Chapter 10: Shards of Vision

The first scream tore itself from Nikolai's throat without permission.

It wasn't the sound of fear. It was the raw, primal noise of something being unmade and remade at once.

The pain came in waves, each one worse than the last. Fire raced through his veins, freezing into shards of ice that tore at him from the inside out. His muscles locked, then convulsed violently, flinging him onto his side. His hands clawed at the stone floor, nails cracking and bleeding, but he barely noticed.

He wanted to breathe. He couldn't. Every gasp scraped like glass down his throat.

In the buzzing haze of his agony, flashes of vision splintered across his mind— a child's laughter turning into screams; a city skyline swallowed by roiling black clouds; a white-hot river of molten light pouring through endless cracks in the earth.

And behind it all—

The Eye.

Vast. Geometric. Unblinking.

It stared down through reality itself, vast and indifferent, a watcher at the edge of everything. Wanda's silent audience. The same presence that had haunted the edges of her cabin now stared directly at him.

There was no malice in it.

No mercy either.

Just cold, endless observation.

The moment stretched, unbearable.

And then the pain slammed back into him with renewed force.

Nikolai screamed again, the sound shredding his throat raw.

He felt—

His bones shifting under his skin, grinding like millstones.

His teeth aching, as if something inside them struggled to be free.

His heartbeat stuttering, then surging forward, faster, louder, like a war drum.

The world blurred at the edges. Shapes distorted, colors bled together. His senses screamed, overloaded.

He tasted the stone under him. Felt the heat of the oil lamps burning his skin from across the room. Heard Wanda's steady breathing over the thunder of his own collapsing body.

Through it all, she watched.

Wanda stood silent by the altar, her hands folded loosely before her, blue eyes reflecting the chaos with an unnerving calm. She made no move to help him. No words of comfort.

This was his burden to bear.

The ritual demanded it.

Something inside Nikolai—something raw and feral—snapped.

His body jerked violently upright. His hands—clawed and bloodied—dug into the floor as he tried to haul himself forward, away from the pain, away from the altar.

Instinct roared in his ears.

Escape.

Kill.

Survive.

He lunged blindly, not thinking, not seeing—just moving.

Toward Wanda.

She didn't flinch.

She stepped aside with fluid, almost casual grace. Her gaze locked with his, sharp and impossibly blue, and one hand lifted, sketching a brief, almost dismissive gesture in the air between them.

Nikolai felt it first—a jarring, concussive wrongness that slammed into him mid-leap, sending him sprawling backwards onto the stone floor. It felt like colliding with a solid wall that hadn't been there a heartbeat ago. Dazed, gasping, he glanced back and found Wanda lowering her hand slowly, no ripple in the air, no crack of displaced energy—only the phantom echo of a blow that had never physically landed, confusion and pain twisting through his senses.

He lay there, twitching, panting, the world tilting wildly around him.

"Still yourself," Wanda said, her voice cutting through the haze like a blade. "Or you will tear what remains of you apart."

He tried.

Gods, he tried.

But the thing inside him—the hunger, the need—was awake now. Coiling through his veins, whispering promises of strength, of survival, of more.

Another spasm wracked his body. His vision split into shards of jagged light.

He tasted blood—his own—and something else. Something sweeter. Darker.

One moment he was on the floor.

The next, he was at Wanda's feet, his hand wrapped weakly around her ankle.

She looked down at him—and froze.

For the first time, Wanda's expression shifted.

Her eyes widened—and within their depths, the world tilted.

The vision struck like a hammerblow.

She saw him— blood dripping from his fingers.

Saw herself—falling to her knees, throat torn open.

Saw the world cracking apart around him, as if he were a splinter driven into the heart of reality.

A calamity.

Her death. Certain. Inevitable.

Unless she ended it now.

Cold calculation swept across her face.

She moved.