The girl's lantern pulsed with soft, swirling moonlight.
Up close, the glow didn't illuminate so much as reshape shadows....stretching some, shrinking others, pulling strange outlines across the sand like the world wasn't quite sure what to do with her presence.
Aurelianth swallowed, unsure whether to step toward her or away.
She moved first.
"Stand slowly," she murmured. "The ground near you is unstable."
He glanced at the corrupted sand...still sliding in tiny, greedy swirls, as though tasting the air for him. His pulse quickened. The click- heartbeat inside his chest vibrated in answer.
He rose carefully.
Gravity obeyed him better than before... barely.
The girl studied him with the intensity of someone who'd spent years preparing for this exact moment.
"You're not supposed to stand alone," she whispered. "Not after… appearing like that."
"Appearing," he repeated softly. "Is that what I did?"
She nodded. "From the cliffs we saw light. A flash of silver. Then the beach shuddered. The sea froze. The runes awoke."
Aurelianth's throat tightened.
She believed he had caused all of that.
But he didn't even know how to steady his own breath.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She hesitated, then lifted her lantern slightly. "Lioren. Daughter of the Tide-Scribes."
The title rang inside him like distant thunder.
"Tide-Scribes?"
"The ones who listen to the Shadow Sea," she said. "The ones taught to read its warnings."
Her gaze traveled to his glowing veins, his shifting runes, the faint shimmer around his skin.
"And tonight," she added softly, "the Sea said your name."
Aurelianth exhaled shakily.
"I don't understand any of this," he confessed.
"You will," she said. "Because you must."
The cliffs loomed above them, their runes pulsing brighter with each heartbeat. Lioren began walking toward a narrow path winding upward along their side.
"Follow me," she said.
Aurelianth took a hesitant step after her. The sand beneath him didn't glitch this time. Encouraged, he continued until a faint click vibrated up his spine.
He froze.
The corrupted patch slid a few centimeters forward.
Lioren turned, eyes widening. "It followed you?"
Aurelianth nodded. "It's like… it wants to."
He hesitated. "Or it wants me."
Her face paled. "Then we must move quickly."
She raised her lantern high. The moonlight inside swirled more violently, like a storm trapped in glass. The corrupted sand recoiled just an inch, but enough.
Aurelianth arched a brow. "It fears the light?"
"Everything in Umbralune fears moonlight," Lioren whispered. "Everything that isn't meant to exist."
He wondered, with a sudden sinking feeling, whether that included him.
The climb up the cliff path was slow, not because the path was steep, but because Aurelianth's body didn't entirely obey him yet. Sometimes his left foot hit the ground half a second after the rest of him. Sometimes the runes around his ribs tightened suddenly, causing him to stagger.
Lioren watched him with worried eyes.
"You move like the world hasn't finished making you," she said quietly.
He winced. "Maybe it hasn't."
"Perhaps that's why it fears you."
"Fears me?"
She nodded. "Everything unfinished fears what it might become."
The words struck him deeper than they should have.
At the top of the cliff, the view opened into a breathtaking panorama.
Umbralune sprawled beneath a massive crescent moon a patchwork of shifting beaches, flickering isles, whispering forests, and the ever moving Shadow Sea.
Far in the distance, Aurelianth saw something impossible:
A thin, glowing island...appearing, disappearing, appearing again.
"Is that...?"
"A Flicker-Isle," Lioren said. "One moment real, the next… undecided."
He stared in awe.
"Why does it do that?"
"Because it is waiting," she said simply. "Waiting to know which version of the world survives."
"Which… version?"
Lioren gave him a long look.
"You truly know nothing," she said sadly.
He shook his head. "I woke up minutes ago."
"Minutes ago?" Her breath hitched. "The Sea whispered your name hours before we saw you. The runes pulsed for almost an entire moon-cycle."
Aurelianth blinked. "But I only woke...."
"Prophecy moves before the person does," she said. "You existed in the world's memory before your body formed."
The idea chilled him.
"Lumen-Born are never simple arrivals," she added.
"So this prophecy," he said slowly, "you think I'm part of it?"
"I don't think," she whispered. "I know."
They reached the cliff's interior passage an archway carved into stone, glowing faintly with runic lines. The air inside was warmer, humming with soft vibrations, like a living creature purring in sleep.
"My people live within the cliffs," Lioren said, leading him inside. "Ebonecho Village. We stay close to the Sea because we must listen to its warnings."
"Warnings?"
"In Umbralune," she murmured, closing her fingers around her lantern, "every warning is a heartbeat away from becoming real."
The corridor's runes shifted as they walked. Some brightened at Aurelianth's presence, others dimmed, and a few shockingly burned white-hot and twisted into completely new shapes.
Lioren stopped.
"No one… no one has ever caused the runes to change," she whispered. "Not even a Tide- Scribe."
Aurelianth touched one lightly. It pulsed beneath his fingertips, sending a tremor up his arm.
"I don't know why this happens," he said softly.
Lioren looked up at him with something between fear and awe.
"Maybe because you're not meant to understand yet."
They reached a chamber carved into the heart of the cliff a vast space filled with lanterns, carved shells, and scrolls made from pressed seaweed.
Elders stood around a circular basin of shadow water that reflected nothing.
Lioren inhaled deeply. "Stay behind me," she whispered.
He nodded.
As they entered, all conversation stopped.
Dozens of eyes turned to Aurelianth....wide, dark, haunted eyes that reflected moonlight and fear in equal measure.
An elder stepped forward.
Her face was lined like driftwood carved by waves, her hair a sweeping silver tide. She studied Aurelianth with no attempt to hide the tremble in her fingers.
"You wear the runes of the Unfinished," she said.
"And the veins of the Lumen-born.
Explain this."
Aurelianth stepped forward despite Lioren's warning hand.
"I don't know who I am," he said honestly. "I don't know how I got here. I woke on the shore. The world…" He paused, gathering breath. "The world spoke my name."
The elders exchanged fractured whispers.
One elder hissed, "He admits it openly!"
Another whispered, "The Sea only speaks the names of the chosen or the devoured."
The silver-haired matriarch raised her lantern like staff.
"Silence."
The chamber obeyed.
She walked closer to Aurelianth.
Her eyes reflected him....his glowing veins, shifting runes, trembling breath, confused gaze.
"You came from the Sea," she said.
"No," he answered, "I came from....."
He paused.
Because the truth was:
he didn't know where he had come from anymore.
The elder leaned closer.
"Did the Sea call you by the name Aurelianth?"
His heart froze.
"How did you know that?"
The elder stared into him like she was reading old, forgotten prophecies etched in his bones.
"Because," she whispered,
"that name has not been spoken in this world…since the last one who bore it died."
The air collapsed inward.
Lioren gasped.
Aurelianth felt cold seep into his bones.
"What do you mean?" he whispered.
The matriarch stepped back, fear flickering across her features for the first time.
"The last Aurelianth," she said softly,
"was the apprentice who disappeared while trying to seal the Great Unfinished."
Aurelianth staggered.
The memory.....
the dying soul.....
the hand reaching toward moonlight.....
the half-formed scream.....
It wasn't random.
He had awakened in the body of someone who already bore his name.
Someone who died in a place the world refused to speak of.
"Your runes," the matriarch whispered, "are unfinished because his task is unfinished."
The clicking heartbeat inside his chest trembled violently.
"And the world," the elder said slowly, fearfully,
"brought you here to finish what he could not."
Aurelianth's veins pulsed once.
Outside, the Shadow Sea answered with a single, echoing:
click.