MASTERS OF THE ETERNITY
CHAPTER 12: SHARDS OF PROPHECY
The climb out of the Vault of Waking was slow.
Raian walked first, his hand tight around the silver shard. Its weight wasn't physical — but it pressed against his thoughts, his memories. Each step, he saw flashes: Lira's silhouette dissolving in light. A sky burning violet. A sword he hadn't forged yet — already stained.
Izek stayed behind for a moment, running a palm along the wall's last mural — the one of the bearer crumbling into dust. His fingers trembled slightly, though he said nothing.
Lira hadn't spoken since they left the vault. Her light had dimmed again, her breath shallow, like something inside her had unraveled during the fight. When she looked at Raian now, it wasn't with fear. It was with understanding — and dread.
Outside, the ruins of Mirewake were unchanged, but the stars were wrong.
They moved.
Not visibly — but subtly. The constellations had twisted ever so slightly, like a clock's gears turning between ticks.
Raian noticed it first. "We're being watched."
Izek nodded. "The shard's not dormant. It's calling."
"To who?"
Before anyone could answer — a sound echoed through the trees. Low. Rhythmic. Like something ancient waking beneath the earth.
Then a voice.
"You shouldn't have taken it."
---
The three turned.
From the treeline, a figure approached — wrapped in grey travel-worn robes, dust clinging to his boots. He moved with a limp, but his eyes burned like heated metal. On his back was a sword… or something like it — long, curved, and wrapped in cloth bindings.
Raian stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The man stopped a dozen paces away. "Just someone who used to dream of being chosen. Now I hunt those who are."
Lira narrowed her eyes. "Creed?"
He shook his head. "Worse. I'm what comes after the Creed fails."
Raian gripped his blade. "If you want the shard—"
"I don't," the man said. "I want to warn you."
Silence.
Then he pointed to the crystal shard in Raian's hand.
"That's not a gift. It's a key. The Blade isn't waiting to be found — it's locked away. For a reason."
"What reason?"
The man looked skyward. "Because it breaks the soul to use it. And worse than that… it chooses its bearer. You think you'll decide who wields it?"
He turned away.
"The Blade has already chosen. And it's not one of you."
---
Raian moved to stop him — but the man was already gone. Not vanished — just somehow elsewhere. His footsteps didn't echo. His presence didn't linger.
Izek spoke up. "We have to move. If the shard's active, the Creed will track it. Maybe even the Eclipse."
"Where to?" Lira asked.
Raian didn't hesitate. "North. To Kaelith. The Resonant City."
Lira's breath caught. "That's forbidden territory. The flow storms there haven't cleared since the Third Collapse."
"It's also the only place with records old enough to tell us how to forge what we need," Raian said. "We're not ready to face the Blade — not yet."
He looked at the shard again. Its silver surface pulsed — and for a moment, it showed something new: a figure cloaked in chains, sitting beneath a shattered moon.
Raian closed his hand around it.
"I need answers."
---
Later That Night...
They made camp in the ruins, near a sunken bell tower overgrown with pale vines. Izek slept light, as always. Lira didn't sleep at all.
Raian sat alone by the fire, rolling the shard in his hand, watching it catch flickers of the flame.
Lira approached quietly, her expression unreadable.
"I saw something too," she said. "In the vault. When the light pulled me in."
Raian looked up.
"I saw you."
He waited.
"You were different. Older. Worn down. You held the Blade, but it was breaking you."
She knelt beside him.
"You think you have to carry all this alone. But if you do… it'll consume you."
Raian said nothing. He wanted to tell her he knew that. He wanted to promise he wouldn't let it. But something in his chest — something just beneath his heartbeat — was already beginning to shift.
The shard wanted something.
And whatever it wanted, it wasn't just survival.
---
At the Edge of the Mirewake Forest...
A soft sound rippled through the grass.
Not footsteps. Not breath.
But a pulse.
And then — the stars dimmed in a single patch of sky.
A figure descended in silence, cloaked in bone-white cloth, wearing a mask that didn't reflect light — only swallowed it. The Pale Twin stood beneath the dead tree.
And beside it, another stepped into existence — taller, wrapped in ink-black armor etched with living symbols that moved like serpents across his limbs.
Not a twin.
A shadow.
Together, they turned toward the north.
And began to walk.
TO BE CONTINUED…