THE WEAVER'S GRIEF
The void wasn't just empty; it was a held breath, thick and expectant. Threads, impossibly fine and humming with purpose, slithered like liquid light through the Architect's long fingers. Silver ones, cold and logical, tracing paths of cause and effect. Cobalt ones, buzzing with the slow decay of everything. He was building Veridia, this new sphere, spinning it into being. It hung there, a perfect, intricate marble of potential – symmetrical, flawless, and utterly, achingly sterile.
His hand moved again, instinctively reaching towards the space where one thread should have been. That familiar, hollow gesture. Always fucking reaching.
Then it hit him, sharp as shattered glass: her laughter. Not a sound in the silence, but the memory of sound, echoing in the hollow places inside him. The gardener. The one who'd shoved a sun-warmed peach into his hand lifetimes ago, teaching him its impossible weight, its sticky sweetness, the life in it. He could almost feel her calloused fingers slipping from his grip again, see the blinding light of the supernova swallowing her world, her smile vanishing into the roar.
"Where does belonging live?" He'd asked her once, staring at the intricate veins of a leaf.
"Between shared breaths, silly," she'd smiled back, the scent of turned earth clinging to her.
Now? Only the hollow echo of memory answered. Nothing warm. Nothing shared.
The tear wasn't dramatic. It was a single, heavy drop, cold and silver, falling from a place beyond sorrow. It struck the newborn skin of Veridia.
Where it hit, reality flinched. Not a crack, but a wound ripped open, raw and jagged. And from it, weeping out into the void like infected blood, pulsed a sickly, beautiful violet light.
STARDUST WINTER
Oakhaven village was supposed to be drowning in the golden light of the Harvest Moon Festival. Instead, it was dusted in falling ash. Glimmer-dust, they called it. It fell softly, relentlessly, like gray snow, catching the torchlight in a way that was eerie, not festive. It settled on carved pumpkins with leering grins, turning them ghostly. It powdered the thatched roofs and clung to Jax's messy brown hair as he barrelled into Kaelen's legs with an eight-year-old's oblivious force.
"Race you to the cider stall, Kae!" Jax yelled, grinning wide around the gap in his front teeth, freckles stark against his wind-chapped cheeks. He vibrated with excitement, seemingly unaware of the gray flakes matting his hair.
Kaelen managed a laugh, ruffling Jax's hair and feeling the gritty dust under his fingers. "Maybe in a minute, sprout." His eyes scanned the crowd, the forced cheer feeling thin. The dust was everywhere. Beautiful? Maybe from a distance. But wrong. Deeply wrong.
"Poison sky," Old Man Harken rasped nearby, spitting a dark stream of tobacco juice into the withered stalks of the corn display. The plants looked skeletal, starved. "Settles in the bones. Mark my words." He rubbed his knotted knuckles.
Lira, Jax's older sister, appeared, her usual bright smile tight around the edges. She nudged Jax. "C'mon, monster. Help me carry water back for Ma? The well's runnin' low again."
"Watch me lift it!" Jax puffed out his chest, eager to impress. He grabbed the heavy wooden bucket handle beside the well, grunting with effort, small fingers straining—
—and the bucket lifted. Not because of his muscles. It just… floated. Water sloshed violently inside it, suspended a foot off the packed earth. Jax stared, his wide eyes reflecting the torchlight, but also flickering with something else, something terrifying: tiny, dancing sparks of pure violet light deep within the brown.
Lira's smile didn't just fade; it died on her face, replaced by dawning horror.
Kaelen's breath hitched, a cold fist clenching his chest. Oh fuck. Not him. Please, not Jax.
THE STONES
The noise of the festival – the fiddles, the laughter, the hawkers' cries – didn't fade slowly. It just… stopped. Like someone had thrown a heavy blanket over everything. Eyes locked onto the floating bucket, then onto Jax's terrified, spark-lit face.
Butcher Bram's meaty hand tightened on the handle of his cleaver, the blade catching the firelight in a wicked flash. "WITCH-BOY!" The word ripped through the silence, harsh and final.
Jax flinched like he'd been struck. The bucket dropped like a stone, water exploding across the ground, soaking his worn boots. "I'm sorry—" his small voice trembled.
That's when the violet light lashed out. Not a controlled thing. Pure, panicked reflex. A jagged whip-crack of energy snapped from Jax, invisible force hitting Bram square in the chest. The huge man flew backward like a ragdoll, a sickening crack echoing as his ribs met the unforgiving stone of the well. He crumpled, gasping, face purple with rage and pain.
The silence that followed was heavier, thicker than before. Charged. Then—
A small, sharp pebble struck Jax's temple. Hard. It left an angry red mark instantly. Farmer Pell stood frozen, his throwing hand still trembling, face pale as milk.
Another stone. This one bigger, thrown by Mrs. Vanya from the bakery, her eyes hard as flint, no trace of the woman who'd slipped Jax sweet rolls just yesterday. "Monster!" she hissed.
Jax staggered back, a thin trickle of blood welling from the cut on his temple, streaking down through his freckles. He looked tiny, lost. "Lira?" he whimpered, searching the frozen faces for his sister.
Kaelen moved. Pure instinct. He stepped forward just as a third stone, aimed right at Jax's head, flew. His hand shot out, palm stinging as he caught the rough rock mid-air. He didn't shout. His voice was low, urgent, vibrating with a fear he couldn't show. "Run, Jax! NOW! Don't fucking look back!"
BARN DREAMS
The sharp, dry scent of old hay filled Kaelen's nostrils, prickling his cheek where he lay pressed against the scratchy bales in the darkest corner of the old Miller barn. Jax shivered violently beside him, curled tight, the makeshift bandage torn from Kaelen's shirt sleeve already spotting with blood from the gash on his temple.
"Why do they hate me?" Jax whispered, the sound muffled against Kaelen's side. His voice was raw, scraped thin by tears and terror.
Kaelen tightened his arm around the small, trembling shoulders. He had no words. Nothing that wouldn't sound hollow or terrifying. Outside, the angry murmur of the mob was a constant growl, punctuated by Bram's furious roars, still audible even through the thick barn walls: "BURN THE DEVIL'S BROOD! SMOKE 'EM OUT!"
Exhaustion and fear finally dragged Kaelen under. He dreamed in fractured, vivid flashes:
That single, impossibly heavy silver tear, falling through an endless, airless dark.
A woman's voice, warm and achingly familiar, yet utterly gone: "Some wounds only love mends…"
A sound – sharp, final, devastating. Like the universe's heart snapping in two.
And then, clear as a bell tolling in his skull: "Mend what is torn."
He jolted awake, gasping. Not from the noise outside, but from the sensation in his own right palm. It burned. Not with heat, but with a deep, bone-chilling cold that somehow felt alive. He uncurled his fingers.
There, etched into his skin like seared bone, pulsed the symbol: Ψ. It looked like a closed eye weeping, or maybe a key snapped in half. It glowed with a faint, eerie white light that seemed to come from within the bone itself.
Jax stirred, blinking sleepily, his swollen eyes focusing on Kaelen's hand. "Kae?" he murmured, his voice thick. "Your hand… it's… singing." He tilted his head, listening to something Kaelen couldn't hear.
THERON'S HUNGER
High above the poisoned village, suspended in the cold air like a frozen soap bubble, Theron's floating observatory drank in the night. Midnight bled into the curved glass walls. Below, the torches of Oakhaven swarmed, tiny points of angry orange light. Theron watched, a predator savoring the fear rising like steam. The Glimmer-energy he'd siphoned from the very air purred through his veins – sweet as honeyed wine, heady as strong spirits, and laced with a vicious, addictive cruelty.
Show me the source, he commanded silently. His scrying glass, a disc of obsidian swirling with captured starlight, rippled. The surface cleared, resolving into the tear-streaked, freckled face of the boy, Jax, huddled in shadow. Theron's breath hitched. Potential. Raw, untamed, bursting with chaotic life-force. Delicious.
A scout materialized from the deeper shadows near the door, dropping silently to one knee, head bowed. "The villagers clamor for your judgment, Magus. They cry for the witch-child's blood."
Theron's lips curved into a smile as thin and sharp as a razor's edge. "Let them play the executioner. Let them vent their petty fears and ignorance." He waved a dismissive, elegant hand. "After the deed is done… collect the ashes. Every last speck. They'll make exceptionally potent fertilizer for the Shadowgarden." He could almost taste the amplified Glimmer they'd yield.
His fingers drifted unconsciously to the side of his neck, tracing the raised, inky veins that crawled up towards his jawline like poisoned roots. A familiar, gnawing emptiness yawned inside him. More. The thought was a relentless drumbeat. Always more.
Beyond the observatory glass, where the world frayed at the edges, shapes darker than the deepest void shifted. Watching. Waiting. Theron felt their cold regard like a physical touch.
Soon, he thought, the smile turning predatory. Your fear, little mortals, will be the feast that sustains me.
TRUTH'S WEIGHT
That bone-white Ψ symbol in Kaelen's palm wasn't just glowing now; it pulsed. A deep, rhythmic throb that echoed the frantic beat of his own heart. Jax's whimper brought him back. The blood on the bandage looked darker in the gloom.
Without thinking, driven by the dream-command (Mend what is torn), Kaelen pressed his marked palm firmly against Jax's bloodied temple.
It wasn't like touching skin. It was diving headfirst into a freezing, silver river of memory:
The Architect's loneliness – a vast, echoing hollowness that stretched through galaxies, colder than the void itself.
The violent, shrieking birth of the Glimmer – a scream ripped from the fabric of reality, a thing of pure unbelonging.
And Jax's terrified plea, echoing the Glimmer's scream: "Why am I a monster?"
The visions bled silver light around his hand. Under his palm, he felt the torn skin on Jax's temple… shift. Heal. The bleeding stopped. The angry edges of the wound smoothed together, leaving just a faint, pink line.
Jax gasped, pulling back slightly to stare at Kaelen, his eyes wide with wonder and confusion. He reached out a small, grubby finger and touched Kaelen's wrist. "Kae…" he whispered. "You're crying."
Kaelen hadn't noticed the hot tears carving tracks through the dust on his own cheeks.
CRASH!
The heavy barn door didn't just open; it exploded inward in a shower of splintered wood. Torchlight flooded the dark space, blinding them, throwing monstrous, dancing shadows on the walls.
Butcher Bram filled the shattered doorway, haloed in flickering flame, his face a swollen mask of rage and pain from his broken ribs. He raised a heavy pitchfork, pointing it straight at them.
"THERE!" The roar shook the rafters.
Kaelen reacted instantly, shoving Jax hard behind him, putting his own body between the boy and the furious mob crowding behind Bram. The Ψ symbol on his palm didn't flare with visible power this time.
It blazed with something deeper, colder, absolute.
Certainty.
He met Jax's terrified eyes for a split second, his voice low, fierce, cutting through the roar. "Run. Now. Don't look back. Not for anything."