The cottage was holding its breath.
The two shards on the kitchen table pulsed in stubborn disharmony…heartbeats out of sync, like siblings estranged by time. Their glow wasn't soft anymore. It was sharp. Urgent. Alive.
Elara stares at them, her thoughts loud and spinning. She could feel it…magic not just humming but vibrating through her skin, rattling in her ribs like a tuning fork tuned to something ancient and breaking.
"They're fighting," she murmurs, more to herself than anyone else.
Moony, flops down like a dramatic scarf across the bench beside her, twitching an ear. "What, the shards? Or the awkward sexual tension in this room?"
Rowan, leaning against the far window, doesn't look over, but the edge of his jaw tightens. He hasn't moved in half an hour…arms folded, face carved from thunderclouds. Elara knew that posture. Knew it like her own heartbeat, she would even bet on it.
That was Rowan trying not to feel something too sharp.
"We're not fighting," Valen denies absentmindedly, a teasing tone to his voice.
Sitting in a corner of the room, half-illuminated by the flickering fireplace.
Valen looks up, half lounging in a battered armchair.
The journal that Isadora had left behind in the box with the shard, lies open on his lap, pages yellowed, covered in curling, obsessive script and fluttering like restless birds.
His eyes gleam with that peculiar kind of fascination reserved for people who treat ancient soul-shredding magic like a crossword puzzle, glinting in the low light…intense, focused, dangerously curious.
"They are soul fragments," he continues, tapping a page with ink-stained fingers. "Not just of the Name. Of you. Of everything the Name ever touched. They're not meant to coexist until all six are together. Until the name is fully restored and freed."
Elara's stomach turns. "And if it never is?"
"Then it unravels," Valen replies simply. "You. This. All of it."
Moony groans miserably. "Lovely. Existential soul collapse. On top of probable demonic assassination and the slow deterioration of my fur quality."
Elara ignores him, eyes flicking back to the shards. "I felt something when I touched them. Not memory…more like...resonance. Like standing too close to a bell still ringing."
Rowan finally looks at her. "You nearly didn't come back."
His voice is low. Rough. Like he was holding something in.
She meets his gaze and says softly, "But I did."
He doesn't reply, but something in him seems to exhale.
"That kind of remembering doesn't come without a cost," he says. "Magic always demands something back."
He steps forward at last, pulling the sleeves of his tunic down over scarred tattooed arms, as if he could hide the tension crawling beneath his skin. "We can't keep reacting. We need direction."
Valen leans in, flipping the journal around. "Then try this on for apocalyptic size."
He slides the book to the centre of the table.
In Isadora's script…precise, curling, unmistakably hers…was a series of lines that shimmer faintly with preserved spell work.
Elara leans forward.
Shard of Fear
"Where shadows listen and mirrors lie, the echo of your worst self waits."
Location: Mirrorwood.
Shard of Love
"Where something once loved lies unloved, cold in the place you buried it."
Location: Elara's childhood home.
Shard of Power
"Beneath the tower with no doors, where magic spirals without anchor."
Location: The Broken Spire.
Shard of Will
"At the end of the name, at the edge of the world, where your voice becomes the only thing real."
Location: The Verge.
Rowan's brow furrow. "It seems she meant for you to find these. She always did things backwards."
"Isadora always knew more than she portrayed," Valen mutters in awe. "A soul map, hidden in prose. Each shard's more than a fragment. It's a test. A crucible."
Elara feels the truth of it deep in her bones. Her hand hovers over the page, fingers trembling.
"And I don't even know if I am strong enough, not to fail her and whatever is trapped," she says quietly. "How do I know I'll pass?"
Rowan steps beside her and reaches out…slowly, deliberately…until his hand covers hers.
"You choose, with your pure heart," he says determinedly. "You did it in the graveyard. You will again."
The room feels quieter for a moment.
Like the storm has paused just long enough for breath.
Valen watches their interaction, focused, thoughtful.
His smile doesn't reach his eyes.
"Elara," he says after a moment, voice lighter, more playful. "If you become a soul-eating demigod of unknowable power, promise you'll smite me first."
She blinks at him. "Why you?"
A shadow of something flickers across his face. "Because I'd let you."
Moony's ears flattened. "Okay! Well! That's the quota of emotional tension for this hour, thanks."
Before another word could fall, the air snaps.
Literally.
A sharp crack, like a tree limb breaking against bone.
Every candle extinguishes in unison. The scent in the air hits them…metallic, sharp, and wrong.
Boom.
The front door doesn't just open.
It detonates.
Splinters rain down like shrapnel. A blast wave hurls the table against the far wall.
The shards stay put…unnaturally unmoving…glued by some deeper force.
Smoke rushes in, thick and acrid, curling like sentient fog.
A pulse.
The air bends around them…sharp, acidic, spiked with an acrid smell. Time cracks at the edges.
Three figures surge through smoke and splinters, faceless, robed, spellfire screaming from their fingertips.
Elara barely has time to reach for the shards.
Rowan is already moving.
Blade in hand, a slash of steel and light. A barrier spell snaps into place in front of her, but it wasn't hers.
It is Rowan's.
Valen stands up abruptly, cloak flying back, hand slicing through the air as if conducting a deadly orchestra. "No knocking? Rude."
A blast burst from his palm, concussive and sharp. It catches one attacker full in the chest, hurling them into a wall hard enough to splinter it.
But the others aren't slowed down.
They aren't even human.
The third figure releases a dark net…threaded in shimmering crimson runes.
It slithers mid-air like a hunting serpent, making its way towards her, undeterred by the barrier.
Elara dives.
The net misses by a few inches, sizzling into the wall with enough force to melt ward sigils.
Panic roars in her lungs. She reaches for the table…fingers brushing the shards.
And then the world explodes.
Not fire. Not wind. Something deeper.
A thousand voices trapped in one storm. Books fly. Candles shatter.
The masked attackers stiffen, limbs suspended mid-motion. They are lifted like marionettes…bodies snapping into impossible positions. No magic Elara has studied, worked like this.
This was old.
The shards pulse wildly beneath her hands.
And then, as if reality had blinked for a second...
The energy vanishes.
The attackers collapse.
But before anyone can approach them…they vanish.
Not faded. Simply...undone. Like dreams waking.
Rowan's blade stays up. "Failsafe. Magical tether. Suicide spell in reverse."
No bodies. No scorch marks. Only dust, falling like snow.
Elara slumps forward, hand still on the shards. Her breath was shallow and ragged.
Rowan catches her before she hits the floor. (I know, this seems to be a recurring pattern...eye roll). His arms wrap around her, grounding her, anchoring her.
"You're alright," he whispers. "I've got you."
Moony peeks up from beneath the cabinet, fur on end. "For the record, I liked it better when they wanted the artifacts. Now it's personal."
Elara sits back hard against the scorched floor, hands still trembling.
The shards now pulsing in sync. Calmer. As if satisfied.
Valen's eyes are fixed on Elara instead. Not in fear. But focused, perceptive.
"They were sent for her," he says slowly. "Not the shards. Her."
Elara looks up from Rowan's arms. "Why?"
Valen doesn't answer. But his jaw clenches like he already knows.
—
That night, they didn't sleep.
They clean. Quietly. Wards re-etched into scorched beams. Dust swept in silence. The air remains charged…twitchy, untrusting.
Like the house, too, remembers the violence.
Thereafter...
Moony curls on the windowsill like the usual, a gargoyle.
Rowan sharpens his blade with slow, careful precision, beside Elara.
Valen reads and re-reads the journal, ink smudging beneath his fingertips.
Elara drinks her tea, barely tasting it and staring at the shards, now stacked gently beside a page of Isadora's final note.
The fire cracks, soft and low.
For a while, they just listen to the flames.
Finally, Elara whispers, "What if I'm already not me?"
Rowan doesn't answer.
Instead, his hand finds hers beneath the table.
Gentle. Steady.
"You are still the same person I met a few days ago , slightly stronger," he says quietly.
Across the room, Valen looks up. Watches them a moment too long.
Then turns back to the journal.
The shards pulse.
Waiting.