the way, the shards within him glowing faintly like compass stars. Each step they took deeper into Silencemarch, the more the landscape seemed to lose logic. Trees grew upside down. Lakes floated in the sky. Shadows moved in reverse.
But strangest of all were the giants.
---
The first they saw lay curled around a mountain, its skin made of moss and broken cities. Its breath created storms. Its eyes were closed, and upon its chest grew a forest.
Soren whispered, "They're not just sleeping. They're dreaming reality."
"Dreaming this world?" Rhéa asked.
"No," Soren said slowly. "They dream what could be. Each giant holds a version of the world in their mind — a timeline, a memory, a possibility. And if they wake…"
Lior finished it for him: "One of those versions becomes real."
They stared at the sleeping titan.
And then — the air trembled.
---
The third shard had awakened one of them.
---
The Broken Path
They walked for hours beneath bone bridges and glass waterfalls, passing remnants of people who had tried and failed to reach the shard before them.
Statues of dreamers frozen in time.
Weapons turned to dust in mid-swing.
Whispers filled the air: half-finished lullabies and prayers in forgotten tongues.
At sunset, they reached a field of obsidian spears, stabbed into the ground like a battlefield graveyard. Each one hummed with a different memory.
Lior touched one.
And saw Mira.
---
She was standing at the center of a ruined city, her cloak torn, the Black Shard pulsing in her hand.
Around her stood children. Orphans. Lost ones. Ghosts.
She was speaking softly to them.
"I'll make a new world. For all of you. A world where no one is forgotten. Not even me."
Lior pulled his hand away, eyes burning.
"She's building something."
Soren nodded grimly. "A city of the forgotten. Powered by the shard. A beacon to pull others like her to her side."
"She's not wrong," Rhéa said. "Just… too far gone."
"No," Lior whispered. "She's just trying to fix what the Dreamers broke."
---
They continued on.
By dawn, they arrived at the Cradle of the Giant.
---
The Cradle
It was not a place.
It was a skull.
So massive that clouds formed in its eye sockets. The giant it belonged to had died eons ago — its dreams forgotten. But now, nestled in the center of the skull, atop a dais of ancient bone and broken glass, hovered the third shard.
Unlike the others, this one pulsed with blue flame — the Possibility Shard.
Rhéa stepped forward. "We found it."
But as she reached out — the world screamed.
---
The giant beneath the skull stirred.
It hadn't been dead.
It had been waiting.
A colossal hand tore through the earth, grabbing at the sky. The shard pulsed violently, reacting to the motion.
Soren shouted, "If it wakes fully, it'll rewrite the entire land!"
"How do we stop it?!" Rhéa cried.
"We don't," Lior said, stepping forward. "We finish what it started."
---
He jumped onto the bone dais, hands stretched toward the shard. The moment he touched it, time fractured.
He saw:
A version of himself who joined Mira.
A version of Mira who never betrayed him.
A world where the Wraithborn ruled.
A world where the Dreamers had burned it all.
Each possibility screamed to be chosen.
But Lior chose none.
He absorbed the shard — not as a weapon, but as a responsibility.
And the giant — slowly — lowered its hand.
Sleeping again.
For now.
---
The Message
As they caught their breath, the Possibility Shard shimmered in Lior's hand and formed a shape.
A door.
Not a real one — a symbol.
A message.
Soren gasped. "The Gate of Endings."
"What is it?" Rhéa asked.
"It's where all shards were first made. A place outside time. And it's where Mira is going."
Lior's eyes darkened. "Then we'll go too."
---
But just as they turned to leave — a voice echoed across the land.
Mira's voice.
"You're too late."
They turned, eyes wide.
Above the skull, Mira hovered. Her cloak now merged with shadows. The Black Shard glowed in her chest, embedded like a heart.
"I didn't want to fight you," she said, her voice echoing with multiple selves. "But if you stand in my way… I'll break you."
And then, like a wave of ink, she vanished.