Quanus

Ten years ago, the Fragments fell from the sky and the world changed forever. Those who touched them either died… or became something else. The Broken: twisted beings with powers shaped by their deepest emotions.

Kade Veylan isn’t one of them. At least, that’s what he thought until his dormant Fragment begins to pulse, whisper, and speak:
“You were never meant to have just one power.”

On a world without modern technology, where nature is ancient and alive, and monsters that consume Fragments gain powers of their own, Kade begins his journey.
Not for power.
But for truth.

echoes of Sirius

The streets feel stretched tonight.

Not longer. Just… wrong. Distorted, like a dream you remember backwards. Lamps flicker in sync with nothing. Doors are closed tighter than usual. Windows darken when I pass, like the city doesn't want to be seen.

I walk the ridge path that winds toward Ena Varis's tower. It's one of the few ways through Oldroot this late narrow and crooked, lined with ash colored ivy that sways despite the still air. The bricks beneath my feet are uneven, as if some part of the city is trying to forget how it was built.

I pass the hollow name tree again. The charms tied to its branches now sway faintly, even though there's no wind.

One of them rattles once. A sharp, dry sound.

I take a wrong turn. Or maybe it's the right one.

I don't realize I've left the main ridge path until the fog thickens around my boots and the buildings lean in, heavy with shadow.

Here, the silence is different. It's not absence it's presence.

Something's watching the silence. Holding it. Weighing it.

A single figure at the end of the alley, standing still beneath a crumbling archway. Not masked like the Veilbound, but strange in another way his eyes shine faintly, and there's a shimmer around his shoulders, like heat off stone. The ground beneath him hums.

Just a motion and the stone wall beside him folds open.

Folds. Not cracks, not shifts. Folds like memory unfolding itself into a new shape.

Behind the stone is light. But not light that illuminates it remembers. Like it once knew how to glow but has since forgotten why.

My Fragment pulses. Not like fear. Like awe. Like it recognizes him.

"You haven't bled you're memory yet."

And the air bends with him like even the street wants to forget he was ever here.

The alley straightens. The wall is whole again. Only the faintest breath of warmth lingers in the place where he stood.

My Fragment hammers in my chest. My mouth tastes like dust and static.

That was no dream. No illusion. That was real or as real as anything is now.

Not older. Not wiser. Just… less certain I belong to the same world I woke up in.

By the time I reach Ena's tower, the moon is high and sharp.

She opens the door before I knock.

She turns before me, already walking.

"You saw someone," she says over her shoulder.

The memory that moved