The silence didn't hold forever. It cracked. And it cracked, when Ashar spoke. Not the sharp, single-word commands they were used to. Not the silent glances, the weighted stares. Words. Full. Measured. Heavy. When he turned from where Mae lay, his crystalline gaze pulled from her for the first time, they all felt it. A shift. A rift closing, or maybe opening wider.
"It started at the auction." His voice was lower than expected. Not soft, no, never soft, but raw. Strained at the edges like a machine running too hot, too fast. Kaine blinked. "The hell you mean?" Ashar's arms folded slowly, his shoulders squaring as if bracing for something heavier than anyone could see. "The moment they dragged her onto the platform, I felt it. I didn't understand it then. But I felt it." He glanced back toward Mae, jaw tightening.
"The weight in the air. Like the fracture wasn't just watching, it was, leaning. Pulling."
Lucien muttered, half-stunned, "You felt that before the attack even started?" Ashar nodded once. "Yes." Then, another thing happened, he kept speaking. "When the dagger was thrown aimed for her-" his voice flattened, brittle at the edges. "I phased to stop it. But something was wrong. The moment I caught the blade, it cut me." His hand lifted slightly, fingers flexing like he still felt the sting. "That doesn't happen. Not, not here. Not in fractured space. Nothing here touches me."
His eyes flicked up, sharp. "Nothing, until her." The room fell still. No one breathed.
But Ashar wasn't done. His gaze narrowed, focused, distant, like he was seeing something none of them could. "And when I moved, when I phased between moments, between space, her eyes." His voice caught, small. Barely. But enough.
"Her eyes tracked me. The whole time." Sethis cursed under his breath. "That's not possible."
Ashar's head tilted slightly. "It wasn't. Until her." His arms folded tighter, voice grounding itself deeper, more certain with each word. "On the ship, after." His gaze darkened, jaw grinding once. "It was like, like I could hear her. Not her voice. Not words. But what wasn't said. The things between silence. Between breaths."
His fingers twitched. "I don't, I still don't know how. But the more I was near her, the stronger it became. Not thoughts. Not like telepathy. Just, presence." His throat worked, like swallowing something sharp. "A pull. Like gravity. But worse. Stronger. Personal." Lucien sat down hard, muttering, "Void Ash." Ashar's gaze didn't soften. Didn't waver. But there was something in it now. Something frayed. Cracked.
"When the cuffs fell." His voice was quieter now. "It wasn't the castle reacting. Or the fracture. Not really. It was her." His teeth ground together. "And me. I triggered it. Or maybe she did. Or maybe, it's both. Bound. Locked. Waiting for this moment. I don't know." Kaine's arms crossed, his mouth tight. "You knew. From the start."
"I suspected." Ashar didn't deny it. "I didn't believe. Not fully. Not until now."
Riven's voice slipped in then, softer than usual, but certain. "Told you." His arms crossed behind his head, lazy posture masking how tense his shoulders really were. "It's real. The bond. The lore. The fracture. All of it." Kaine raked a hand down his face. "Void help us, you're telling me the silent one's been talking this whole time. Just no words. Just what? Vibes?!"
Sethis barked a sharp, broken laugh. "Not funny, Kaine. But yeah. Kinda yeah." Lucien leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands laced together. "Then the question now is." His eyes flicked to Mae. "What happens when she wakes up?" Ashar didn't answer.
Because truthfully? For the first time in his long, carefully controlled existence. He didn't know. Ashar turned without a word. Silent, as always.
But something about him now felt heavier. Not cold, no. Weighted. Rooted. Gravitational. The others exchanged glances but followed. None dared speak. Even Kaine bit his tongue, jaw flexing as his boots fell into step. Ashar's pace was measured, purposeful. His steps echoed differently now, not against broken stone, not against warped walls, but against smooth, unmarred surfaces that had not existed, until her.
They wound through corridors that hadn't been there a day ago. Walls that once bent sideways now stood firm, pristine, as if the fracture had never touched them. And then, he stopped. Before a door. A door that shouldn't exist. One none of them had ever seen. One that, until today, had never opened. Ashar placed his palm flat against it. No tech. No lock. No glyph. Just pressure. A connection. The door groaned. Shifted. Opened.
Light spilled out, soft, golden, not harsh. Inside, scripture. Endless scripture. The walls themselves were inked in flowing lines of Veydrin script, a language so old, so lost, that even those born of Veydrin blood could barely piece fragments of it together.
And yet, every symbol now glowed. Whole. Clear. Alive. Symbols spiraled from floor to ceiling, woven through carvings of stars collapsing, worlds folding, light breaking, and then, re-forming.
"Void." Lucien whispered. "This was gone. Lost. No one's seen this since."
"Since the fracture," Sethis finished quietly. Ashar stepped inside. His boots crossed sacred ground like they were part of him, because they were. His gaze swept the walls, every symbol, every line, with the kind of reverence that even he had never displayed before. "This was the heart of it," he said, voice softer but stronger than anything he'd said before. "The scripture of the First Veydrin. The truth of the fracture. The truth of... her."
Kaine exhaled slowly. "No going back now." Riven grinned, but even his grin was tense. "Nope." His hands slid into his pockets. "Now we get to figure out whether that truth saves us... or ends us." Ashar's crystalline gaze traced one line in particular, a spiral wrapping inward toward a single symbol in the center. The symbol of a hand and a star broken in its palm. Bound. His hand hovered near it. Not touching. Just, knowing. Feeling. It was never just myth.It was memory waiting to wake.
He let out a slow breath, quiet, steady. "When she wakes." His voice barely more than a whisper. "We tell her everything." And for the first time since the fracture itself tore the world apart. The truth was no longer lost.