The sun rose over the desert canyon, molten gold spilling between jagged cliffs. Shadows stretched long across the narrow path, the heat already pressing against our backs. Survivors trudged like ghosts, feet dragging, bodies wrapped in exhaustion. None of us spoke. Every ridge felt like an ambush waiting, every bend another grave.
We thought the night's visions were the worst the Path would give us.
Older me remembers.
We were wrong.
Nysera halted first. Her ears twitched. Wolf-aura bristled. Hackles raised. Dawn itself seemed to flinch beneath her gaze.
"…We're being watched."
Zero's fingers brushed his blades. Calm. Precise. His silver eyes flickered, overlayed with shadow.
"Not husks," he said softly. "Too quiet."
Then he stepped out.
A figure from the cliff shadows. Cloaked. Shard-thread armor fracturing sunlight into shards of glass. A heavy axe in his grip, edge pulsing faintly with shardlight.
The survivors gasped, stumbling back against canyon walls, clutching stone as if it could protect them.
"A… Hunter," someone whispered.
The man's voice was rough with dust.
"Five shardbearers. Children. The Mirror will pay handsomely."
Light caught on a mirror-shard plate fused over his eye, glowing faintly like a heartbeat.
Liora moved first, shield raised, golden light flashing across its polished surface.
"You prey on the fearful? Stand down."
The Hunter laughed, low and sharp.
"I don't stand," he said. "I collect."
The axe slammed into the canyon floor.
Shard-energy rippled outward—stone cracked like glass. Survivors screamed, scrambling from crumbling edges. Liora's threads of light flared, shields bracing the rock, saving them from falling into the abyss.
"Move!" I shouted, surging forward. Echoes split from me, blades flashing—
But the axe swept wide. Two echoes shattered into shards of light.
Nysera roared. She lunged, claws blazing, golden fire streaking across her arms. The Hunter didn't even swing the axe. He caught her with the haft and hurled her into the canyon wall. The impact thundered through stone.
Zero struck next. Blades slicing fast as stormwinds.
The shard-eye flared. Light rippled across his armor, hardening into mirrored plates. Every strike glanced aside, sparks spitting harmlessly into sand.
His shard hardens like armor. Battlefield control. Not just defense.
"Above!" Laura's voice cut sharp.
Cliff-rock split loose. An avalanche crashed down. Liora's shields bloomed upward, golden domes breaking the fall. Dust billowed. Survivors clung to her protection, eyes wide with terror.
Laura staggered, pendant blazing faintly.
His shard bends the ground itself…
I charged again. Echoes swarming, blades slashing from every angle.
The Hunter's hand lashed out, seizing my scarf.
He yanked me close. The shard-eye burned.
"This trinket…" His voice was low, dangerous. "Eldric's brat, aren't you?"
I froze. Breath caught.
"…You knew him?"
The Hunter's lip curled.
"I was his student once. Viktor," he said, the name bitter. "I learned what Eldric would teach… and then some. But he favored you. Always you. Golden child. Not me. Not Viktor."
His voice broke with fury sharpened over years.
"I killed men stronger than him. Stronger than you. And now I'll see what Eldric's children are worth."
My scarf flared, threads glowing faintly. I twisted free, blades clashing against his axe in a spray of sparks.
Nysera returned, golden aura blazing, claws pinning his arm with raw strength.
Liora's light-thread anchors wrapped around his legs, binding.
Zero slashed across his shard-eye—glass cracked, light sputtering.
For a breath, it looked like victory.
Then I saw it.
The armor wasn't armor at all. It was alive. Shard-thread rippled, shifting, adapting with every strike. Eldric's lessons—taken further, twisted sharper. He wasn't just defending. He was shaping the battlefield itself.
Viktor staggered back, blood seeping from the cracked shard-eye. But his grin never faltered.
Laura raised her pendant. Rings spun in her eyes. A boulder split loose, froze midair, then crashed between Viktor and the survivors. Dust roared through the canyon, cutting him off.
When it cleared, Viktor's voice came through the haze, axe humming with shard-energy.
"You're not worth the bounty. Not yet. But soon."
He leapt into shadow. Rock swallowed him. Silence crashed down in his wake.
Survivors clung together, whispering in fear. The canyon air stank of dust and shard-burn.
We stood on fractured stone. Weapons drawn. Breath ragged. Alive—but shaken.
Older me remembers the truth I learned that morning: whispers weren't the only danger. Men could be worse. And some didn't hunt to kill.
They hunted to sell.