The Hollow Things surged.
Not fast — not at first. They slid over the ground like a low tide, their edges curling, splitting, reforming. But then they began to pull, the way deep water draws at your ankles.
Kaelen's knees locked against it. "They're—"
"Anchoring us," Orien cut in. He dropped his satchel, fingers dipping inside. "They're trying to drag us into them."
Kaelen didn't need the warning. The first tendril brushed his boot, and the cold went through him. Not skin-deep — marrow-deep. His vision blurred.
Kaelen…
The voice was in his head now, not a whisper but a chorus of them, overlapping in perfect unison.
Give it to us. We'll make you whole.
The Shard burned hot in his grip. And for a moment, he almost wanted to hand it over — to stop the aching in his bones, to fill the hollowness he didn't even realize he'd been carrying.
Orien pulled something from the satchel — a chain etched with runes — and flung it toward the advancing shadows. The metal hissed on contact, burning a thin gap in the haze.
"Run!" Orien snapped.
Kaelen didn't move.
The Shard was thrumming now, the sound vibrating in his teeth. His fingers moved without asking him, opening around it.
The light poured out.
Not like before — no soft glow. This was a flare, a jagged eruption that carved through the Hollow Things. Their forms shrieked without sound, fracturing into shards of shadow that twisted violently before dissolving into nothing.
Kaelen's breath tore out of him. The Shard's glow faded, but the feeling didn't. It was still there, lodged in him, warm and alive.
When he finally looked at Orien, the other man wasn't relieved. He was staring. Studying.
"What?" Kaelen demanded.
"That wasn't just the Shard," Orien said quietly. "That was you."