The doors groaned open like they had not been touched in centuries. Outside was not the dead wasteland Mae expected. It was worse. The ground twisted in ways the eye rejected. Horizon lines bent wrong. Stone spires floated, some sideways, some inverted. Clouds spun in spirals, not across the sky but around something unseen.
The sky itself was cracked, thin veins of pale light slicing through black clouds like shattered glass half-mended. It was wrong. Not broken like ruins. Not destroyed like wastelands.
Warped. Bent. Twisted. Reality itself undone. Mae shivered. Skin prickling. Every nerve screaming: You shouldn't be here. Nothing should. This is the fracture. Riven stepped out first, boots crunching against ground that looked like crystal shards pretending to be grass. Mae followed, careful. Every step deliberate, like the ground might collapse if she trusted it too much. Riven glanced back. No grin. No swagger. Serious. Sharp. Watching her. "Alright chaos bomb," His hand swept wide toward the broken horizon. "All yours."
Mae froze. Her fingers curled tight. "I... what does that even mean?" Riven shrugged one shoulder, casual but not careless. "It means you do, whatever it was you did before."
"I didn't do anything, at least not on purpose!" Her voice cracked, breath already trembling. "It, it just happened-"
"Exactly." He crouched slightly; eyes locked on hers. "We find out... if it was you. Or if it was him." His chin tilted back toward the castle behind them, back toward the silent shadow of Ashar still watching from somewhere inside. The words hit her like a punch. Her breath caught. "And if it was me?" Riven's grin flashed, not cruel, but sharp. Like teeth. Like truth. "Then we figure out what the hell you actually are."
Her heart thudded loud. Every instinct screamed to run. Hide. Deny. But there was no more running. Mae shut her eyes. Fingers clenched. Chest tight. If it is going to happen, let it happen. Mae's hands trembled. Her breath came in short, shallow pulls that barely scraped her lungs. Her pulse pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears, loud enough to drown out the broken hum of the warped world around them.
"Riven." Her voice cracked. "I don't, I don't know how."
He didn't laugh. Didn't grin. Didn't roll his eyes like usual. He crouched lower, forearms resting on his knees. Serious. Focused. Watching her like someone watching a fuse about to burn out, or ignite. "Then let's figure it out." His gaze cut sharp, straight into her. "Think, Mae. All those times, everything that's ever gone weird around you. Everything that's ever, bent." His fingers drew a loose circle in the air. "Start from the beginning. Name it."
She swallowed hard, forcing her brain through the panic. "Zone Nine," Her throat tightened. "It started there. The explosion. The systems shut down... but not like a hack. Not like anything they'd seen. Just, collapsed." Her nails dug into her palms. "And before that, the supply drones, they glitched out. Fell. Just dropped midair."
Riven nodded once. "And?"
"Before that," Her head spun. "The tracking collars. They fried. Melted. The traders thought I rigged it. I did not. I could not have." Riven's fingers tapped against his knee. Sharp. Precise. "Keep going."
"The scanners at the checkpoint. They crashed. The whole sector lost power." Her breath caught. "It was always machines. Systems. Structures. Anything that is supposed to hold me in place." Her arms wrapped tighter around herself. "It always... breaks."
A silence. Riven's voice dropped lower. Slower. Pulling her deeper. "Good. Now... ask yourself one thing." She blinked. "What?"
"What's the common factor?" His head tilted, silver eyes narrowing. "Every time something bent, or broke, or came undone." Mae's breath stilled. She felt it. Right there. Hovering at the edge of knowing. Fear. It whispered. It echoed. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Riven saw it. Watched it click behind her eyes.
"Yeah." His voice softened. "Every time you were scared." A tremor worked up her spine. "Cornered. Hunted. Desperate. Terrified. Every time, except one. Her head whipped toward him. " Except-" Her voice hitched. Except Ashar. Her hands tightened.
"At the auction." Her voice thinned to a whisper. "When the dagger came at me, I was scared, but when Ashar moved." She shook her head. "I was not afraid of him. Not the way I was of everything else. It was not the same."
Her knees nearly gave out from under her body. Her hands braced against her thighs, holding herself upright. Riven stood, circling her once, slowly. Watching. Thinking. Calculating. "Fear was the trigger," he murmured. "Survival instinct. A subconscious defense, a wild system rebooting reality whenever you are about to snap."
"But with him," his eyes flicked toward the castle, toward Ashar's invisible presence. "It changed. It was not fear that triggered it off. It was," His brow furrowed.
"Something else." Mae stared down at her hands, her pulse shaking through her fingertips. Something else. Not fear. Not panic. Something heavier. Something deeper.
The second he touched her, something had shifted. The world had not shattered. It had not collapsed. It tried to fix itself. Riven's voice was quieter now but razor-sharp.
"That's why these matters." His hands spread wide toward the twisted wasteland. "Because if fear makes things break and something else makes them heal."
His silver eyes pinned her. "Then we need to figure out what you decide this world does." The air vibrated, thick, humming, heavy with pressure. Like the fracture itself was listening. Mae's fingers pressed into the wrong earth beneath her, breathing ragged. Please don't let me break it. The hum deepened. Something below. Something within. Something waiting. The tension twisted tight enough to snap, right before the next moment hit.