By the time the third shard was discovered, it was no longer a coincidence.
It was a pattern.
Kael did not find this one by sensing imbalance in the wind.
He found it because a traveling merchant collapsed at the village gate.
The man had walked for days, skin pale, lips cracked. Not from hunger.
From depletion.
"Water," the merchant croaked.
Kael knelt beside him and pressed his palm lightly against the man's shoulder.
There it was again.
That hollow pull.
As if something had siphoned away more than just moisture.
Finn approached, crouching opposite him. "Where did you come from?"
"South ridge… past the stone bridge…" The merchant trembled. "The wells dried overnight."
Kael and Finn exchanged a look.
South.
Not west.
They left before noon.
This time, they did not travel alone.
Kael insisted on bringing two of the village's strongest men—not because he expected battle, but because exhaustion had nearly taken him last time.
"You won't interfere," Finn warned the men. "You observe. You retreat if told."
Both nodded stiffly.
Kael said nothing.
His mind was elsewhere.
If shards were appearing in multiple directions, then someone was not experimenting.
They were harvesting.
The stone bridge the merchant mentioned lay across a shallow gorge where a narrow river once flowed.
Now it was dust.
Not cracked mud.
Dust.
Kael stepped into the dry riverbed and crouched.
He pressed his fingers into the powdery remains.
Nothing answered.
No lingering moisture.
No underground flow.
It was as if the water had never existed.
"That's impossible," one of the men whispered.
Kael did not respond.
He closed his eyes.
And reached deeper than before.
Not outward.
Down.
Past soil.
Past stone.
Past fault lines.
He followed faint echoes of water memory—impressions left in mineral traces.
There.
A chamber beneath the gorge.
But this one felt different.
Larger.
More aggressive.
"There are three," Kael said quietly.
Finn's voice sharpened. "Three shards?"
"Yes."
They prepared carefully.
No dome this time.
No wide containment field.
Instead, Kael opted for precision.
"If we try to isolate all three at once, the suction may spike," he explained.
Finn nodded. "Then remove them in sequence."
Kael inhaled slowly.
He sank both arms into the dry earth up to his elbows.
The ground parted reluctantly.
Stone resisted.
He did not force it.
He negotiated.
Layer by layer, the chamber below revealed itself.
Three shards embedded in a triangular formation.
Each pulsing faintly.
Together, their rhythm overlapped—creating a steady siphon effect.
"They're amplifying each other," Kael murmured.
Finn's eyes narrowed. "Then whoever placed them understands resonance."
Kael began with the shard closest to the former river source.
He did not feed it this time.
He starved it.
Using subtle wind compression, he disrupted its intake channel—redirecting flow sideways rather than inward.
The shard flickered.
The other two brightened slightly.
"They're compensating," Finn warned.
"I see that!"
Sweat rolled down Kael's temples.
He shifted strategy mid-flow.
Instead of cutting supply entirely, he reduced it gradually.
Like dimming a flame instead of extinguishing it.
The first shard dulled.
Then cracked.
Not explosively.
Quietly.
Energy seeped outward—but Kael had anticipated it.
He absorbed the spill into surrounding stone, dispersing it harmlessly.
One down.
The remaining two pulsed erratically.
The second shard resisted more violently.
As Kael disrupted its intake, a shockwave rippled through the chamber.
The gorge above trembled.
One of the villagers stumbled back.
"Retreat if it collapses!" Finn barked.
Kael gritted his teeth.
He felt it now.
Not just a tool.
An imprint.
A signature within the shard's design.
Someone had shaped these deliberately.
Carefully.
He pushed harder.
Not with force.
With understanding.
He matched the shard's pulse—then shifted it slightly off-beat.
Resonance destabilized.
The shard fractured down its center.
A low hum dissipated into silence.
Two down.
The third remained.
And it was angry.
The final shard's glow intensified.
Its pull sharpened.
The air in the gorge thinned rapidly.
Kael felt dizziness creep in.
"It's overcompensating!" Finn shouted.
Kael nodded weakly.
Instead of attacking directly, he did something reckless.
He opened himself.
Not fully.
But enough.
He allowed the shard to draw from him.
Pain lanced through his chest as energy siphoned outward.
"Kael! Stop!" Finn's voice cut through the haze.
"I need it to focus on me!" Kael gasped.
The shard brightened—then steadied.
Now that its intake had a concentrated source, it ignored surrounding land.
That was the moment.
With a sharp exhale, Kael reversed the flow.
He did not push.
He redirected.
Like turning a river upstream.
The shard cracked under the strain.
Light flared—then vanished.
Silence returned to the gorge.
Kael collapsed.
He woke two days later.
Back in the valley.
Finn sat nearby, sharpening the same blade he always seemed to sharpen.
"You nearly emptied yourself," Finn said without looking up.
Kael swallowed dryly. "It worked."
Finn's gaze flicked toward him. "That isn't the point."
Kael shifted weakly. "It stopped the drain."
"And what if there are ten more sites?" Finn's voice hardened. "Will you bleed yourself at each one?"
Kael had no answer.
Recovery took longer this time.
A week passed before he could stand without trembling.
Two before he could manipulate even a flicker of wind.
Three before his senses fully extended beyond the treeline again.
During that time, news traveled.
Other villages had reported similar droughts.
Some had fled.
Some had not survived.
Kael sat alone by the river one evening, fists clenched against his knees.
"I'm not fast enough," he muttered.
The water beside him rippled gently.
Not in response to his command.
But in quiet agreement with gravity.
He stared at it.
Then slowly extended a hand.
Instead of lifting the water, he traced its surface lightly.
"I can't chase every imbalance," he said aloud.
The current continued.
Unbothered.
That was when the realization settled.
This was not about reacting.
It was about confronting the source.
Three nights later, the pulse came again.
Stronger than before.
Not from south.
Not west.
From everywhere.
Kael jolted upright from sleep.
Finn was already outside.
"They're activating more," Kael said.
Finn nodded grimly. "Or something larger."
The ground trembled faintly beneath their feet.
Not from fracture.
From siphon.
Kael closed his eyes.
This time, instead of tracing individual shards, he followed the network.
Lines of faint energetic pathways connecting distant points.
All converging.
North.
Far north.
His eyes snapped open.
"There's a hub," he whispered.
Finn's jaw tightened. "Then that's where we go."
They did not rush blindly.
Preparation lasted nearly a month.
Kael rebuilt his stamina deliberately.
He practiced sustaining flow without self-drain.
He studied shard fragments carefully—examining structure, material, intent.
Each bore subtle variations—but the core design remained identical.
"Whoever made these understands elemental intake at a structural level," Kael said one night.
Finn nodded. "Which means they understand what you are becoming."
Kael met his gaze steadily. "Then I won't fight them as a student."
The journey north took twelve days.
They crossed barren patches, weakened forests, drained creeks.
Evidence everywhere.
On the thirteenth day, they saw it.
A structure rising from a plateau.
Not a fortress.
Not a city.
A spire.
Tall. Pale. Veined with faint silver light.
And around its base—embedded in circular formation—dozens of shards.
All pulsing in harmony.
Kael felt the scale instantly.
This was not harvesting for survival.
It was accumulation.
Finn exhaled slowly. "You're not strong enough yet."
Kael did not argue.
But he did not step back either.
"I don't need to destroy it," he said quietly.
"Then what?"
Kael's gaze hardened.
"I need to understand it."
They retreated before being detected.
Because for the first time since discovering the shards, Kael sensed something else.
A presence.
Not within a shard.
Within the spire itself.
Aware.
Watching.
Not surprised.
As if expecting resistance eventually.
Back at camp, Kael stared at the distant silhouette under starlight.
"They know," he said softly.
Finn remained silent.
"They're waiting for someone like me to come," Kael continued.
"Why?"
Kael's answer came slowly.
"Because a sovereign is the only one who can feed something like that fully."
Silence fell heavy.
The implication settled between them.
Kael was not just an obstacle.
He was a resource.
The wind shifted direction during the night.
Carrying faint resonance from the spire.
A test.
A probe.
Kael felt it brush against his awareness.
He did not react.
He did not flare power in defiance.
He simply let it pass.
For now.
Because this battle would not be won by impulse.
It would not be won by matching shard against shard.
It would be won by something far more difficult.
Choice.
He lay back against the cool earth.
Above him, stars burned steady and distant.
The siphon network pulsed faintly across the land.
But it had not reached its peak.
Not yet.
Kael closed his eyes.
He would not rush into the spire.
He would not attempt heroics.
He would return.
Stronger.
Wiser.
More than what the shards anticipated.
The chapter does not end in battle.
It ends in recognition.
There is another sovereign shaping the world.
And the distance between them is no longer measured in miles.
It is measured in understanding.
And that distance is closing.