The silence after Kael left was worse than the flames.
It pressed against my ribs, heavy and suffocating, like the entire city was holding its breath. Smoke curled lazily into the night sky, painting the towering glass spires of the Inner Ring with a faint red glow. From afar, they almost looked beautiful, like the city itself was blushing in firelight. Up close, all I could smell was ash.
Jarek spat onto the soot-stained cobblestones. His voice was flat, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed him. "We're leaving. Now. Before they double back."
Selene's pendant glimmered faintly in the dying light, her hand trembling as if she feared it might slip away. She shook her head sharply, strands of dark hair sticking to the sweat on her cheek. "You don't understand. If Kael saw her—if he marked her—it's already too late. They'll hunt us to the edge of the world."
The words hit me harder than the smoke ever could.
I… I don't understand, I whispered. My throat felt raw, every word rasping like broken glass. Why? What am I to them? I'm no one.
Selene looked at me then, really looked. No fire in her eyes, no sharp retort ready on her tongue. Just something worse. Pity.
"Not anymore."
The pity was unbearable. I wanted her anger. Contempt. Anything but that.
Jarek stepped in before the silence swallowed me whole. His grip on my arm was firm as he pulled me forward. "We don't have time for riddles. We move."
We slipped through blackened alleys, ruins giving way to narrower streets. Ash clung to our boots, and the stench of burnt flesh followed us like a curse. Yet in the outskirts of the Dusk District, life clung stubbornly to the cracks.
A drunk staggered out of a tavern, laughing at nothing. A fiddle wailed out of tune through a broken window. Rats scurried between garbage heaps, as if nothing had changed.
Almost normal.
But the city no longer felt the same. Shadows were deeper, alleys tighter. Every pair of eyes lingered too long, too sharp, as if they could sense the weight of the shard-world still clinging to me.
By the time Jarek shoved open the warped door of a crumbling warehouse, my lungs ached from smoke and my legs from running. The smell of damp wood and rust hit me immediately.
"Safe enough for now," Jarek muttered as he dropped the heavy bar across the door. His voice was steady, but exhaustion tugged at his movements.
I slid down the side of a crate, every muscle trembling. My head throbbed, the memory of the Glass Realm burning itself into me—shards, voices, futures that weren't mine. And behind it all, the ruins of the market.
My stomach twisted, words tumbling out before I could stop them. "What's happening to me?"
Selene knelt across from me, fingers wrapped around her pendant so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her voice was quiet, reverent, almost fearful. "The realm has chosen you. That much is clear."
Her conviction only fueled my panic. "Chosen me for what?" My voice cracked, bitterness spilling over. To watch people burn? To see monsters in armor smile at me in the street?"
Selene's expression tightened, shadowed by something that looked too much like fear. "To decide. To change everything."
Jarek, leaning against the wall, let out a humorless laugh. "You're talking like a priestess again. Enough with the poetry. Be clear."
For once, Selene hesitated. Then, deliberately, she drew a small, weathered scroll from her cloak. Slowly, she unrolled it. A map of the city stared back at me, ink faded, lines hand-drawn, annotated in a script I couldn't read.
Across the heart of the Inner Ring was a sigil—sharp, unmistakable. The same as carved into her pendant.
"This city," she said softly, "was not built only of glass and stone. Beneath it runs the Glass Vein—a river of power. Ancient. Older than the monarchy. Older than the founding families. It fuels their magic, their armies, their control." Her hand lingered on the sigil, tracing it like a prayer. "And it is bound to the one the realm chooses. Bound to you."
Her words scraped against me like broken glass.
I stared at the map, her face, Jarek's scowl growing sharper. My throat went dry. You're telling me this city runs on… veins? Magic veins? And I'm—what?—its key?
Selene didn't flinch. She nodded once. "If you claim the Vein, you could rewrite everything. Break their rule. Tear down the Inner Ring. Or…" Her voice lowered, soft but heavy. "…you could burn us all."
The warehouse felt smaller now. Her words pressed against my chest like shards. My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
I don't want this, I whispered.
"Want has nothing to do with it," Selene said, gaze unwavering.
The fire inside me cracked. I wanted to scream, hurl the map across the room, claw the choice from my chest and throw it back into the shards. But exhaustion won. My eyes blurred, heavy with smoke and grief.
Jarek dug through a crate until he pulled out a ragged blanket, tossing it toward me. "Sleep. Answers can wait."
I caught it numbly. Scratchy, coarse fabric. Sleep. Like that was even possible.
But sleep was no mercy.
The moment my eyes closed, the dream came sharp and merciless.
Kael's obsidian helm gleamed in the void. His eyes, molten gold through the visor, burned straight into me. He stood in the Glass Realm, shards spinning futures too fast to follow. In every shard, he was there. Always. My enemy. My executioner. My shadow.
I woke with my chest aching, as if the shards had cut me all over again.
The warehouse was quiet. Too quiet.
The dream hadn't left me. Even awake, sweat chilling my skin, I could still feel him—Kael—in the shards, in the Glass Realm, in every future I couldn't grasp. And always, always watching.
I pushed myself upright, the coarse blanket falling to the floor. Selene was curled against the far wall, clutching her pendant so tightly her palms might bruise. Jarek sat near the door, sword balanced across his knees, half awake but still sharper than most men at their best.
I told myself I'd woken because of the dream. Because of the shards. But then I realized—it wasn't silence that had woken me.
It was the absence of sound.
No tavern laughter spilling through streets. No carts rumbling over cobblestones. Not even distant shouts from dockhands or muffled sobs from alley fights. The city outside was dead.
Jarek, I whispered, voice cracking in the stillness.
His eyes snapped open, instantly alert. "What is it?"
Listen.
He froze, and then I heard it too. Footsteps. One set only. Steady. Heavy. Each strike against the cobblestones a deliberate drumbeat.
Selene stirred, eyes flying open as if pulled by an invisible cord. She didn't ask what was wrong. She whispered, trembling, "He's here."
Before I could respond, the warehouse door shuddered. Once. Twice.
Then it exploded inward.
Wood splintered like brittle bone. Cold air and the acrid smell of soot rushed in—and with it, he filled the frame.
Lord Kael.
Obsidian armor caught what little light there was, every edge sharp enough to slice the air. He didn't stride in. He entered, measured and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world to watch us squirm.
Selene gasped, pressing herself back against the wall, hand flying to her pendant as if it could shield her.
Jarek was already up, sword flashing free, sliding between me and Kael like a shield. His stance was steady, but the tension in his jaw betrayed him.
Kael's helm tilted slightly, predator-like, as if he were studying new prey. His voice was smooth, calm, steel wrapped in velvet. "You run well. But the city is mine. And everything within it belongs to me."
Jarek's blade rose, growl low and dangerous. "You'll choke on those words."
Kael didn't even glance at him. His gaze pinned me, cutting through the air like a shard of obsidian.
"Aradia."
Hearing my name in his voice was like being dragged back into the Glass Realm—the way the shards had spoken, the void pressing my name into me until it burned.
I forced my throat to work. "You burned the market."
His head inclined, ever so slightly. "I cleansed it. Weakness festers in the cracks of this city. Fire is mercy."
The calm certainty curdled my blood. "Those were people," I spat, hands shaking, voice sharp. "Not cracks."
The helm tilted, almost amused. "You see only the surface. In time, you will see more."
Selene whispered, barely audible. "He's marked you."
Something inside me snapped. My chest heaved, lungs burning. Before I could move, Jarek lunged, sword slicing through the air toward Kael's throat.
Kael caught it. With his hand.
Metal screamed against metal, sparks spitting into the shadows. Jarek poured his weight into the strike, muscles straining, but Kael's grip didn't falter. The sword bent.
With a flick, almost lazy, Kael twisted.
Jarek flew. Crashing into a crate with a sickening crack. Blood streaked his lip as he tried to rise.
"Jarek!" My scream tore my throat raw, barely reaching him.
Kael's shadow swallowed me as he stepped closer. His helm lowered, black steel filling my vision.
Through the visor, his eyes glowed—not gold, not silver—but shifting, colors flickering like shards of glass catching firelight.
He bent close, voice a whisper meant only for me. "You will break this city. Or I will break you."
The words weren't a threat. They burned into me, branded into my bones.
And then—just as suddenly—he straightened. Turned. Walked away.
The ruined doorway framed him like a shadow carved from night itself. Soldiers followed, armor gleaming in white and silver. He raised a hand, and they froze, waiting.
He didn't need them. Not for me.
Selene scrambled to my side, breath sharp, panicked. Jarek groaned, dragging himself up despite blood on his chin.
Their voices blurred, drowned by the echo of Kael's.
Because I knew then—his words weren't just a threat.
They were a promise.
And deep inside, some treacherous part of me wasn't sure if I wanted to defy it.