The first thing Liora noticed was the sky.
It was wrong.
Not storm-dark or blood-red in the way legends described corrupted lands,but layered. Crimson clouds churned beneath bands of black-violet light that pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat written across the heavens. Each pulse sent a subtle vibration through the air, through the sand beneath her palms, through her.
She gasped sharply and pushed herself upright.
Heat slammed into her like a living thing. Dry, oppressive, heavy with the scent of ash and something metallic beneath it. The wind hissed across endless dunes, carrying whispers she couldn't quite hear but felt scrape against her thoughts.
"Kael," she breathed.
He lay half-buried in the sand beside her, unmoving.
Panic surged.
She scrambled toward him, hands shaking as she brushed sand away from his face, his chest, his arms. He was warm,too warm.
His skin burned under her touch, veins beneath it faintly visible, darkened as if ink had been poured into his blood.
"Kael, wake up," she whispered urgently.
No response.
The bond pulsed weakly, uneven, like a heart skipping beats.
She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, fighting the rising terror. "Please," she murmured. "Don't do this to me now."
The wind shifted.
The whispers sharpened.
She felt it again,the presence. Not looming this time. Not distant.
Near.
YOU STAND ON THE ASH OF THRESHOLDS.
Liora stiffened but didn't look around. "We escaped you."
A sensation like amusement brushed against her mind.
YOU ENTERED ME.
Her stomach twisted. "What is this place?"
The presence paused, as if considering how much truth to give.
A BORDER THAT FAILED.
Images bled into her thoughts,realms layered atop one another, boundaries strained thin by centuries of seals, cages, sacrifices. This land was not meant to exist as it did. It was a wound left unhealed.
A dumping ground.
For things the world could not destroy.
Liora swallowed hard. "Then why are we here?"
The answer came slower.
Heavier.
BECAUSE HE BELONGS TO ME.
Kael convulsed suddenly.
Liora cried out, grabbing him as his body arched violently, shadows spilling from his mouth and eyes like smoke forced through broken seams. His breath hitched, shallow and ragged.
"No!" she shouted. "You don't get him!"
The bond flared painfully, dragging something deep inside her toward the surface. She gasped, clutching her chest as heat bloomed beneath her ribs,an echo of the glow she'd felt back in the sanctum.
The presence recoiled slightly.
YOU BLEED LIGHT.
"I bleed choice," Liora snapped, even as fear clawed at her insides.
Kael's convulsions slowed, then stilled. His breathing steadied,just barely.
Relief nearly buckled her.
She pulled him closer, cradling his head against her lap as she scanned the horizon.
The land stretched endlessly in every direction,rolling dunes broken by jagged black stone formations that thrust upward like the spines of buried beasts.
Far away, something massive shifted beneath the sand, its movement slow and deliberate.
She didn't want to know what it was.
She just knew they couldn't stay here.
"Okay," she whispered hoarsely, forcing herself to think. "Okay. We move. We find shelter. We,"
A sharp pain lanced through her skull.
She cried out, vision blurring as the bond flared violently again.
This time, the sensation wasn't Kael's pain.
It was hers.
She doubled over, gasping, hands clawing at the sand as heat ripped through her veins. Every heartbeat felt like fire spreading outward from her chest.
The presence loomed.
YOU TOOK HIS BURDEN.
She shook her head weakly. "No… I shared it."
YOU ANCHORED IT.
Her breath hitched as understanding dawned, cold and horrifying.
The bond wasn't just connecting them anymore.
It was balancing them.
Kael had been a vessel, a lock, a threshold. By choosing him,by aligning with him instead of letting the curse burn itself out,she had taken part of the weight onto herself.
She screamed as another wave of pain hit, this one leaving behind a strange, hollow numbness.
When it passed, she collapsed onto her side, shaking uncontrollably.
Kael stirred.
"Liora?" His voice was hoarse, cracked, but unmistakably him.
She sobbed, dragging herself closer to him. "You're awake."
His eyes fluttered open slowly.
For a heartbeat, relief surged.
Then she saw them.
The black was still there,but threaded through it now were thin fractures of crimson light, branching outward like cracks in glass.
His gaze focused on her.
Horror flickered across his face.
"No," he whispered. "What did you do?"
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to meet his eyes. "I chose you."
Kael tried to sit up and immediately hissed in pain, clutching his chest. Shadows writhed beneath his skin, restless and sharp.
"This place," he rasped. "It's pulling at me."
"I know," she said softly. "It's pulling at both of us."
The presence pressed closer.
YOU CANNOT REMAIN HERE.
Kael laughed weakly. "That's new advice."
YOU WILL DIE.
Silence followed.
Liora's heart pounded. "Then why bring us here at all?"
A pause.
Then,
TO SEE IF YOU WOULD BREAK.
Anger flared hot and sharp through her fear. "We're not your test."
ALL THRESHOLDS ARE TESTS.
Kael pushed himself upright despite the pain, leaning heavily against her. "You want us to move?" he growled into the empty air. "Fine. Tell us where."
The presence withdrew slightly.
The pressure eased.
EAST.
The word reverberated through the land itself.
A distant structure shimmered briefly on the horizon,a ruin half-buried in sand, its silhouette jagged and wrong, pulsing faintly with the same rhythm as the sky.
Kael stiffened. "That's not shelter."
"No," Liora agreed quietly. "That's a marker."
She tightened her grip around him. "But it's the only direction we have."
They started walking.
Each step was agony.
The heat intensified as the sunless sky pulsed overhead, draining strength from their limbs. Kael leaned heavily on her, his weight increasing as shadows dragged at him, trying to pull him back into the sand.
Liora's vision blurred repeatedly, strange symbols flashing at the edges of her sight,sigils she didn't recognize but somehow understood.
Time passed strangely.
Minutes stretched into hours, or maybe seconds into eternities.
At some point, Kael stumbled hard, nearly collapsing.
"I can't," he whispered.
She wrapped his arm tighter around her shoulders. "You can. I won't let you fall."
He laughed bitterly. "You always say that."
The ruins loomed closer.
As they approached, the sand around them darkened, turning to ash beneath their feet. The air grew colder, heavy with a suffocating stillness.
They weren't alone.
Figures began to emerge from the dunes.
Humanoid.
Thin.
Wrapped in tattered remnants of armor and cloth that had long since lost any color. Their eyes glowed faintly,dull embers set deep in hollow faces.
Kael stiffened. "Liora…"
"I see them."
The figures stopped several paces away, forming a loose semicircle.
One stepped forward.
Its voice was dry, scraping, ancient.
Living," it rasped. "Bound."
Liora's blood ran cold.
Another figure laughed softly. "Fresh thresholds."
Kael drew what little shadow he could muster around himself, stance unsteady but defiant.
"Back away."
The figures didn't move.
Instead, the first tilted its head.
"You do not belong here," it said. "Which means you are valuable."
Liora's grip tightened on Kael.
"Run," he whispered.
She shook her head. "Not leaving you."
The figures began to advance.
The presence stirred again, closer than ever, almost eager.
HERE IS YOUR NEXT CHOICE.
The air cracked.
Something vast shifted beneath the ruins.
And Kael's shadows surged violently,out of control.
He screamed as the crimson fractures in his eyes spread, light bleeding through as something inside him tore wider.
Liora screamed his name,
As the figures lunged.