Chapter 8: The Girl in the Cage

Kaelen waited.

From the high ridge of black stone and moss, he watched the flickering lights below—too precise to be chance, too harsh to be natural. The camp sprawled like a festering wound across the valley floor, an ugly grid of tents, metallic towers, and makeshift walls cobbled together from Riftbone and scavenged alloys.

At the center stood the cage.

The girl inside didn't move.

But Kaelen felt her. More acutely than he wanted to admit. Like a sliver of memory in the shape of a person—distant and familiar, beautiful and horrifying.

She wasn't like the soldiers.

They wore armor scarred by more than battle—etched with protective wards and crude enchantments, as if they feared something far more dangerous than her.

They should.

Kaelen watched one of the men toss something into the cage. A chunk of raw Riftstone—black, pulsing faintly. It rolled across the floor and came to rest beside her bare foot.

Still, she didn't move.

Not even to blink.

He narrowed his eyes. That wasn't sedation.

It was suppression.

They were trying to drown something inside her.

Whatever it was, the thread around Kaelen's wrist pulsed with agitation—more than that, anticipation. Like a hound scenting blood.

He whispered to the night, "I'm not here to be a savior."

But something about her made the shadows twist around his fingers.

He began moving.

The first guard died without a sound.

Kaelen emerged from the dark like it had spat him out. His thread-wrapped hand lashed out—sharp as a razor—and cut through the man's throat in one fluid motion. The body was dragged back into the black, never hitting the ground.

Two more fell by the outer perimeter.

He moved with impossible silence. Bent angles of space. Twisted matter to fold around him like a cloak. The gifts—if they could be called that—were no longer random. They answered when he called.

Like they had always belonged to him.

He reached the inner ring without detection.

That's when things changed.

As Kaelen approached the cage, the girl's eyes opened.

Not slow. Not startled.

Just wide and clear—as if she'd been watching him all along.

They were violet. And ancient.

He froze.

She smiled.

The wards around the cage flared.

And the camp exploded into chaos.

Lights erupted. Sirens blared. Men shouted orders, and strange hovering constructs zipped into the air, scanning, flashing beams of light across the night.

Too late.

Kaelen was already inside.

He stepped through the veil of defensive glyphs as they failed one by one, unraveling like paper in fire. The black thread lashed out, tearing through seals that had held back storms.

She sat cross-legged.

"Interesting," she said, her voice like silk soaked in moonlight.

Kaelen didn't answer. He reached out, intending to slice through her bonds.

But they fell apart on their own.

She rose to her feet, her chains clattering like dead snakes. She was tall, wrapped in tattered fabric that shifted unnaturally, like it wasn't cloth at all.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She tilted her head.

"I remember you," she said.

His heart missed a beat.

"No," he replied flatly. "You don't."

"I do," she whispered, stepping past him. "Not who you are. But what you will become."

The shadows around her bent toward him.

Not out of threat. Recognition.

Then the screaming began.

Kaelen turned in time to see a ripple of force tear through the inner camp. Soldiers flew like dolls, some crushed midair. One of the floating constructs blinked out of existence, sliced in half by something invisible.

She hadn't moved.

He stepped in front of her.

"We're not done here," he growled.

"No," she agreed. "We've only just started."

A roar echoed across the valley.

It wasn't human.

Kaelen looked up.

The sky was splitting.

A Rift was opening—not small, not controlled. Raw. Unstable. Pouring black light down like venom. And from it came something vast. Hulking. Wrapped in chains of golden flame.

A Riftborn Titan.

The camp broke instantly. Soldiers scattered. Some fired blindly. Others simply fell to their knees in horror.

Kaelen grabbed the girl's arm.

"We're leaving."

She looked at him, amused.

"You'll need to say 'please.'"

He didn't.

He wove space.

The world cracked.

They vanished.

They reappeared miles away, atop a jagged ridge overlooking the devastation. From here, the Rift's edges looked like cracks in a mirror, spreading wide. The Titan stepped out fully now, dragging its chained limbs like thunder across the landscape.

Kaelen let her go.

"You could've killed them all," he said.

She shrugged. "They weren't mine to kill."

He stared.

"I need answers."

She sat again, this time on a flat rock, legs tucked beneath her. Her hair shimmered oddly in the moonless light.

"I'm not here to answer questions. I'm here to watch you remember."

Kaelen clenched his jaw. "You knew me?"

"In one thread, yes."

"What does that mean?"

She pointed at the horizon, where the Rift continued bleeding light.

"You're not from here, Kaelen. None of us are."

He frowned. "That's not a real answer."

"No," she said, smiling. "It's a beginning."

That night, they camped without fire.

The girl—who refused to give her name—slept with her back to a stone arch, arms folded, eyes flickering beneath their lids. Kaelen didn't sleep.

The world had changed.

Again.

And so had he.

But not enough.

He stared at his hand, at the thread.

At the sky.

At the Rift that had begun to spread like a wound in reality.

He thought of the mural.

Of the shadow-wreathed figure reaching into the sky.

Of the voice that told him to walk until the world forgot him.

His path wasn't chosen.

But it was unavoidable.

Tomorrow, they would head north—toward the dead cities spoken of in ruined glyphs. Toward the truth behind the Sealed Path.

Toward something he was no longer sure he wanted to remember.

The girl in the cage had said one thing right:

This was just the beginning.