First-Person: Nyra
The realm trembles — but it doesn't feel like destruction.
It feels like breathing.
The ground ripples beneath my feet as the mosaic of light fractures, reforming into new shapes. Runes slide like liquid, spiraling outward in patterns that pulse to the rhythm of my heartbeat.
Kael still kneels beside me, weak but conscious, eyes locked on the chaos around us. "It's collapsing," he rasps.
"No," I whisper. "It's changing."
He stares at me as if he isn't sure whether to believe me — or fear me.
I raise my hand. The mark along my arm glows in answer. The runes nearest to me still, halting mid-motion, their light turning from red to gold.
The tremors stop.
For a long, suspended moment, everything listens.
I take a step forward. The air parts around me. I can feel the realm — the hum of the magic, the weight of its ancient will. It moves through me like blood, like breath. The mark doesn't burn anymore; it syncs.
This place doesn't want to destroy us. It wants to obey.
Kael pushes himself to his feet, wary. "What did you do?"
"I didn't." I look down at my hands, trembling. "It's responding to me. Like it knows me."
A shiver crawls down my spine. The reflection's words echo through my mind — I am what remains of what you were meant to be.
Maybe that wasn't a warning. Maybe it was an inheritance.
The realm shifts again — slower now, deliberate. The shards of falling light from the ceiling freeze midair, then reverse direction, threading themselves back into the crystal veins above.
Kael stares, silent.
I reach toward the nearest thread. It bends toward me, luminous and warm, winding itself around my wrist like silk. For a heartbeat, I glimpse images flickering within it — cities made of fire and bone, faces I've never seen, a temple drowned in gold.
All of it gone, and yet somehow still alive.
"Nyra," Kael says quietly, stepping closer. "You have to stop."
"I can't," I whisper, though what I mean is: I don't want to.
The realm bends as I move, responding to thought before touch. My fear bleeds into it; the air darkens. When I let calm return, the light steadies. Every emotion births a reaction.
This is creation — raw, unchecked.
And it's intoxicating.
But beneath the pulse of power, I feel something else. A deeper current. A hunger that isn't mine — ancient and patient, waiting for me to slip.
The whisper returns, faint but sharp:
You are the vessel. You are the flame. Feed us, and you shall be whole.
My pulse stutters. "Kael… it's alive."
He grips my shoulder, grounding me. "Then don't let it take you."
The words anchor me — but they also reveal a truth I hadn't seen until now. The realm isn't obeying me. It's obeying the mark. And the mark's will might not be mine at all.
Still, when I close my eyes, I can shape the light. The air bends. The realm answers.
And for the first time since the slums, since the hunger and the running and the fear — I feel powerful enough to stop hiding.
Even if it costs me everything.