Shards of What Remains

Lynchie awoke to the sharp scent of ozone and blood.

The ground beneath her was no longer trembling, but the memory of the Spiral rift's roar echoed in her bones. Her skin tingled with the residual burn of raw magic—Spiral threads still laced her veins like molten wire, refusing to settle. Her breath came in shallow, uneven gasps. She was alive, but something had changed. No, not something—everything.

She pushed herself upright, groaning as her muscles protested. Around her, the battlefield lay in eerie silence. The rift she had sealed with her own essence was now a jagged scar in the stone—cracked and bleeding a thin mist of silver. The Mirror-Spoken had vanished in the moment of the rupture's collapse, scattered like shards of shadow. But she knew better than to believe they were truly gone.

"Easy," a voice murmured.

Zev.

She turned toward him, and his presence hit her harder than the pain in her chest. His face was streaked with soot and blood, but his eyes—those storm-dark eyes—were locked on her with a fury held just beneath the surface. Fury and something else.

"Are you trying to die?" he asked, voice low, hoarse, trembling with emotion he refused to show.

"I stopped it," she whispered. "The rift… it's closed."

"For now." He crouched beside her, brushing dirt from her arm with a gentleness that warred with the anger in his tone. "You burned yourself out. I felt it. You nearly let the Spiral consume you."

"It called to me," she said, voice thin. "Like it knew me. Like it wanted to finish what it started."

Zev looked away, jaw clenched. "It did."

Lynchie blinked. "What do you mean?"

He rose, pacing. "That seal wasn't just a rupture—it was bait. The enemy knew you'd respond. Knew you wouldn't walk away. You were meant to burn out, Lynchie. You were the key, and now you're the lock."

The air thickened between them.

"I had no choice," she said. "People would've died. More rifts would have opened."

"I know," Zev said. "And that's the worst part. They used your compassion. Your courage. You played right into their hands."

His voice cracked then, and he turned away.

Lynchie's heart twisted.

"I don't regret it," she said softly. "Even if it breaks me. I'll keep sealing them. I'll keep fighting."

"And when there's nothing left of you?" Zev snapped, spinning back to face her. "What happens when the Spiral finishes what it started and there's no Lynchie left—only power in a shape that used to be you?"

She stood, unsteady. "Then you stop me."

His breath caught.

"You think I could?" he whispered.

Silence bloomed.

Then, from the far ridge, a horn cried out—long, low, and warbled. A warning.

Zev's head snapped toward the sound. "Scouts," he said. "From the west. That's our border signal."

A second horn answered. East. Then another from the south.

Lynchie felt it before he said it.

"They're surrounding us," she murmured. "The war's moving faster than we thought."

Zev's expression hardened. "Too fast. Someone's guiding their hand. The Mirror-Spoken wouldn't coordinate like this unless…"

He didn't finish.

But Lynchie's stomach turned with the same realization.

The enemy was no longer fractured.

Someone was leading them.

And she had a sinking feeling she already knew who.

Drexen.

Alive. Changed. And worse—aware.

"We need to move," Zev said. "Now."

Lynchie nodded, swallowing fear with resolve. Her fingers curled as she summoned a pulse of Spiral energy—dim, reluctant, but present. It shimmered blue-white across her palm, less fire, more ice now. Shaped. Sharpened.

A new phase of the Spiral.

She didn't yet understand what she had become—but she could feel it growing.

Behind them, shadows stirred in the mist.

And from far away, almost too faint to catch, came a whisper carried on the Spiral's unseen current.

Not sealed. Only diverted.

Lynchie's blood ran cold.