The air grew heavier with each step toward the Rift, as though the world was thickening around Mael and Seris. The sky above them dimmed unnaturally, despite the sun rising somewhere behind the clouds. A low hum vibrated across the barren plain—subtle at first, then unmistakably alive.
Seris tightened her cloak around her shoulders. "It feels as if something is watching us from everywhere at once."
"It is," Mael replied.
He didn't look at her. His gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon where the Rift pulsed with shifting bands of pale blue and sickly purple light. Each pulse seemed to warp the air around it, bending the landscape like heat haze, except colder—much colder.
Seris forced her voice steady. "When you said you weren't the only one who was reborn…"
Mael slowed but did not stop.
"Who else was?"
"A reflection," he said. "A fragment of what I used to be. Something that should have died with my old world… but didn't."
Seris stepped closer to him. "You mean another person?"
"No. Not a person." He turned slightly, enough for her to see the tension in his jaw. "A force. One that shared my origin. When I fell, when the world shattered, something followed me through the cracks."
Seris swallowed. "Something like that guardian?"
"No. Guardians are made. This… thing was born. Just as I was."
Seris felt a chill run down her spine. "And it's inside the Rift?"
"It is trying to return," Mael said. "And the Rift is its door."
The ground beneath them trembled.
A thin fracture crawled across the earth like a glowing vein. Seris jumped back, but Mael didn't. He crouched and touched the crack. A shard of light shot upward, almost like a spark, before fading into nothing.
"It's spreading faster," he said.
"Can we stop it?"
"Yes."
Seris exhaled with relief—until Mael added,
"But not without confrontation."
The tension followed them as they approached a ridge rising sharply from the plain. At the top, Seris placed a hand on her knee, catching her breath. Then she froze.
"Mael…"
Below them lay a camp—human, or so it seemed at first glance. Tents, scattered supplies, traces of a recent fire. But everything was silent. Too silent.
Mael descended without hesitation.
Seris followed, though every instinct screamed at her to run in the opposite direction. As they neared the camp, she noticed the details: overturned crates, footprints cut off abruptly, weapons dropped mid-motion.
All empty.
She whispered, "Where are the people?"
Mael stopped near the center of the camp. He bent down and picked up a cloak discarded on the ground. It was torn, but not by blades or claws. The fibers were frayed from the inside out.
"Taken," he said.
"By what?"
Mael let the cloak fall. "The same force we're hunting."
The wind stirred, picking up the smell of iron and something faintly sweet—too sweet. Seris covered her nose. "What is that?"
"A residue," Mael said. "Left behind when life is consumed but not killed."
Seris stared at him in horror. "Not killed? Then where are they?"
"Inside the Rift."
Before her mind could shape the full meaning of his words, a soft sound drifted from the far edge of the camp. A whisper. A plea.
Seris froze. "Did you hear that?"
Mael nodded. He drew no weapon; he needed none. His eyes sharpened, focusing on the sound.
They walked slowly toward a collapsed tent half-covered in dirt. As they neared, the whisper grew clearer.
"Help… please…"
Seris rushed forward, lifting the torn fabric.
A man lay curled beneath it—eyes wide, body trembling, face gaunt. But something was wrong. Terribly wrong. His skin shimmered faintly, as though thin layers of light pulsed beneath the surface.
"Mael!" Seris cried. "He's alive!"
Mael approached with caution. The man's pupils dilated at the sight of him. He reached forward, grasping Mael's arm with surprising strength.
"You… you're the same," the man rasped.
Seris blinked. "The same as what?"
The man shook violently. "The same as… as the voice… the voice in the Rift…"
Seris looked at Mael. "What does he mean?"
Mael didn't answer.
The man convulsed suddenly. His body arched, his back contorting at an unnatural angle. A glow spread from his chest, crawling through every vein until his entire form pulsed with shifting colors.
"Get back," Mael said.
Seris obeyed without question.
The man screamed—not in pain, but as if something inside him was being torn free. Light burst from his eyes and mouth. His skin began to dissolve into particles, peeling away in thin glowing threads.
Seris covered her mouth in horror. "Mael—he's disappearing!"
"No," Mael said. "He's awakening."
The man's scream ended abruptly. His head snapped upward, staring at a point beyond either of them—toward the Rift.
Then the voice came.
Not the man's voice. Something deeper. Something layered. Something impossible.
"Return…"
Seris staggered back. "Mael—what was that?!"
Mael's expression darkened. "A summons."
The man's body collapsed into dust. The glowing particles drifted upward and vanished into the air.
Seris felt a tremor of fear she couldn't swallow. "Mael… what's in the Rift?"
Mael took a step back from the fading remnants of the man's body. He stared at the horizon, where the Rift pulsed again—stronger this time, as if responding to the man's transformation.
"A consciousness," he said. "One that once walked beside me in another life. One that learned hunger the same moment I learned restraint."
Seris clenched her fists. "You're saying this… thing… was like you?"
Mael nodded once.
"Not identical. Not equal. But born from the same origin. A sibling in power, opposite in purpose."
Seris felt her knees weaken. "Then if it's waking… what does it want?"
Mael's voice was calm, but the cold edge beneath it could cut stone.
"It wants my place."
The plain trembled again, as if the earth itself reacted to his words.
Seris swallowed, gripping her dagger tightly. "And what happens if it reaches the world outside the Rift?"
Mael looked at her fully for the first time since entering the camp.
"Then this world will break faster than the last."
Seris felt her breath hitch.
The Rift glowed brighter, pulsing with a rhythm that no longer felt random.
It felt like a heartbeat.
"Mael," she whispered, "can we truly stop something like that?"
"Yes," he said.
"How?"
Mael began walking again—toward the Rift.
"By ending what I should have ended long ago."
Seris rushed after him. "You're not going alone."
Mael didn't answer, but he didn't slow either. His silence was acceptance enough.
The wind rose as they left the abandoned camp, carrying faint echoes of voices that were not voices—whispers that had never belonged to mortals. The closer they walked to the Rift, the more the world seemed to shift beneath their feet. The ground pulsed subtly. The sky quivered. The air thickened until each breath felt heavy.
Seris pressed a hand to her chest. "It feels like the world is breathing."
"It is," Mael said. "The boundaries are thinning."
"And the other one? Your… counterpart?"
"He is watching."
Seris almost turned around before Mael added:
"But he cannot reach us yet."
As they crested the final hill, the Rift lay exposed before them in full view—a massive tear in the landscape, stretching across the earth like a glowing wound. Pillars of light rose from its center, twisting upward into the sky. The edges shimmered like liquid glass.
Seris stared, breath stolen from her lungs. "It's… beautiful."
"And deadly," Mael said. "Everything beautiful about it exists for the purpose of consuming."
The wind howled through the opening, carrying a distant sound—like laughter echoing through an endless cavern.
Seris shuddered. "Mael… it knows we're here."
"Yes."
"What now?"
Mael stepped forward.
"Now," he said, "we answer its call."
And together, they walked toward the light.