Chapter 16: The shards of sorrow

The hollow borne was gone.

Its body had crumbled, but the air hadn't cleared. The space it left behind still pulsed with something heavy. The remnants didn't settle, it lingered, like it wasn't finished.

Riven stood for a long while, blade lowered, blood still drying down his side. The Rune in his chest had burned hot after the fight, sealing the wound, but the pain hadn't fully left.

Veyla watched him silently. She didn't speak. She didn't need to.

They both felt it.

The hollow borne hadn't been just a remnant. It had been someone. Someone broken, hollowed, turned into a reflection. And for a few minutes in that fight, Riven hadn't been sure if he'd come out the one.

They moved on quietly. Not far. Just away from the body of the hollow borne.

Down a cracked stone path that looked like it had once been part of an old Cinder stronghold, long swallowed by roots and rot.

The sky above had faded to soft gray, the light still distant and cold. The trees grew crooked here. Split down the middle. Burnt from the inside out.

None of them grew leaves, more like dead trees.

The path led toward a narrow ravine, where the earth curved inwards like something massive had landed there centuries ago.

And in the middle of it all stood a tree.

Just one, alone.

It was half-dead, hollow at the base. Its roots coiled like veins, clutching the broken ground. No leaves. No rot. Just dark, cracked bark and a steady red pulse glowing along its core.

Veyla tensed.

"You feel that?" she asked.

Riven nodded. "Yeah."

It wasn't remnants.

Or Grace.

Something different.

He stepped toward the tree slowly. The closer he got, the harder his Rune burned, not in warning, but more like it recognised the tree. It was like the mark knew this place. Knew the pulse in the bark.

At the base of the tree was a hollow, jagged and deep, like a wound. He crouched in front of it and reached inside, brushing past a layer of cold ash.

His fingers found something smooth.

He pulled it free.

It was a fragment. A broken rune.

The shard fit in his palm. It was made of something ancient, not metal, not stone. Its surface was carved with lines too delicate to fully read, all flickering in and out of view. It glowed dimly, but not with power. With grief.

The moment he touched it, his chest tightened.

The air disappeared from his lungs like he'd been punched in the soul.

A weight settled on him. Not physical. Just sad.

He stumbled back a step.

"Riven?" Veyla started toward him.

He held up a hand. "I'm fine."

But he wasn't.

The Rune across his chest had begun to glow on its own. A low throb, syncing with the shard. He set the fragment down gently, but it hovered, floating in the air for a breath before lowering onto a flat root like it had chosen the spot itself.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

That night, he couldn't sleep.

The weight of it pressed against him even from where it sat, half-wrapped in cloth near the fire.

Veyla had taken the first watch. She kept glancing over at it like it might move again.

But it didn't.

Riven closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧

Ash. Endless.

Gray sky, flat as glass. No wind. No sun.

He stood in a field of bones.

The ground cracked beneath each step. The bones weren't just human. Some were massive. Twisted. Warped creatures from a world before this one.

At the far end of the field, he saw something

A beast.

It was huge, towering, skeletal, wrapped in burned flesh and broken metal. Its ribs stretched wide like a collapsed cathedral, and its face was hidden under a mass of bone and ash.

It didn't move, but it watched him from afar.

Then it spoke.

Not aloud.

Inside his head

A whisper behind his eyes.

"You carry what cannot be held."

The Rune on his chest pulsed softly

"A shard of sorrow. A wound that remembers."

Riven stepped forward, drawn by the presence.

The beast's limbs twitched slightly, like it hadn't moved in centuries and was remembering how to move. Its voice came again, dry and layered, like a hundred voices whispering over each other.

"Bind the shard."

The world around Riven began to flicker. The bones shifted. The ground cracked again.

" And Forge your name."

The dream exploded in light...

And he woke gasping.

He sat up quickly.

The fire was still low. Veyla looked up from where she'd been sharpening her blade. "Another nightmare?"

"No," he said. "A message."

She raised an eyebrow.

He picked up the shard. It felt warmer now.

"It spoke in my dreams."

She didn't laugh. Didn't scoff.

She just waited for a moment.

"It called itself sorrow. Said I had to bind it and forge my name into it."

Veyla frowned. "Did it say why?"

"No."

He held the shard up, and the Rune responded. A faint line of light ran from his chest to the broken piece.

The connection wasn't complete.

"I think it's a piece of something greater," he said. "A Great Rune, maybe."

Veyla's eyes narrowed. "You know what that means."

He nodded.

"More shards."

"More dreams," she added.

"More risk."

Riven wrapped the shard in cloth and tied it to his belt.

The pressure in his chest hadn't eased.

If anything, it had grown sharper.

The tree no longer pulsed behind them. The hollow was empty now, like it had passed something on and was glad to be rid of it.

He didn't blame it.

The Rune on his chest whispered quietly in the silence.

In grief.