There was no ground.
No sky.
No sense of direction — only a weightless, suffocating drift through colorless space.
Kael wasn't falling.
He was existing, suspended like dust in a void where time itself didn't bother to breathe.
For a while — seconds or centuries — he couldn't move.
He floated, limbs slack, breath thin.
The shard Eryth had given him was still clutched in his hand, faintly warm, like a pulse trying to guide him somewhere unseen.
His Mark flickered weakly along his arm.
Not dead.
Not alive either.
Something in between.
A whisper slithered through the dark.
"Vessel."
Kael's eyes snapped open.
The darkness shifted.
It wasn't empty — it was alive.
Shapes emerged through the void, like ink bleeding through water. Faces flickered in the mass — human, beast, deformed — screaming silently before melting into shadow again.
A chill crawled up Kael's spine.
This was not the mortal world.
Not the spirit world.
It was the border — the thin, forbidden plane where the dead waited for purpose… or prey.
The In-Between.
Kael forced himself to speak, voice raw and shaking.
"Why am I here?"
The void answered with another voice — deeper, layered, echoing like many mouths speaking through one.
"Because you are incomplete."
Something stirred ahead — massive, ancient.
Kael felt its presence before he could see it, like gravity folding around a star.
The shadows peeled away like curtains.
A colossal figure emerged.
Not a man. Not a beast.
A being woven of pure eclipse — half radiant silver, half suffocating black.
Eyes like dying suns stared down at Kael, vast and emotionless.
Kael's breath broke.
He knew what he was looking at.
Not the Sovereign — not yet — but a fragment.
A Herald of the Eclipse.
It hovered above him, each movement bending reality in ripples.
"Three keys shape the fate of worlds," it intoned.
"You carry one. The second is sought. The third sleeps beneath forgotten bones."
Kael swallowed, voice cracking. "Why show me this? Why bring me here?"
"Because the Mark is awakening."
The Herald's voice was a tidal surge of command and inevitability.
"You must wield it — or it will consume you."
Kael closed his eyes.
He saw Lyra's hand slipping away.
Eryth's warning.
Ryzen's smirk before escaping into the dark.
His teeth clenched.
"What must I do?"
The void quivered — as if amused by his resolve.
"You must learn control."
Before he could question, the Herald stretched one massive hand downward.
Shadows poured from its palm — liquid, suffocating — wrapping around Kael like chains. Cold sank into his throat, his chest, burning through his veins and soul itself.
Kael gasped, choking.
Images flooded his mind like broken glass.
He saw a battlefield drowning in moonless fire.
He saw Ryzen crowned in shadows, wielding power that tore mountains apart.
He saw Lyra standing alone in ruins, eyes hollow with loss.
He saw himself — but not human anymore — half-shadow, half-light, a being balancing destruction and salvation with every breath.
The vision snapped.
Kael hit something solid — not stone, not earth, but a plane of reflective obsidian.
His own reflection stared back at him — pale, exhausted, eyes ringed with something dark and feral.
The reflection moved even when he didn't.
Its voice was his own — but older, colder.
"You fear what you are becoming."
Kael's heartbeat thrashed.
His reflection smiled.
"Good."
The ground shattered beneath him.
Kael fell again — this time into memory.
He stood in a small house.
Warm firelight flickered against wooden walls.
A woman's voice hummed softly — familiar, distant.
His mother.
Kael's knees nearly buckled.
She stood at the hearth stirring soup, her back turned, hair tied with a frayed blue ribbon — the one she always wore when he was a child.
Kael whispered, "Mother…"
She paused.
Slowly — painfully slowly — she turned.
Her eyes weren't warm like before.
They were silver-flecked, distant, ancient.
"Kael," she said with a voice not fully her own.
He stepped forward despite the dread clawing his ribs.
"You… you're here? How? Are you—"
She reached up, placing a hand to his cheek.
Her touch was warm.
Real.
It hurt more than the void ever could.
Her voice trembled with love — or the memory of love.
"My son… the world was cruel to you. Even before the Mark."
Kael felt tears sting his eyes.
"I never wanted this path for you," she whispered. "But destiny does not wait for permission."
Her image faltered — flickering like a candle in a storm.
Kael reached for her.
"Don't go. Please — not again. Not like this."
She smiled — sad, proud, broken.
"You must be stronger than your grief, Kael. Stronger than the fear of what you may become."
She leaned close, her forehead touching his.
"The Sovereign cannot be met with hesitation. Only resolve."
The world trembled.
Her form dissolved into silver dust.
Kael grasped at the falling fragments, voice fracturing.
"WAIT—!"
The dust slipped through his fingers.
The void consumed everything.
Darkness swallowed him again.
But something inside had changed.
His grief — once a wound — now burned like fuel.
He stood.
Not weightless — grounded.
Not lost — pulled forward by something burning in his chest.
His Mark flared — bright as starlight, dark as the abyss, balanced and alive.
Kael exhaled — steady.
The Herald's voice returned, thunder and whisper one.
"The vessel chooses its path."
Kael raised his head.
His voice was calm — trembling, but awake.
"I choose to fight."
The void rippled — as if acknowledging him.
The Herald extended its arm — not offering power, but recognizing strength.
"Then awaken, child of the crossing."
Light erupted.
Kael's body dissolved — but not into nothing.
Into motion.
Into purpose.
Reality snapped.
His eyes opened —
and he stood at the edge of the Forgotten Mire.
Chapter 16 ends.