The wagon lurched over another rut in the road, and Arjun caught the sliding crate before it could topple. Petyr glanced back from the driver's seat, nodded approval, then returned his attention to the horses.
They'd been traveling for three hours. The sun hung at mid-morning, and the forest pressed close on both sides of the narrow trade road. Arjun had spent the first hour organizing the cargo—bolts of cloth, sealed clay jars of spices, and several locked strongboxes Petyr hadn't explained. The merchant had simply said, "Don't ask about those," and Arjun hadn't.
"You're stronger than you look," Petyr said without turning around. "That crate weighs as much as a grown man."
Arjun looked at the crate he'd just caught one-handed. He'd barely felt the weight. "I've always been strong."
"Mm." Petyr's tone suggested he didn't quite believe that, but he didn't press. "We'll reach Millbrook by afternoon if the road stays clear. It's a smaller town than Ashford, but the mayor pays well for quality goods. We'll stay the night at the Copper Bell, deliver the cargo in the morning, then head back."
"What's in Millbrook?"
"Farmers, mostly. Some craftsmen. They're close enough to the Fractured Lands that they see more phase corruption than Ashford does. Makes them nervous. Makes them buy protection charms and blessed salt at premium prices." Petyr's voice carried no judgment, just the flat assessment of a man who understood his market.
Arjun had learned that about Petyr over the past week. The merchant was practical to his bones. He paid fair wages, kept his word, and asked few questions. In return, he expected competent work and discretion. It was an arrangement Arjun could respect.
The dream from last night still clung to him. He'd seen a battlefield again, but this time it had been clearer. A man in golden armor, standing alone against an army. Arrows falling like rain, and the man catching them, breaking them, sending them back. The face had been his own, but older. Harder. Covered in scars that Arjun didn't have.
*You were born to give*, a voice had whispered. *Even when they take everything.*
He'd woken with his hands clenched so tight his nails had drawn blood from his palms.
"You're quiet today," Petyr observed.
"Thinking."
"About?"
"Whether I'm going crazy."
Petyr actually laughed at that—a short, dry sound. "In this world? We're all a little crazy. The sane ones died in the Shattering."
The Shattering. Arjun had heard the term before but never gotten a clear explanation. "What exactly was the Shattering?"
"You really don't remember anything, do you?" Petyr shook his head. "Thirty years ago, the barriers between worlds broke. All at once, everywhere. Gods, monsters, heroes from a thousand different myths—they all came flooding through. Some came as spirits looking for hosts. Others came as raw power that changed people. And some came as themselves, fully formed and very confused."
"Which kind are most people?"
"The first kind. Spirit-touched. Someone's ancestor makes a deal with a wandering god-fragment, and suddenly their bloodline carries divine power. Diluted, usually, but it's there. That's why you get families like the Ashford nobles—they've got genuine mythic blood, even if it's thin."
"And the second kind?"
"Rarer. More dangerous. Those are the ones who get hit with raw mythic energy and survive. They don't just carry power—they *become* something else. The Church calls them Emergents. Most of them go mad within a year."
Arjun thought about the heat in his chest, the way his body had moved during the fight with the thugs. "And the third kind?"
"The rarest. True reincarnations. The actual hero or god, reborn with their memories intact. Or mostly intact." Petyr's voice dropped. "Those are the ones who start wars."
The wagon crested a hill, and Millbrook came into view in the valley below. It was smaller than Ashford, as Petyr had said—maybe two hundred buildings clustered around a central square. But something was wrong. Arjun could see it even from this distance.
Smoke rose from the eastern edge of town. Not the normal smoke of cooking fires, but thick black columns that spoke of burning buildings.
Petyr cursed and snapped the reins. The horses broke into a faster trot.
As they descended the hill, Arjun saw people fleeing along the side roads. Families with hastily packed belongings, children crying, men with weapons drawn looking back toward the town. One woman stumbled and fell, and no one stopped to help her.
"Stop the wagon," Arjun said.
"We need to—"
"Stop the wagon."
Something in his voice made Petyr pull the reins. Arjun jumped down before the wheels had fully stopped and ran to the fallen woman. She was older, maybe sixty, with a bleeding gash on her forehead.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
She stared at him with glazed eyes. "They came from the forest. Wrong shapes. Wrong *colors*."
"Can you walk?" he repeated.
She nodded. He helped her up, guided her to the wagon, and lifted her into the back despite her protests. Petyr watched with an expression Arjun couldn't read.
"We're going into town," Arjun said.
"That's the opposite of smart."
"Your cargo's in town. So are people who need help."
"The cargo's insured. The people aren't my problem."
Arjun met his eyes. "They're mine."
For a long moment, Petyr just looked at him. Then he sighed. "You're going to be expensive to keep alive, aren't you?"
"Probably."
"Fine. But if we die, I'm haunting you." Petyr snapped the reins again, and the wagon rolled toward Millbrook.
The smoke grew thicker as they approached. The woman in the back was muttering to herself, words Arjun couldn't quite make out. He caught fragments: "...wrong angles... shouldn't exist... the colors..."
They passed more fleeing townspeople. Some shouted warnings. Others just ran.
The eastern edge of town was chaos. Three buildings were fully ablaze, and something moved between them. Arjun's first thought was that it was an animal, but animals didn't move like that. It flowed more than walked, its form shifting with each step. One moment it had four legs, the next six, then back to four but in different positions. Its color was wrong too—a purple-green that hurt to look at, like it existed slightly out of phase with reality.
"Phase beast," Petyr said quietly. "Corrupted animal. Must have wandered out of the Fractured Lands."
The creature turned toward them. It had too many eyes, and they were all the wrong size.
Arjun jumped down from the wagon. His body moved before his mind caught up, positioning itself in a fighting stance he didn't remember learning. His weight settled on his back foot, his hands came up, and the heat in his chest flared to life.
"What are you doing?" Petyr hissed.
"Helping."
"You can't fight that thing! You need blessed weapons, or—"
The phase beast charged. It moved impossibly fast, crossing fifty feet in a heartbeat. Arjun didn't think. He just moved.
His body knew what to do. He sidestepped the creature's lunge, and his hand shot out to strike its flank. The moment his palm connected, golden light exploded from his skin. The beast shrieked—a sound that existed in too many frequencies at once—and recoiled.
Arjun stared at his hand. The golden light was fading, but he could still feel it under his skin, warm and ready.
The phase beast circled him, more cautious now. Its form rippled and shifted, trying to find a shape that made sense. It couldn't.
"You're Emergent," Petyr said from the wagon. His voice was flat with shock. "Or worse."
The beast lunged again. This time Arjun was ready. He caught its malformed head with both hands, and the golden light blazed. The creature's shriek cut off mid-sound. Its body convulsed, then began to dissolve—not burning, but simply ceasing to exist, like it was being erased from reality.
In five seconds, it was gone. Only a faint purple stain on the ground remained.
Arjun's hands were still glowing. He watched the light fade, feeling the heat in his chest settle back to its normal warmth. His heart was racing, but his breathing was steady. He felt... good. Like he'd done something right.
"Arjun." Petyr's voice was careful. "What are you?"
"I don't know."
Before Petyr could respond, someone else spoke. "That was impressive."
Arjun turned. A man stood at the edge of the square, watching him. He was tall and lean, with dark skin and darker eyes. He wore traveling clothes that had seen hard use, and a sword hung at his hip—a real sword, not the cheap iron most people carried. His posture was relaxed, but Arjun recognized the stance of someone ready to move in an instant.
"You killed a phase beast with your bare hands," the man continued. "And you used divine light to do it. That's not common."
"Who are you?"
"Elias Thorne. I'm a Seeker." He said it like Arjun should know what that meant.
"What's a Seeker?"
Elias's eyebrows rose slightly. "Someone who hunts Emergents and reincarnations. Someone who makes sure the dangerous ones don't start another Shattering." He tilted his head. "What's your name?"
Arjun's instinct was to lie, but something stopped him. This man would know. "Arjun."
"Just Arjun?"
"Just Arjun."
"Mm." Elias studied him with the intensity of someone reading a book. "You're new to this. The power, I mean. You don't know what you are yet."
"Do you?"
"I have theories. That golden light—it's divine in nature, but it's not from any of the common pantheons. Not Greek, not Norse, not Egyptian." Elias took a step closer. "Where are you from, Arjun?"
The heat in his chest pulsed. A warning, maybe. Or recognition.
"Ashford," Arjun said.
"Before that."
"I don't remember."
"Can't remember, or won't?"
"Does it matter?"
Elias smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Yes. Because if you're what I think you are, you're going to attract attention. The wrong kind of attention. There are factions in this world that would kill to control someone with your potential. And there are others who would just kill you to prevent that."
"Which kind are you?"
"Neither. I'm the kind who watches and waits." Elias glanced at the purple stain where the phase beast had been. "But I'm also the kind who reports what I see. And what I saw today was interesting."
Petyr climbed down from the wagon, moving slowly. "We should go. The town guard will be here soon, and they'll have questions."
"Smart merchant," Elias said. "You should listen to him, Arjun. This world isn't kind to people who stand out."
"I'm not trying to stand out."
"Then you're doing a terrible job." Elias turned to leave, then paused. "A word of advice: the dreams you're having? They're not just dreams. They're memories. And the more you remember, the more dangerous you become—to yourself and everyone around you."
He walked away before Arjun could respond, disappearing into the smoke-filled streets.
Petyr grabbed Arjun's arm. "We're leaving. Now."
"The cargo—"
"Forget the cargo. We're leaving before more Seekers show up, or worse." Petyr was already climbing back onto the wagon. "Get in."
Arjun looked at the burning buildings, at the purple stain on the ground, at his own hands. The golden light was gone, but he could still feel it waiting under his skin. Ready.
*You were born to give*, the voice from his dream whispered. *Even when they take everything.*
He climbed into the wagon. Petyr snapped the reins, and they rolled out of Millbrook at a pace just short of panic.
The old woman in the back was still muttering. As they left the town behind, Arjun finally made out what she was saying:
"The sun is dying. The sun is dying. The sun is dying."
He looked up at the sky. The sun hung bright and clear, exactly as it should be.
But for just a moment—less than a heartbeat—he thought he saw it flicker.
---
That night, they camped in a clearing well off the main road. Petyr built a small fire and cooked a simple meal of dried meat and hard bread. The old woman had fallen asleep in the wagon, her muttering finally stopped.
"You're not going to ask?" Arjun said.
Petyr poked at the fire. "Ask what?"
"What I am. What that light was."
"Would you tell me the truth?"
"I don't know the truth."
"Then there's no point asking." Petyr pulled the meat from the fire and divided it evenly. "But I'll tell you what I think. I think you're someone important. Someone dangerous. And I think you're going to have to make a choice soon about what kind of person you want to be."
"What do you mean?"
"Power like yours—it attracts attention. People will want to use you. Control you. Some will offer you wealth, others will offer you purpose. And some will just try to kill you before you become a threat." Petyr handed him a portion of meat. "The question is: what do you want?"
Arjun thought about the phase beast, about the way his body had known how to fight, about the golden light that had felt so natural. He thought about the dreams, about the man in golden armor standing alone against an army.
"I want to help people," he said.
Petyr laughed—that same dry sound from earlier. "Of course you do. That's the most dangerous answer you could have given."
"Why?"
"Because people who want to help people always end up in the middle of things they can't control. They make enemies of the powerful and allies of the desperate. They die young and bloody, usually taking a lot of others with them." Petyr met his eyes across the fire. "But they also change the world. For better or worse."
They ate in silence after that. When Arjun finally lay down to sleep, he expected the dreams to come again. He was right.
This time, he saw a war. Not a battle—a war. Armies stretching to the horizon, banners of a hundred different kingdoms. And in the center of it all, two men facing each other. One wore golden armor and carried a bow that gleamed like the sun. The other wore white and carried nothing but certainty.
They spoke, but Arjun couldn't hear the words. He only saw the golden-armored man kneel, saw him remove his armor piece by piece, saw him stand naked and defenseless before his enemy.
*You were born to give*, the voice said again. *Even your life. Even your dignity. Even your name.*
The white-clad man raised his hand, and light fell like judgment.
Arjun woke with tears on his face and the taste of ash in his mouth.
The sun was rising. Petyr was already awake, packing the camp. The old woman was sitting up in the wagon, looking at Arjun with clear eyes.
"You're one of them," she said. "One of the old ones, come back."
"I don't know what I am."
"Yes, you do. You just don't want to admit it." She smiled, and it was sad. "The sun is dying, boy. And when it goes out, only the generous will survive. Only those who give everything."
She closed her eyes and didn't speak again.
They reached Ashford by midday. Petyr paid Arjun his wages and added an extra silver coin. "For discretion," he said. "And for saving my life, probably."
"I didn't—"
"You did. That phase beast would have killed me if you hadn't stopped it." Petyr gripped his shoulder. "Whatever you are, Arjun, be careful. The world's not ready for another Shattering. And I don't think you're ready for what you're becoming."
Arjun took the coins and walked back to his rented room. His landlady, Mrs. Chen, was sweeping the front steps. She looked up as he approached, and her eyes widened.
"You're glowing," she said.
"What?"
"Just a little. Around the edges. Like you're standing in sunlight even though you're in shadow." She set down her broom. "You should see a priest. Or a doctor. Or both."
Arjun looked at his hands. They looked normal to him. But when he focused, he could feel it—the heat in his chest, spreading through his veins, settling into his bones. Growing stronger.
He went to his room and locked the door. Then he stood in front of the small mirror on the wall and really looked at himself.
Mrs. Chen was right. There was a faint golden glow around him, barely visible but definitely there. And his eyes—they were darker than he remembered. Deeper. Like they held more than they should.
*Who am I?* he thought.
The heat in his chest pulsed in response. And for just a moment, he heard a name that wasn't his own:
*Karna.*