BROKEN SKY

Asha couldn't remember what birdsong used to sound like.

She stood at the edge of Confluence, staring into the impossible landscape that stretched before her. Three months had passed since the world broke. Three months since the sky had torn open with crimson light, and nothing had been the same since. The memories of before were already beginning to fade, like dreams upon waking.

What remained was this: a forest of twisted trees with bark like polished obsidian growing from a sea of silver water that never quite moved as water should. Above, floating islands cast long shadows that crawled across the landscape with unnatural slowness. The border where forest met desert in a perfect, knife-edge line. The constant sense of wrongness that made her bones ache.

Remnants of five worlds crushed together like a child's discarded toys.

"You shouldn't stand so close to the edge," a voice called from behind her. "The boundary shifts sometimes. People disappear."

Asha didn't turn. She knew the voice—Kell, one of the settlement guards. Another refugee. Another survivor.

"Is that meant to frighten me?" she asked, still watching the hypnotic movement of shadows across the broken landscape.

She sensed rather than saw Kell's approach, his footsteps nearly silent on the packed earth. He'd been a hunter in Sylvanwood, before. Now he hunted different things—answers, mostly. Safety, when it could be found.

"Not frighten. Warn." He stood beside her now, a tall figure with skin the color of dark honey and eyes that had seen too much. Like everyone else. "Reyna asked me to find you. Council meeting's been called."

This made Asha turn. "Again? We just had one yesterday."

Kell's expression remained neutral, but tension radiated from him like heat. "Another settlement gone. Briar's Grove."

The name struck like a physical blow. Asha had traded with people from Briar's Grove just two weeks ago—a small outpost built where a fragment of Stoneheart had collided with the desert edge of Embersand. Forty-three people, last she'd heard.

"Gone how?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. There were only so many ways to disappear in this new world.

"The Breach expanded. Overnight. No warning." Kell looked away, toward the horizon where a faint crimson glow never quite faded. "No survivors reported yet."

Asha closed her eyes. Breathed in air that smelled of salt and ash and growing things—scents that should never have mingled. When she opened them again, the world remained broken.

"I'll come," she said. "Let me get my things."

---

The council chamber of Confluence occupied what had once been a grand trading hall in Tidehaven. Half of the ornate ceiling had collapsed during the Cataclysm, leaving the room open to a sky that no longer belonged solely to any realm. The remaining architecture—graceful columns of coral and pearl—stood in stark contrast to the makeshift wooden tables and benches that now filled the space.

Twenty-three people sat in a rough semicircle when Asha entered. Representatives from all five realms, though fewer from Stoneheart and Embersand now. Their numbers dwindled with each passing week.

Reyna stood at the center, her silver hair catching the strange light that filtered through the broken ceiling. A leader by necessity rather than ambition, she had united the first survivors to establish Confluence. Now she looked tired, the lines around her eyes deeper than they had been even a week ago.

"Asha," she acknowledged with a slight nod. "We can begin."

Asha took her place at the edge of the assembly, beside an empty chair. Marek was late again, or perhaps not coming at all. The old astronomer from Skyrift spent more time watching the chaotic movements of the stars than attending meetings these days. She couldn't blame him.

Reyna didn't waste time with formalities. "Briar's Grove is gone. The Breach expanded approximately twenty miles eastward sometime during the night. We've had no communication from anyone within the settlement."

Murmurs rippled through the assembly. A woman from Embersand—Asha couldn't recall her name—stood abruptly. "That's the third expansion this month. The pattern is accelerating."

"We don't know that," countered a Stoneheart mason named Duren. "The expansions have been irregular. There is no discernible pattern."

"Yet," said the woman, her dark eyes flashing. "No pattern *yet*."

"Regardless," Reyna interrupted, "we need to adjust the evacuation plans. If the Breach continues to expand in that direction, the eastern settlements will need to be relocated. Vamir, what's our capacity here?"

A broad-shouldered man with intricate tattoos covering his arms consulted a leather-bound ledger. "We're already housing twice the population we planned for. Food stores are sufficient for another month, maybe two if we implement stricter rationing. Water is becoming problematic—the eastern wells are showing signs of contamination."

"From what?" asked Duren.

Vamir's expression darkened. "The water runs silvery at times, like liquid metal. Three people fell ill after drinking from the well nearest the border yesterday. One is not expected to survive the night."

Silence fell over the assembly. Asha felt a familiar tightness in her chest, the precursor to the dreams that had plagued her since the Cataclysm. Dreams of falling through endless crimson light, of voices speaking in languages that hurt to hear.

"We should send another expedition to the Nexus Spire," she said, the words escaping before she could reconsider them.

All eyes turned to her. Asha rarely spoke at these gatherings.

"The last expedition lost half its members," Reyna reminded her gently. "And returned with no useful information."

"They didn't have the right people," Asha insisted. The pressure in her chest intensified, a certainty she couldn't explain filling her. "They didn't have anyone who could *see*."

"See what?" The question came from Elar, a former Sylvanwood Grove Warden whose left arm ended in a stump wrapped with vines that somehow stayed green despite being cut from their source.

Asha hesitated. How could she explain what she barely understood herself? The moments when reality seemed to thin around her, revealing seams in the world like stitches in fabric. The way she sometimes knew where the boundaries would shift before they did.

"The Veil," she said finally. "The thing that broke."

Skeptical glances were exchanged around the chamber. Only Reyna's expression remained thoughtful, considering.

"There have been... reports," Reyna said carefully. "Individuals who claim certain sensitivities since the Cataclysm. Abilities that cannot be easily explained by conventional magic."

"Madness and superstition," scoffed Duren. "We need solutions based in reality, not delusions."

"What reality would that be?" The voice came from the entrance to the chamber. Marek stood there, his gaunt frame silhouetted against the strange twilight outside. "The one where five separate worlds collided overnight? The one where water flows uphill in some regions and fire burns cold in others? Please, enlighten me about this *reality* you speak of."

The old astronomer moved into the chamber with a grace that belied his age, taking the empty seat beside Asha. He smelled of ozone and ink, and his eyes—pale blue with flecks of silver—seemed to look through people rather than at them.

"The expedition to the Spire failed because they approached it as explorers," Marek continued. "They should have gone as supplicants."

"Supplicants to what?" demanded the Embersand woman.

Marek's smile was thin and without humor. "To whatever broke our world, of course. To whatever is watching us now from the spaces between spaces."

Uncomfortable silence fell over the assembly. Asha felt a chill despite the warm air, remembering how in her dreams, something always watched from the crimson void. Something ancient and patient and hungry.

Reyna cleared her throat. "We've received communications from representatives of The Concord. Lady Seraphina will be arriving tomorrow to discuss cooperation between settlements."

This announcement sent a wave of tension through the room. The Concord had formed just weeks after the Cataclysm—a movement dedicated to embracing the merging of realms rather than fighting against it. Their influence had grown rapidly, particularly in areas where the merging had been less violent.

"We don't need their kind of help," Duren said, voicing what many clearly thought. "Their experiments with merged magics have caused more harm than good."

"They've also successfully stabilized three settlements that would have otherwise been lost," Reyna countered. "We cannot afford to reject potential allies based on philosophical disagreements."

"It's more than philosophical," Elar interjected, the vines on his stump writhing slightly as his agitation grew. "The Concord believes the Cataclysm was *meant* to happen. How can we trust people who celebrate what destroyed our homes? Our families?"

The debate erupted then, voices rising as accusations and arguments flew across the chamber. Asha remained silent, watching. The divisions were growing deeper—between those who wanted to restore what was lost and those who sought to build something new from the wreckage.

Beside her, Marek leaned closer. "The Concord is not wrong," he murmured, his voice for her ears alone. "Neither are they entirely right. The truth, as always, lies in the spaces between certainties."

"You've seen something in the stars," Asha guessed, studying the old man's face.

His laugh was barely audible beneath the ongoing arguments. "The stars? My dear, the stars are as confused as we are. No, I've seen something in *you*. In others like you. The patterns are becoming clearer."

Before she could ask what he meant, a commotion at the entrance drew everyone's attention. A scout staggered into the chamber, his clothes torn and singed, face streaked with what looked like ash and blood.

"Attack," he gasped, collapsing to his knees. "North perimeter. They came through—through the forest edge. Not human—not entirely."

Reyna was on her feet instantly, the argument forgotten. "Vamir, sound the alarm. Elar, get the healers ready. Everyone else, to your stations—this is not a drill."

The chamber erupted into controlled chaos as people rushed to their assigned emergency positions. Asha moved to follow, but Marek's hand closed around her wrist with surprising strength.

"This is how it begins," he said, his eyes suddenly clear and focused. "Listen carefully: when the second sky tears open, find me at the eastern well. Bring anyone else who sees the seams."

"What's coming through?" she asked, fear coiling in her stomach.

Marek's expression was grim. "The harbingers. First come the lesser ones, twisted reflections of what once was. Then will come those who speak with borrowed voices. Then the hunger itself."

A distant roar shook the very foundations of the hall, followed by screams and the distinctive crackling sound of magic being unleashed. Asha pulled free of the old man's grip.

"I have to help," she said, reaching for the knife at her belt—a poor weapon, but all she had.

Marek nodded. "Go. But remember what I said. The eastern well, when the second sky breaks. The pattern is accelerating now. We have days at most."

Asha ran toward the commotion, joining the flow of defenders heading to the northern perimeter. The pressure in her chest had become a persistent pain, and at the edges of her vision, she could see it—fine lines of crimson light, like cracks in glass, spreading across reality itself.

The Veil was thinning. Something was coming through.

And somehow, she knew, it had been looking for her all along.

As she raced toward the sounds of battle, the first drops of silver rain began to fall from a sky that had never known clouds, hissing where they struck the ground like acid on stone. Above, through a tear in the fabric of the world that hadn't been there moments before, a second sky became visible—a void of swirling crimson where stars moved with deliberate purpose.

The harbingers had arrived, and the true breaking of the world had only just begun.