[Another Dream]
The air in the cave still shimmered faintly from Eris' awakening; the silver glow that had flared in his veins now dimmed to a quiet pulse beneath his skin. The shard they found and the silver from the Seeker were wholly absorbed, yet their echo lingered in the air like heat after lightning.
Neither spoke for a while. The memory Eris had glimpsed through the Seeker's mind: the hunger, its endless pursuit of silver, the ruin it left behind, weighed too heavily for words.
Kaylah sat beside him, her hands grasping his in a tight, trembling clasp. The touch, usually a source of calm for Eris, now seemed to betray her own turmoil. The shared vision and their earlier ordeal had left her shaken, her fingers quivering in his.
"It's too much," she whispered finally. "What it was… what it became."
Eris nodded, his gaze distant. "It sought wholeness. But it forgot what it was made for."
Once, it had hunted only for blood rich with silver, driven by the instinct to feed what its body could no longer sustain.
But in time, the hunger changed. The silver within it remembered; it yearned not for blood alone but for the scattered fragments of what had made it whole. The shards called to it as the Spiral called to Eris, but where Eris heard a voice, the Seeker only heard need.
That was why it no longer prowled merely for prey. It searched for pieces of itself; blind, broken, and yet closer to the truth than it knew.
Silence enveloped them once more; the fire they had kindled earlier was now reduced to a bed of glowing embers that cast long, wavering shadows on the stone walls. Outside, the night creatures' distant calls had ceased, and an expectant hush had fallen over the landscape.
The storm had passed, leaving behind a gentle patter of rain that soothed the air. The rhythmic sound of droplets hitting the ground created a sense of calm, and the warm glow of the embers seemed to wrap itself around them, bringing a fragile peace to the pair.
Fatigue crept over them like a slow tide; the body's surrender after too much wonder and fear. Eris leaned back against the cave wall, his breath evening out, the silver veins along his wrist fading into faint lines of light.
Kaylah stayed awake a little longer, watching him. There was something different about him now; the calm in his face edged with something older, something not entirely human anymore. She reached out, her fingers hovering just above his pulse, and felt it: the rhythm of the silver within him, steady, resonant, alive.
She smiled faintly. "You're changing, Eris," she murmured. "I only hope it's for the right reason."
Sleep came, but not gently. Kaylah drifted between worlds; one half of her trapped in the lingering shimmer of the shard's resonance, the other pulled back into the pulse of memory. The cave dissolved into wind and rain, the scent of earth giving way to something older, sharper, more intimate.
The light in her dream* was the gold of an old afternoon, her family's cottage nestled among the brittle reeds beyond the canyon. Smoke rose from the hearth, curling like a ribbon toward the orange sky. Thunder rumbled somewhere far away. She remembered this moment, or rather, it remembered her.
Her mother knelt on the earthen floor, her hands trembling yet precise as she fastened a small pendant** around Myrah's neck. The pendant was a simple teardrop of dull silver, etched with a faint spiral mark that seemed to hold secrets of its own. It shimmered subtly, as if waiting for the touch of light to awaken its true beauty.
Myrah's eyes were red-rimmed from crying, her small face scrunched up in confusion and fear. Lisei stood frozen, her own questions silenced by the intensity of the moment. She knew better than to ask what it meant; her mother's gaze brooked no argument, a mixture of sadness and determination etched on her face.
"Keep this close, my little one," her mother whispered, her voice thick with something unsaid. "When the wind calls your name, hide. When the earth hums, listen."
Then she turned to Kaylah, brushing the dust from her hair. Her silver-gray eyes, like the clouds before a storm, lingered on her eldest daughter with sorrow and urgency.
"Protect your sisters, Kaylah. Whatever happens, you must take them away from here. The shadows will come for the pendant, not for you."
Kaylah had nodded then, too young to understand what shadows meant, only that her mother's hands were shaking. The pendant caught the last slant of sunlight, glowing faintly before she tucked it beneath Myrah's shirt.
That was the night the storm came, and by morning, her parents were gone.
The dream blurred, and the scene melted into gray mist. Kaylah found herself running through the canyon's edge again, a younger self clutching Myrah's and Lisei's hands while thunder cracked behind them. She remembered the cold, the ache, the silent vow she made: I will protect them. I will find where you've gone.
But another voice seeped into the dream, soft as silk, resonant as the deep hum of the earth.
Her mother's voice echoed again, a memory half-whispered:
"We come from those who remember the world before the crash. Before the silver fell. Keep that memory close, my heart. The Core is not what it seems."
Kaylah slowed, heart pounding.
Before the crash.
The celestial maiden's words to Eris came back to her; the tale of how she shattered when she fell to Earth, scattering her fragments like stars. But her mother… her mother had spoken of it differently. Not as a divine descent, but a calamity.
The dream wavered. For an instant, Kaela saw the sky torn open; silver rain cascading through the void, cities burning, rivers turning to mirrors. And beneath it all, shapes moved: not angels, not gods, but creatures of light and steel trying to contain something they could no longer control.
She gasped, reaching for the vision, but it shattered.
The first light of dawn crept through the cave mouth, silver and pale. Kaylah stirred before Eris did, her breath catching as fragments of the dream clung to her; her mother's voice, the spiral, the fall into the river that saved her life. For a heartbeat, she thought she still heard the whisper of that current beneath the world, calling her by the name she hadn't heard since childhood.
Eris shifted beside her, his body warm against the stone. The glow in his veins flickered once, like a heartbeat echoing hers.
***
[The Broken Ring]
The shard's glow had faded hours ago, leaving only the faint glimmer of moss and the echo of dripping water.
Kaylah moved slowly, lantern trembling in her grasp, her steps careful along the slick stone.
The deeper she went, the more the air changed; thinner, older, tinged with something metallic and familiar.
Silver.
But not alive, not like the pulse that answered Eris; this one was dormant, buried beneath time.
She felt it before she saw it.
A whisper in her bones. A warmth curling under her ribs.
And then the tunnel widened into a hollow chamber, its walls carved with spiraling lines, half-erased by age.
At the center stood an altar of black stone, cracked through the middle, as though split by an ancient quake.
And carved across its face: a circle broken clean in two.
Her breath caught. The shape tugged at something buried in her memory.
Her fingers brushed the edge, tracing the divide that cut the symbol apart.
When her skin met the stone, light flared; it was faint, ghostly silver running along the fissure like veins awakening after long sleep.
Her mother's voice rose unbidden in her mind.
"If they find you, they'll try to bind you. You are not theirs to carry."
The memory came sharper now:
The old cottage beyond the canyon, the orange sky, her mother kneeling beside Myrah, slipping the small pendant around her youngest's neck.
The pendant glowed faintly with the same hue as the cracked sigil now before her.
She had told Kaylah to protect her sisters, but she hadn't said from whom.
Kaylah sank to her knees.
The whispering silver hummed softly, and her thoughts slipped backward through time, or maybe the cavern itself was showing her.
Shadows formed in the air: figures in hooded cloaks, circling the altar, their hands raised.
Their chant was not praise, but a warning.
And she understood the words though she had never heard them before.
"The Ring must break,
for the world to remain whole.
The Core must sleep,
or all shall be remade."
The Broken Ring.
Her mother's mark; the secret her family had carried since the old world. Not worshippers of the Core, but its wardens. They had opposed its awakening, even as others sought to merge with it.
Kaylah's heart pounded. The truth unraveled like a thread:
her family had once stood against the very force Eris now sought to restore.
And if the Silver Maiden's purpose was to gather the fragments, then Kaylah's blood carried the counterweight; the memory of those who had tried to stop it once before.
She touched the sigil again. This time, the light pulsed stronger; it's not threatening, but resonant. It was as if the stone recognized her.
For a brief instant, she saw her mother standing at the altar, the pendant's light glowing at her throat. Her father, behind her, staff in hand, marking the broken ring into the rock.
"We come from those who remember the world before the crash,"
Her mother whispered again.
"Before the silver fell. Keep that memory close, my heart. The Core is not what it seems."
Tears stung her eyes. The vision faded, but its weight stayed. When she rose, her hand was trembling, her mind torn between love and dread.
Eris needed her, and yet, somewhere deep inside, she wondered if the path they followed was the one her mother had tried to prevent.
The lantern sputtered once, catching on the reflection of something at her feet; the faint outline of the broken ring etched into the stone. Around it were smaller spirals, like tiny stars falling inward.
She didn't know whether it was warning her... or calling her forward.
Maybe both.
When Kaylah emerged from the cavern, the dawn had already begun to bleed into the mist; pale gold struggling to pierce the valley's heavy shroud. The rain had stopped, leaving the world cold and heavy, every leaf dripping with the memory of the storm.
Eris was still there, sitting near the mouth of the cave, his eyes closed, the faint trace of silver still glowing in the veins beneath his skin. The shard's resonance hadn't faded entirely; it pulsed softly, like a sleeping heart. His breathing was slow, peaceful; too peaceful for someone who had just touched the Core's will.
For a heartbeat, she just watched him.
There was a gentleness to him now, something she hadn't noticed before, as though the silver had quieted the wild restlessness that used to drive him. But she also saw what the light had left behind: the faint shimmer around his eyes, the way the ground seemed to pulse slightly beneath his touch. The power within him was still shifting, still finding its shape.
She knelt beside him. "You slept?" she asked softly.
He stirred, then nodded, rubbing his eyes. "Barely. The Maiden's voice hasn't left me. Every time I close my eyes, I see the fragments again: the Hollow King, the Spire, the Shadows. It's like she branded them into my mind."
Kaylah forced a small smile. "Maybe that's how she makes sure you won't forget."
He looked at her then, really looked, and something in her gaze must have given her away.
"What about you?" he asked. "You look pale. Did you dream too?"
She hesitated.
How could she tell him that what she'd seen went against the very mission that now defined him?
That her mother's words: the Core must sleep, echoed in her veins louder than the Maiden's call?
"I saw… something," she said finally. "Traces of my family. The place they were before they vanished."
His expression softened. "You think they might still be alive?"
Kaylah swallowed. "I don't know. Maybe. But it felt like… they left something behind. A message, maybe. About the Core."
"What kind of message?"
Her hands tightened around her cloak. "That not everything silver touches should wake."
The words hung between them, fragile as glass.
Eris frowned, confusion knitting his brow. "You mean the Spiral? The fragments? Kaylah—she chose us. You saw it yourself. She's trying to mend what was broken."
"Or remake it," Kaylah said softly. "And if she's wrong?"
The silence that followed was not angry, but heavy; a silence of diverging roads, invisible, but already real.
Eris finally looked away, gazing out into the misted forest. "I don't think she can be wrong. Not after everything I've seen… everything I've felt. The Core wants balance. I can feel it."
Kaylah studied him, her gaze tracing the soft glow beneath his skin, the quiet conviction in his tone. He believed what he said, needed to believe it. And for now, she wouldn't take that away from him.
So she nodded, the lie slipping easily off her tongue. "Then we'll keep following it," she said, her voice measured, "for now." The hesitation was barely perceptible, a flicker of doubt she couldn't quite conceal.
She stood, her gaze drifting toward the horizon, her heart drawn to the distant silhouette of Haven, where her sisters and the warm glow of their home, 'Emberlight'***, awaited.
Yet, her mind lingered on the ruins she had glimpsed in fragmented visions: dark, sprawling monoliths shrouded in shadow and mystery.
Somewhere amidst the crumbling stones, the truth she sought lay hidden, its nature uncertain; would it be a revelation of divine purpose or a descent into damnable secrets?
The horizon seemed to pulse with a quiet promise, drawing her forward into the unknown.
Eris rose beside her, stretching his arms, his hand brushing against hers. "We'll find the others," he said. "And then the next fragment."
Kaylah glanced down at their joined shadows, faint against the cave floor. "Yes," she murmured, "the next one."
But as they stepped out into the morning light, she looked back once more into the cave, into the dark where the broken ring had glimmered.
The echo of her mother's voice followed her like a ghost:
"Keep that memory close, my heart. The Core is not what it seems."
And in her silence, a vow took root; one that would one day stand between them.
***