The waters of the Bicol River ran deep that night—quiet, slow, and full of memory.
Lukas sat by the bank, watching the moonlight ripple across the surface. The battle at Cagsawa had left him drained, but not broken. The second shard now pulsed along his wrist, a dark obsidian band etched with glowing baybayin. He could feel it whispering to him—different from the first, more grounded. Heavier.
Behind him, Amihan sharpened her blades silently. Kalem tended a fire, muttering protective prayers under his breath. They hadn't spoken much since the fight.
The silence was beginning to feel like a weight.
"You should rest," Amihan said without looking up.
"I can't," Lukas replied. "Not with this noise in my head."
She sheathed her blade and walked over, sitting beside him. "The shards remember everything. Where they've been, who they've touched. It gets louder with each one."
Lukas looked down at his palm. "What happens when I find them all?"
Amihan paused. "That depends on who you are when you do."
He opened his mouth to speak—but the river shifted.
Ripples formed on the surface where there had been none. A strange mist rose from the water, curling into human shapes—smoke-bodies, translucent, their mouths open in silent wails.
Kalem stood at once. "Spirits. Riverbound."
"Not just any," Amihan murmured, drawing a blade. "These are bound by grief."
Lukas rose to his feet, eyes narrowing. "What do they want?"
The figures gathered around the bank. One stepped forward—an old man with empty eyes and gaping wounds across his chest. His voice emerged like wind through reeds:
"You carry the fire... but forget the flood."
Lukas stiffened. "What flood?"
"The flame consumes, but it also reveals. Look beneath the burning."
Suddenly, Lukas was no longer by the river.
---
He stood on a blackened plain—ash and fire underfoot, the sky cracked with lightning. Cities burned in the distance. But beneath the surface, he could see it now: veins of water, coiling through the earth like arteries.
A hidden current.
A buried truth.
Then he saw them—other bearers, long dead, wielding the shards. Each had walked this path. Some had fallen. Others had turned.
One looked just like him.
And one had become a monster.
---
He snapped back to reality with a gasp. The spirits were gone. The mist faded.
Amihan gripped his arm. "What did you see?"
"Others," he whispered. "Like me. But not all of them were... good."
Kalem stepped closer. "Bathala's flame is pure. But a vessel can twist it."
Lukas clenched his fists. "I need answers. I need to know what these shards are truly made of."
"You'll find your next one soon," Kalem said. "I saw a sign in the fire. The next shard lies where the mountain kisses the sky."
"Mt. Pulag," Amihan said. "That's north. Cordillera."
Lukas nodded slowly. "Then we head there next."
Before they turned to leave, Lukas looked back at the river.
The water had gone still again.
But he could still feel it watching.
Still remembering.