The silence was a third presence on the path, walking between us.
It had been an hour since the cave.
Since the light.
The shattering.
The warped chorus of my voice.
An hour of nothing but the crunch of gravel under our boots and the rush of the river somewhere to our left.
My legs ached with phantom pain, as if the crystalline tendrils still lingered under my skin. Every step felt like dragging a ghost—my own fractured self, the Shattered Warden I’d become. I kept my eyes fixed on the path ahead, on the distant silhouette of the mountains that housed Antioch Soterion. I couldn’t look at them. Every glance from Log or Lizy felt like a physical touch on a fresh bruise. I’d let the monster out of its cage, and now we all had to walk with it.
Lily walked closest to me, a half-step behind. Her silence was the heaviest, a small, observant thing. I’d been the unstable core of a miniature star, and she’d been at its epicenter. Her trust—whispered in that jagged cage—still echoed in my chest, a warmth I didn’t deserve.
Log hummed a tuneless melody, his grey-red hair bouncing with each step. It was his way of filling the void, but even his playfulness felt strained, a mask stretched thin over the sorrow I glimpsed in the cave.
Lizy trailed a few paces back, her robe whispering against the grass. Her eyes darted to the river, then to the mountains, avoiding us all. Her quiet strength, usually a anchor, now seemed like a dam holding back her own storm—Brut, her friend, looming in the distance.
The portal had been a brief, practical flicker. Lizy had darted through to my apartment, grabbed the food supplies, and returned in less than a minute. The whole transaction was wordless. The familiar act of survival—eating—now felt like a grim ritual. We chewed on dried fruit and hard bread, the food tasting like ash in my mouth, dry and bitter.
I swallowed, the texture scraping my throat. The orbs waited in those mountains, one step closer to restoring balance, honoring Kartheina. But doubt gnawed at me—Log and Lizy’s words, their belief that the Royals couldn’t be trusted. What if they were right? What if my mission was just another cage?
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It was Lizy who finally broke, her voice too loud in the quiet.
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“So… the weather’s nice! Not too cold.”
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The words hung in the air, pathetic and brave. She was trying to build a bridge back to normalcy with the flimsiest of materials.
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Log didn’t even try to match her tone. His voice was low, stripped of its usual playful lilt. “Lizy.”
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“What? It is!”
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“It’s weather,” he said, a flat finality to it.
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The silence descended again, heavier than before. Lizy’s attempt had only highlighted the chasm.
Then, a small voice. Lily’s.
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“Does it hurt?”
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The question was so quiet, I almost thought I’d imagined it. I stopped walking. So did they.
I turned to look at her. She wasn’t looking at my face; she was staring at my hands, as if expecting to see cracks.
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“Does what hurt?” I asked, my own voice hoarse.
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“When you… change.” She finally met my eyes. There was no fear in her gaze. Not anymore. There was something else—a deep, unsettling curiosity. The look a junior engineer gives a fascinating, broken prototype.
The question was so simple, so practical. It bypassed the shame, the fear, the ideology. It went straight to the physical truth.
Log and Lizy were watching me, waiting. This was the real question they were too afraid to ask.
I looked down at my own hands, flexing my fingers. The memory of the searing heat, the sensation of my very form ripping apart, flashed behind my eyes. My skin prickled, a ghost ache lingering.
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“Yes,” I whispered, the word torn from me. It was the most honest thing I’d said in hours. “It… aches. Afterwards. Like every bone was broken and badly set.”
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Lily nodded, as if I’d just confirmed a technical specification. “I thought so. Your union energy went extremely unstable, that the air even leaked some, I recorded it.” She held up a small machinery, that was what I used back then to measure Union energy, how did she find it?
A strange, hysterical laugh bubbled in my chest. I choked it down. Of course. She’d been analyzing me.
Log let out a breath that was almost a laugh too, but there was no humor in it.
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“Leave it to you to get a diagnostic readout during an existential crisis.”
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His voice slipped into that raw edge again, the playful mask cracking unnoticed, before he shook his head and grinned wider, snapping back to his quirky self.
And then, something in the air shifted. The silence wasn’t a wall anymore. It was a space we were all standing in together, looking at the same strange, painful thing.
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Lizy took a tentative step closer. “Can you… feel it coming? The… change?” She stumbled over the word, her eyes flickering with concern—and something else, perhaps a shadow of her own fears about Brut.
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I hugged my arms around myself, a feeble substitute for control. The ache in my bones pulsed, a reminder of the fragility.
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“I don’t know. I just… I felt like I was drowning. And then I wasn’t in my body anymore.”
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“You’re in it now,” Log said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. An anchor. His grin softened, but he caught himself, tossing a piece of bread at Lily with a wink. “And hey, if you go crystal-mode again, warn us. I could use the light show for my next magic trick!”
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The group chuckled faintly, the sound fragile but real. Lily caught the bread, her small smile a spark. Lizy exhaled, her shoulders relaxing as she unpacked more supplies.
We sat in a loose circle
Lily tinkered with a small gadget, its green glow steady, learning towards her, it is a energy amplifier, and she seems to be working her hardest.
Log spun a ridiculous tale about a harvest festival, about how the wheat was over the estimated amount, that even bakeries refused that much wheat, so he had to use it himself.
His voice cracked once, unnoticed, before he laughed it off.
Lizy smiled faintly, then paused, fingers brushing a pendent I've never seen.
“Brut gave me this,” she murmured, barely audible.
Her eyes distant, conflicted.
The lead weight in my chest didn’t vanish, but it softened at the edges. My skin still hummed. I could feel the ghost of the crystal under its surface, the memory of those jagged, glowing tendrils.
I’d spent years building a fortress of control, and in five minutes, I’d revealed it was made of glass. Brut was still out there, the orbs still calling, my doubts about the Royals gnawing.
But they were here, laughing softly, sharing bread.
I turned back to the path, toward the waiting mountains. The journey wasn’t over. The orbs were still out there. Brut was still out there. My future was a terrifying question mark.
But for the first time since the cave, I took a step forward that didn’t feel like I was dragging a ghost behind me. I was just walking. And they were walking with me.
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“Antioch Soterion,” I said, the name a commitment. “Let’s keep moving.”
ns216.73.216.13da2
and then Add to home screen.