Kael's fingers, trembling with a mixture of fear and lifelong anticipation, dipped into the surface of the Nexus.
There was no splash. The moment his skin touched the liquid starlight, it clung to him. The light flowed up his hand and arm, a silent, luminous river moving against gravity. His whole body went rigid, his eyes wide and unfocused. The soft, ambient glow of the chamber intensified, coalescing around Kael until he was a dark silhouette against a blinding curtain of white light. I could hear a faint, high-pitched hum, like a thousand crystal glasses ringing at once. It was the sound of pure information being poured into a mortal mind.
I watched, frozen, my heart hammering against my ribs. He stood like a statue for what felt like an eternity, caught in the torrent of knowledge. Then, as suddenly as it began, the light receded, flowing back down his arm and into the pool. The Nexus returned to its serene, swirling state as if nothing had happened.
Kael collapsed.
"Kael!" I rushed forward, sliding down the shallow slope to his side. He had crumpled to the stone floor, his body limp. I turned him over gently. He was deathly pale, his breathing ragged, and a thin trickle of blood ran from his nose. But his eyes... his eyes were open, and they burned with a terrifying, feverish light. He was looking at me, but I felt he was seeing something else entirely, a vision still imprinted on his soul.
"It... it wasn't a word," he rasped, his voice a fraction of its normal strength. He grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong. "It was a torrent. A flood. I saw them, Iris. I saw the foundation of their power."
He struggled to sit up, and I helped him, his body trembling with the aftershocks of the experience.
"Their magic is a chain," he said, his gaze distant. "They don't create. They bind. They take the world's song and force it to sing their tune. They chain down the laws of nature, the flow of time, even the spirits of men. Everything is about control. Dominion."
He took a ragged breath, the effort immense. "I asked for their weakness. The Nexus... it showed me a crack in the chain."
"What is it?" I pressed, my voice low. "A weapon? A spell?"
"No." He finally focused on me, his burning eyes locking with mine. "Nothing so simple. Their weakness isn't something you can wield. It's something you are. The Nexus showed me images... a wildfire consuming a perfectly manicured garden, a river changing its course and ignoring the canals dug for it, a song sung in a key no one has ever heard before."
He paused, letting the weight of his next words settle in the vast, silent chamber. "Their power is a cage. Their weakness is that which cannot be caged. Magic that doesn't seek to control, but to persuade. Magic that harmonizes with the world instead of dominating it. Wild magic. Primeval magic."
He looked at my hands, then back to my face. "Like yours, Iris. Your Sandsong. It isn't a command. It's a request. A dialogue. It is so fundamentally alien to the way they operate that their own power has no framework to understand or contain it."
The air left my lungs. Me? I was a girl who could talk to sand, lost a world away from the only place my power truly worked. The idea that I, in my current, weakened state, could be the key to fighting cosmic tyrants was so ludicrous it bordered on cruel. I wasn't a hero. I was a refugee.
"That... that can't be right," I stammered. "I'm not..."
"You are," Kael insisted, his voice gaining a sliver of its old strength. "The Nexus does not lie. It showed me the truth. It may not be the only key, but it is one of them. And it's the one we have."
He leaned back against the slope, utterly spent. The price of his answer had been steep. We sat in silence for a long time as he slowly regained his strength. The revelation hung between us, changing everything. My quest had been a simple, selfish one: get home. But Kael's answer had forged a link between my fate and the fate of this world.
"It is your turn," he said finally, his voice still weak but firm.
I looked from his exhausted face to the serene, waiting pool. My own question burned in my mind: How do I get home? It was the question that had driven every step I'd taken, every fear I'd endured. But now, it felt... smaller. Less important than the burden Kael had just placed on my shoulders.
I came here seeking a door back to my own world. But the answer Kael found had built a wall of responsibility right in front of it.
Steeling myself, I stood and walked to the edge of the starlit pool. I took a deep breath, the air humming with untold knowledge. I reached for the stars, wondering what truth they would show me, and what price I would have to pay for it.