Vesperyn's body locked up.
Every muscle seized at once, paralyzed by something more fundamental than fear.
Suddenly,
The weight in the void increased, crushing down on him from every direction. His knees buckled. His palms split as he pressed them into the glass-like ash.
Three shapes loomed ahead.
Gates.
Enormous, vertical slabs rising from the void, their surfaces dark and smooth. Symbols crawled across them, language he had never seen.
And yet,
He understood.
The first gate carried the weight of memory. Of things already done.
Vision of the Past.
The second felt unbearable in a different way, too sharp, too immediate, like standing too close to his own heartbeat.
Vision of the Present.
The third,
He couldn't look at it for long.
The idea of it pressed against his skull like a blade.
Vision of the Future.
The tension wasn't in the air.
His vision blurred.
A sound rolled through the ash.
"IDENTIFY."
The word didn't echo.
It struck.
The impact flattened him, driving the air from his lungs that weren't even breathing. His chest convulsed violently. He tried to answer. Tried to scream.
All that came out was a wet cough.
Silver bile splattered across the glassy surface beneath him, steaming faintly where it landed.
He gagged, body shaking, vision swimming.
Then the ground moved.
Hands pushed through the ash around him.
Not clean hands. Not human ones.
They tore through the glass-like surface from below, fingers cracking it apart as faces followed, distorted, stretched, unfinished.
Vesperyn froze.
They were him.
Dozens of versions of himself clawed their way up, hollow-eyed, mouths sealed shut with dark seams that pulsed faintly as if something inside was trying to speak.
Their expressions weren't hostile.
They were empty.
These weren't attackers.
They were outcomes.
Failures.
Echoes of what he would become if his mind gave way under the weight pressing down on him now.
They crawled over him, heavy as lead, their touch sinking into his body instead of pushing against it. Cold spread wherever they gripped him.
They weren't trying to tear him apart.
They were trying to fold into him.
To erase what little shape he still had left.
Vesperyn's vision dimmed as they dragged him downward into the grey silt, their weight crushing, merging, suffocating.
Not death.
Something worse.
.....
(POV: Harlen Rost)
"No," Harlen said through gritted teeth.
He forced himself upright.
With his good hand, he reached for the symbol again.
"I don't ask for much," he whispered. "Never have. But I need this."
The light around him flared brighter.
His body screamed in protest as more power flooded through channels that were already cracked and worn. It felt like burning from the inside out.
He didn't care.
The spear reformed in his hand.
The centipede charged.
Harlen waited until the last possible second.
Then he moved.
Not away. Forward.
He ducked under the reaching claws and drove the spear upward, through the soft tissue beneath the creature's jaw.
The blade punched through armor, through muscle, through the cluster of neural ganglia that passed for its brain.
The centipede convulsed.
Its body thrashed, segments whipping wildly. One of them caught Harlen across the ribs, lifting him off his feet and hurling him backward.
He hit a tree hard enough to crack the trunk.
Dropped.
Lay there, gasping.
Blood filled his mouth. His left arm was useless. His ribs felt like broken pottery.
But the centipede was dying.
Its movements grew weaker. Slower. The light in its feelers dimmed.
Finally, it went still.
Harlen closed his eyes.
"Good enough," he whispered.
Then he remembered Vesperyn again.
He forced himself to move.
Every step was agony. His vision kept greying out at the edges. He stumbled, caught himself against a tree, kept going.
When he finally reached the spot where he'd thrown the boy, his heart stopped.
The barrier was broken.
Shattered into fading fragments of light.
Echoes surrounded the area—five, maybe six, twisted and wrong, clawing at something in the center.
At Vesperyn.
"NO!" Harlen roared.
He didn't have the strength left for another fight.
He charged anyway.
The spear caught the first Echo through the spine. It collapsed.
The second turned toward him. Harlen kicked it in the chest, sending it sprawling.
The third lunged.
Harlen barely blocked, his injured arm screaming as he used it to deflect the blow. He drove his spear through its skull.
The last two fled into the trees.
Harlen didn't chase them.
He dropped to his knees beside Vesperyn.
The boy was surrounded by fading light—not Harlen's light. Something else. Darker. Residual.
An awakening barrier.
It had protected him while Harlen fought. Kept the Echoes from finishing what they'd started.
But Vesperyn wasn't moving.
His skin was pale. Blood covered him. His chest barely rose and fell.
"Ves," Harlen said, voice breaking. "Ves, wake up."
Nothing.
Harlen checked his pulse.
Faint. Thready. But there.
He was alive.
Barely.
Harlen sagged forward, forehead pressing against Vesperyn's shoulder.
His whole body shook—from exhaustion, from pain, from relief so intense it hurt worse than any injury.
"I almost lost you," he whispered. "I almost—"
He stopped himself.
Forced his breathing to steady.
There would be time to fall apart later.
Right now, he had to get them both somewhere safe.
He tried to lift Vesperyn.
His left arm wouldn't respond. His right barely had strength left.
He managed anyway.
Somehow.
Through sheer stubbornness and fear, he got the boy over his shoulder and started walking.
One step.
Then another.
The forest blurred around him.
He didn't let himself stop.
Not until they reached the caravan.