Shard on the Run
The thread of flame led west — a faint, twisting current only visible to Vaelith now.
He stood atop a ridge of broken stone, wind in his cloak, snow melting around his boots. The world felt... different.
His senses were changing.
"You see it too?" Elyra asked from behind.
He nodded. "The third shard. It's moving."
"Any idea who carries it?"
Vaelith narrowed his eyes. "No. But they're running."
"System Ping: Sovereign Fragment Signature Detected – Mobile Host.""Trajectory: Westbound across the Shattered Belt.""Speed: Accelerated.""Power Signature: Inconsistent — Possible Instability."
Elyra stepped closer. "That sounds... dangerous."
"Or desperate," Vaelith replied.
They started walking again.
Far to the west, across a landscape scarred by war and abandoned tech, someone was bleeding fire.
A young man — no older than twenty — sprinted through the ruins of an old citadel. His clothes were torn, his face smeared with soot, and his left arm burned with symbols he didn't understand.
"Get out of my head!" he screamed.
But the voice inside him wasn't listening.
"Claim the throne.""Kill the others.""You are the next Sovereign."
He tripped.
The flames inside him flared uncontrollably, blasting apart a nearby drone that had locked onto his heat signature.
He didn't look back.
In a hidden chamber beneath the ruins, an old woman watched him through a flickering projection.
She wore an ancient breathing mask and robes woven with pre-Sovereign glyphs.
Beside her, a preserved fragment pulsed faintly — the third shard, stolen centuries ago from the battlefield of the last collapse.
"He's not ready," she whispered."But the flame doesn't care about readiness.""Only about will."
She turned to her attendant.
"Send word to Kaelis.""Tell her… the False Sovereign runs free."
Back on the ridge, Vaelith stopped walking.
He looked at Elyra.
"We're not the only ones hunting the Shards now."
She drew her blade.
"Then let's make sure we find him first."
The False Sovereign
His name was Ren Vale.
He didn't remember where he was born.Didn't know why the shard chose him.All he knew was that ever since it burned into his arm, the world had turned into a nightmare.
He couldn't sleep without hearing names he never knew.Couldn't touch anything without it catching fire.Couldn't speak without feeling like someone else's voice might spill from his mouth.
Ren ducked into an old train tunnel, coughing from the smoke of his last escape.
The air inside crackled.
The shard embedded in his flesh pulsed — erratic, almost wild. Unlike Vaelith's or Kaelis's flame, it didn't hum with control or legacy. It screamed with hunger.
"You were meant for more."
Ren slammed his hand against the tunnel wall.
"Shut up!" he yelled.
But the voice didn't stop.
"They'll come for you.""You must burn first."
Somewhere above, Kaelis watched through a scrying mirror made of frost and whispers.
Her scouts had tracked the unstable signature to the region known as the Shattered Belt.
"He is a mistake," Kaelis said."But even mistakes bleed."
She turned to her commander — a massive figure clad in froststeel armor, eyes glowing faint blue.
"Send the Choirless."
Meanwhile, Vaelith and Elyra stood over a scorched drone carcass.
Its shell was torn open by chaotic flame patterns — inconsistent, twitching, unstable.
Elyra knelt. "Whoever did this didn't mean to control the fire."
Vaelith touched the ash.
"He's not Sovereign."
"But he holds a shard," she replied.
He looked out toward the west.
"Then he's either a trap... or a warning."
In the train tunnel, Ren's eyes burned again.
He clutched his arm as fire twisted up his veins.
He saw flashes—of towers collapsing, a throne of ash, and a man whose face looked like his, but older… colder.
Then—
Footsteps.
Ren turned.
From the dark, six figures approached.
Tall, silent, robes like torn choir gowns dipped in black frost.
The Choirless.
When the Choir Falls Silent
Ren backed away, heart pounding.
The Choirless advanced with eerie grace — six of them, faces hidden behind cracked porcelain masks, stitched at the mouth. They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
Their presence alone made the air hum with unbearable silence.
"What do you want?" Ren asked, voice shaking.
The tallest of them raised a pale hand.
From his palm, frost spilled out in ancient runes — not magic, but commandments.
"Return the flame. You are unworthy."
Ren gritted his teeth. "I didn't ask for this!"
But the shard pulsed again — as if offended.
Suddenly, the Choirless attacked.
Two leapt forward, blades made of condensed memory slashing in elegant arcs. Another hurled a frozen hymn — a sonic spear of silence that shattered light as it flew.
Ren screamed—
And the flame answered.
It wasn't like Vaelith's controlled ignition.
This was raw.
Chaotic.
A storm of fire erupted from Ren's body, engulfing the tunnel in spirals of twisting heat and white sparks. The walls cracked. The ceiling trembled.
One Choirless disintegrated on contact.
Another was thrown backward, mask shattered, revealing a face made of carved names.
But Ren didn't stop burning.
He couldn't.
The shard in his arm had taken control.
His eyes glowed red-white, and symbols etched into his skin began to rearrange, forming an ancient phrase:
"I Am the Flame You Forgot."
Above, in the high skies of Aetheris, the Celestial Loom shuddered.
A ripple echoed through the map of Realms.
One of the Council Lords stood from her seat. "That was not Vaelith."
"No," said the Elder Lord, eyes narrowing.
"That… was something older.""Something the shards weren't meant to awaken."
Vaelith stumbled.
Far across the land, he felt it — a sudden, violent pull.
His shard burned in his chest.
"He's losing control," he muttered.
Elyra looked up. "Can we still reach him?"
Vaelith's eyes narrowed.
"Not to save him. To stop him."
Back in the tunnel, Ren collapsed to his knees, smoke rising from his back.
All six Choirless now lay scattered — some dead, some fleeing into frost.
He was alone.
The fire was quiet again.
But something in the flame had changed.
"Host override… complete.""Synchronization: 63%.""Warning: Sovereign core unstable. Containment advised.""Identity… undetermined."
Ren looked down at his hands, trembling.
"What the hell… am I?"
When Fragments Call Each Other
Ren knelt in silence.
The tunnel behind him was scorched, cracked by waves of uncontrolled fire. The air was thick with ash. The Choirless lay in pieces—burned, broken, defeated.
His hands still trembled.His breath steamed in the cold.But inside his mind, something far colder... had awakened.
"Do you remember yet?"
"The flame that never loved you back?"
A vision seared through him—A man with golden-red eyes seated on a throne of fire, legions kneeling before him.Ren stepped forward in the vision, trying to reach him—But the image shattered.
Replaced by another.
A woman in battle-worn armor of icy blue stood atop a frost-covered spire.Her eyes, sharper than blades, looked directly at him.Her lips moved.
"Run."
Ren jolted awake, gasping.
"What... who are they?"
Far across the land, Vaelith stood on the edge of a jagged cliff, the sky streaked with shimmering strands of Sovereign flame. He clenched his fist.
"He's close," he murmured.
Elyra adjusted her gauntlet. "You sure you're ready for this?"
Vaelith's eyes burned.
"If I don't get to him first… Kaelis will."
Elsewhere, a column of frost moved silently across the plains.
It was the Winter Choir — elite knights of Frostgrave, handpicked by Kaelis. Unlike the Choirless, these were soldiers bound not by silence, but by ritual loyalty. Their thoughts were their commander's. Their voices, her will.
Leading them was Velka, a commander in silver-frost armor.
She dismounted, placing her palm against a trail of scorched stone.
"The shard is close," she whispered."And the ice will claim it."
Then the sky shivered.
Like thunder trapped behind clouds.
Every shard — Vaelith's, Ren's, and the sealed remnants far across the realms — began to resonate.
"System Alert: Fourth Fragment Awakening.""Location: Unknown.""Resonance Detected Across All Sovereign-Bound Hosts."
Ren collapsed again, clutching his head.
Vaelith staggered backward, eyes wide.
Kaelis, meditating deep within the Frost Tower, opened her eyes sharply.
The world had shifted.Not from battle.But because something had awakened.
And this time…
It wasn't one of them.