Chapter 2: Echoes of the Past
Kael stood in the forge's doorway, his breathing ragged, the faint, violet sheen from the obsidian shard illuminating the grime and exhaustion on his face. Behind him, Toren hauled his massive frame to his feet, groaning as if he'd woken from the deepest, most punishing sleep, not a psychic trance. The scream—the piercing cry of a child—still vibrated in the air, a desperate, sharp needle pulling Kael's gaze back to the central plaza. The dark Rift shimmered above the broken fountain, pulsing with a slow, malevolent rhythm.
"What in the hells did you do to me, lad?" Toren rasped, rubbing his temples as if trying to physically erase the fragments of the nightmare from his skull. His heavy hammer lay abandoned on the dirt floor, a cold testament to the blazing, imaginary one he'd wielded against Kael moments ago.
Kael turned, his eyes meeting the older man's bleary, confused gaze. "I… I pulled you out," he said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "You were trapped. Some hell of fire and steel. You were convinced I abandoned you. You tried to kill me."
Toren snorted, a deep, rumbling sound that quickly died in his throat. His face paled noticeably. "Sounds about right," he mumbled, a shudder running through him. "Felt like I was back at the Battle of Ashen Ridge, swinging at shadows that wouldn't die and running out of water." He paused, squinting at the shard still clutched in Kael's hand. "That thing did it? Saved me from myself?"
"Seems so," Kael confirmed, tucking the cold, heavy fragment into his satchel. The rough, patched leather offered little comfort against the sudden, overwhelming tide of responsibility and dread. He looked past Toren to Elder Mara, who stood framed in the doorway, her knuckles white as she gripped her cane, her face etched with a look of stern determination.
Mara stepped fully into the forge, her cane tapping the uneven dirt floor with a steady, rhythmic urgency. "You did what was necessary," she stated, not as a compliment, but as a fact. Kael felt the pressure of her expectation immediately.
"You said it chose me," Kael pressed, needing answers before the next wave of panic hit. "What is it? And what exactly am I? A lightning rod for ancient death curses?"
"The shard is a Weaver's tool—or what's left of one," Mara explained, her voice steady and dense with history. "The Rift Spire was their primary watchpost, created to stabilize the very threads of this place before the Sundering snapped them all. That shard is a fragment of their craft, a concentrated knot of the dreams they wove into reality."
"Dreams?" Kael frowned, confusion mixing with the fear still bubbling in his chest. "You mean the trances?"
She nodded slowly, her gaze drifting toward the plaza, where shadows were growing longer and denser as the sun dipped. "The Weavers didn't just shape physical reality; they shaped what could be. Fate, visions, nightmares. When the Tapestry broke, their residual power scattered across the land, and a significant knot of it lingered here, in the Shattered Crown. It's waking up now, and it's reacting violently."
Toren folded his arms across his massive chest, skepticism—a trait hard-earned by surviving the ruins—etching his scarred face. "And it's pulling my neighbors into a coma because… it's bored? It seems awfully deliberate."
"Not bored," Mara countered softly, her voice taking on a grave, profound tone. "Hungry. Something vast and dark is feeding on those minds, on those captured dreams, growing stronger with every soul it pulls through. The Rift is merely a symptom, Kael. The way an open wound draws flies. It's not the cause."
Kael's stomach tightened. He'd encountered Rift-Beasts—monsters made of pure malice and chaos—but the idea of something psychic, something feeding on the most intimate part of a person, felt infinitely more insidious.
"Then how do I stop it?" he asked, the question demanding immediate action.
Mara's lips pressed into a thin, resolute line. "You must find the source. The Spire was merely the window. There is a Vault beneath us, sealed since the Weavers' fall, where they stored their power. If the shard woke your gift by using it to save Toren, it will guide you there."
"My gift?" Kael's voice rose, sharp with lingering frustration. "I'm no chosen hero, Mara. I'm a scavenger who got lucky with a rock!"
"You are Unshackled," she countered, her tone suddenly firm, unwavering, silencing his protest. "Free of the gods' threads, of fate's constraints. That is why you can cross where others are vaporized. The shard didn't pick a hero; it picked someone who would fight anyway, someone who wasn't tied down by destiny."
He clenched his fists, struggling against the sudden weight of her expectation. He desperately wanted to argue, to deny this absurd, crushing responsibility, but Toren's heavy, reassuring hand clapped his shoulder, grounding him.
"She's right, lad," Toren muttered, his breath smelling of smoke and fatigue. "You pulled me out of that hell. Whatever this gift is, you're in it now. Don't waste time arguing with the inevitable."
Before Kael could formulate a response, another scream cut through the air—this one different. It was softer, a high-pitched cry that belonged to a child, tearing through the tension like a fresh knife wound. Kael instantly bolted back outside, Toren and Mara close behind him.
The plaza was now choked with shadows. The violet light of the Rift flickered ominously over several slumped, motionless figures—villagers Kael knew: old Jessa by the well, her knitting still resting in her lap; Korrin the baker, face-down in the dust. All trance-bound, eyes open and vacant, their minds lost to the darkness.
But the new cry came from the fountain's crumbling edge, where a small shape flickered like a candle in a strong wind. It was a girl, no older than ten, her pale hair drifting as if she were underwater, her form translucent, semi-ethereal. She knelt, clutching her knees, her desperate sobs echoing unnaturally loud—a haunting, chilling melody of pure despair.
"Lirien?" Toren's voice cracked, a mixture of recognition and fear instantly draining the color from his face. "Gods, no—not her too."
Kael instinctively stepped closer, the shard humming urgently in his satchel, its cold weight pulsing against his ribcage. "You know her?"
"She's Korrin's lass," Toren confirmed, his fists clenching, the knuckles white with helpless rage. "She went missing last week. We thought a Rift-Beast took her, or she starved in the ruins."
"She's not gone," Mara murmured, her voice laced with chilling urgency as she squinted at the girl's flickering form. "She's Spiritbound—caught between the real world and the veil. The curse has her too, drawing her mind into the central feeding point."
Lirien's translucent head snapped up, her eyes not white like the others, but hollow pools reflecting the violet light of the Rift. "Help me," she whispered, her voice threading through Kael's mind like a chilling wind. "It's dark. It's pulling me away."
Kael's hand hovered over the satchel, a chill of foreboding racing up his spine. "Can I reach her? Is she too far gone?"
Mara nodded, though her face was tight with apprehension. "If she is calling out, her dream's still open and fragile. But be extremely careful. Spiritbound dreams are not like the fresh trances. If you break it, she might shatter. She might not come back whole."
Kael swallowed hard, the taste of fear sharp on his tongue. He pulled the shard free. Its runes immediately flared as he focused his will on Lirien's flickering shape. "Hold on," he muttered, his voice strained, and without waiting for the fear to consume him, he pressed the shard to his chest. He felt its power surge through him, an electric current cold as the deepest earth.
The plaza dissolved. The world fell into a chaotic whirlwind of color, sound, and tearing, unseen fabrics.
He landed hard on uneven, rubble-strewn stone, the air thick with dust and the stale scent of ancient decay. He was in a ruined city within a city, frozen in a twilight that felt eternal. Massive, tumbled walls and shattered arches stretched around him. The sky above churned with endless gray clouds, split only by sharp streaks of violet energy that crackled like silent, distant thunder.
Lirien stood ahead, her back to him, staring intently at a cracked, moss-covered altar carved with forgotten Weaver runes, relics of an age beyond memory.
"Lirien?" Kael called out, stepping forward. His voice echoed strangely, swallowed instantly by the oppressive silence that blanketed the dream.
She turned. Her face was blank, like smooth, featureless porcelain, and then she flickered—reappearing ten paces away instantly, as if the very fabric of her existence was fraying like old thread. "You're late," she said, her tone unnaturally flat, devoid of a child's innocence. "It's already here."
"What's here?" Kael demanded, scanning the ruins frantically. The shard pulsed urgently in his grip, a tiny, demanding heartbeat.
The ground trembled violently beneath him. A massive shadow rose from behind the altar—a towering figure armored in black, radiant steel, its helm a blank, smooth mask of pure light. It was an embodiment of the darkest nightmares, a Celestial Guardian, and its sword blazed with a white flame that didn't warm, but scorched the very air around it.
"Intruder," the figure intoned, its voice grating, like heavy, breaking glass.
It lunged. Its massive, flaming blade slashed down with a speed that defied belief. Kael dove aside, rolling behind a thick, fallen pillar as the sword cleaved the ancient stone, sending burning shrapnel flying past his head. His small dagger felt ludicrous, a whispered threat against this monstrous power.
But the shard's light flared brighter, hot against his palm. He thrust it out, acting on the pure instinct that had saved Toren. A desperate thread of violet energy snapped toward the Guardian's sword arm, momentarily binding it and yanking the blade off course.
The figure didn't falter. Its free hand lashed out, and a sudden, violent burst of pure light slammed Kael hard into a crumbling wall. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs and sent a spike of agonizing pain through his side—a sharp, physical reminder that even in this dream state, his body was not immune to damage.
He scrambled up, clutching the shard like a lifeline, spitting dust. "Lirien, where are you?" he shouted, his voice strained.
Her voice drifted from nowhere, echoing through the vast emptiness. "It guards the truth. The key is in the lock."
The lock. Kael glanced at the altar: spirals and lines, a familiar puzzle. He'd seen Mara sketching similar Weaver lock-runes since he was a child. He darted toward the altar, dodging another crushing blow from the Guardian's blade. With a surge of desperation and adrenaline, he slammed the small obsidian shard into the central recess of the altar.
Light erupted, blinding and immediate. Threads of pure energy spiraled outward like a cosmic web, instantly wrapping around the Guardian, binding its massive arms and legs. Its radiant glow dimmed as it froze, caught in the very essence of the Weavers' magic.
The ruins shuddered violently. Lirien appeared beside Kael, solid now, her eyes clearing as the overwhelming darkness of the trance-scape receded from her mind.
"Kael?" she whispered, trembling, the fear in her voice heartbreakingly real. "I saw it—the shadow under the city. It was awake."
"Hold on," Kael said, gripping her hand tightly. The shard pulsed, a single, final beat of power, and the dream world around them collapsed into blinding nothingness.
He gasped awake in the plaza, Lirien safely cradled in his arms. Her breathing was shallow but real, a precious flicker of life among the shadows. Toren was immediately kneeling beside them, his eyes wet with tears of relief.
"You got her," Toren said, his voice thick with emotion.
Kael nodded, the exhaustion pulling at him like an anchor. He handed the now-limp Lirien to Toren, who held her close, protective and fierce, and staggered to his feet, looking at Mara. "She confirmed it," he said, his voice raw. "There's a shadow under the city. The Vault."
Mara's expression darkened, her eyes narrowing with profound concern. "Yes. And it's rousing faster now. You've stirred it with your efforts, Kael."
Before he could even ask how or why, the ground quaked violently—not a simple tremor, but a gut-wrenching lurch, as if the very earth were alive and in pain. The fountain cracked further, a burst of stale water spilling out as time itself seemed to twist and warp.
For a terrifying, vivid heartbeat, the plaza shimmered. The slumped, trance-bound villagers stood hale and whole; the ruined city was unbroken, spires pointing high, ringing with laughter—the Shattered Crown as it once was. Then, in a violent wrench, the illusion snapped back to the grim reality of decay, the Rift flaring brighter, a gaping maw of dark promise.
"What in the hells was that?" Toren growled, clutching Lirien and standing defensively, his basic battle instincts honed sharp.
"An echo," Mara whispered, her voice tight with terror. "The past bleeding through. The curse is unraveling reality itself."
Kael stared at the unstable Rift, the shard heavy and vibrating in his hand. Stirring it, she'd said. Whatever ancient power lay locked in the Vault, it wasn't going to wait for him to arrive. The battle for the Shattered Crown was just beginning.