Kaelen woke up choking on air that wasn't air.
The room was gone. The Hook was gone.
He was standing in a field of glass — endless, cracked, reflecting nothing. The sky above him was wrong, a smear of light and shadow stitched together by thin silver threads that trembled with each breath.
And in front of him: a door.
Not real. Not wood. Not anything made by hands. It was made of pressure, of memory. It wanted to be opened.
"You asked," said a voice — no body, no source, just presence."Now see."
The door swung inward without him touching it.
And Kaelen stepped through.
He came to on the floor, coughing hard, drenched in sweat.
Yreya was already kneeling next to him, one hand on his back, the other clutching a vial. "You're okay. You're okay, you just—your shard lit up like it was on fire. You went stiff, then hit the floor."
Bren stood in the corner, watching with that same tight-jawed stillness.
Kaelen wiped his mouth and sat up slowly. The second shard — the one he found in the ruin — was still wrapped on the table, untouched.
So why did it feel like that was what pulled him under?
"I saw something," he said.
Yreya nodded like she'd been waiting.
"Where?"
Kaelen hesitated. "Not where. When. It was the day the Veil first cracked. The sky split open, and something came through. I think I saw it."
Bren didn't flinch. Just asked, flat: "Did it see you?"
Kaelen looked at him.
And didn't answer.
They left Greyhook before sunrise.
Yreya said she knew someone — a contact in the southern marshes who dealt in Veil-sick relics. If anyone could tell them what the second shard really was, it was her.
Bren didn't argue. Just packed, loaded up, and walked.
Kaelen felt the shift the moment they crossed the edge of town. It wasn't wind or sound — it was like pressure behind the eyes. The kind of thing only a shardbearer would notice.
Something was following them.
They made camp that night by a broken tower swallowed halfway by the earth. Yreya was asleep. Bren sat watch, sharpening a blade that had seen more than it should.
Kaelen sat alone with the second shard.
He unwrapped it slowly. It was darker than the first. The glow inside it flickered like a dying star — but angry. Restless.
He reached out.
Just to touch.
A whisper slammed into his skull.
"Give me back my name."
Kaelen reeled. Clutched his head. The world tilted.
"You stole it. You stole me."
The voice wasn't just sound. It carried weight. Memory. A flash of fire. A spire collapsing. A face — his face — but not.
"I remember you."
Kaelen gasped, yanked his hand back.
Bren was already moving, blade drawn. "What did you touch?"
Kaelen didn't answer.
Because the truth was worse than anything he could say.
He hadn't just touched the shard.
The shard remembered him