The moment Aurelianth's rulebend rippled through the world,the night changed.
Not slowly.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
The wind died mid-breath.
The moon's reflection in the Shadow Sea shattered like glass.
Every lantern in Umbralune flickered and bent toward the cliff summit....as if bowing....or....
warning.
Lioren still held Aurelianth upright, her fingers trembling against his shoulders.
"Aurelianth…" she whispered, "I think something's...."
Her words drowned beneath a thunderous crack.
Stone split beneath the platform.
A tremor rolled through the cliff....deep, resonant, like something enormous shifting in the earth's stomach.
Aurelianth winced and pressed a hand against his chest.
The new rune over his heart pulsed painfully.
One beat.
Two.
Three.
Then the air spoke.
Not with sound.
With shiver.
A cold ripple traveled across the summit, making every hair on Aurelianth's arms stand upright. His runes reacted violently, flaring and contracting like they couldn't decide if they should ignite or hide.
Lioren grabbed him tighter.
"Your rulebend… I think it reached the Pulse."
Aurelianth swallowed hard.
"I know."
"How?"
He pointed upward.
The sky was opening.
Not a tear.
Not a breach.
Something new....a widening eye of pure darkness, staring down at him with curiosity sharp as knives.
The Pulse wasn't coming through.
It wasn't manifesting another echo.
It wasn't trying to pull him.
It was simply watching.
Learning him.
Responding.
The Echo of Defiance
The eye-like darkness expanded, layers of black swirling around a core of silver void.
Aurelianth shakily stepped away from Lioren, lifting his chin even as his knees shook.
He forced a whisper:
"…Show yourself."
Lioren seized his wrist.
"What are you doing!?"
"I broke a rule," he said.
"I want to see how it reacts."
The sky did not answer.
The ground did.
Lines began carving themselves through the earth around the platform....thin, glowing slits of white-silver energy, writing themselves in real time like an invisible chisel carving runes.
Lioren gasped.
"Those aren't ours. Those aren't Umbralune's runes...."
Aurelianth's veins surged with the same white-silver.
"It's copying me," he whispered.
"What?"
"It's… writing back."
The runes the Pulse carved weren't like Umbralune's protective sigils.
They weren't like the ancient wards on the cliffs.
They were shaped like his veins.
Like the runes on his chest.
Like it had memorized his body.
Lioren stepped protectively in front of him.
"Stop!" she shouted at the sky. "He isn't yours!"
The sky's darkness pulsed once.
A silent answer.
Aurelianth touched her shoulder gently.
"Lioren… I think it's not trying to take me yet."
Her voice shook. "Then what is it doing?"
He stared at the glowing runes the Pulse carved.
"Talking."
The Pulse's Message
The new runes finished forming.
They pulsed in a deliberate rhythm:
One pulse.....
Two.....
Pause.....
Three pulses.....
Pause.
Aurelianth inhaled slowly.
"That's not just a pattern."
Lioren frowned. "Then what is it?"
"It's a sentence."
Lioren stared at him.
"You can read that!?"
"I don't know how."
He pressed a hand to his chest. "But my runes are reacting to it. It's not a language....
it's a rhythm."
"A rhythm like… your heartbeat?"
Aurelianth went still.
"Yes."
He stepped closer to the glowing runes, veins responding instinctively, drawing faint silver light from them.
"It's saying:
'I hear you.'"
Lioren shuddered.
"What does that mean?"
Aurelianth didn't answer.
Because the runes pulsed again.
This time faster.
Harder.
More intensely.
He staggered, clutching his chest.
Lioren lunged to support him.
"Aurelianth!"
His breath trembled.
"It's sending… a second message."
The runes pulsed again.
Three slow pulses.
One fast.
Two slow.
Aurelianth's voice trembled but translated perfectly:
"I accept change."
Lioren's eyes widened.
"It's accepting your rulebend!?"
Aurelianth's entire body went cold.
"Yes. And that means....."
His voice cracked.
Lioren finished his sentence in an horrified whisper:
"....the Pulse is rewriting itself too."
The sky pulsed like a vast, dark heartbeat.
The runes on the ground shifted shape....
rewriting themselves in real time.
A new message carved itself:
"But change demands equal change."
Aurelianth staggered.
"No....no no...."
He fell to his knees, gripping the stone.
Lioren dropped beside him, shaking him.
"Aurelianth!? Talk to me!"
The sky convulsed.
And the Pulse delivered its ruleback:
"You control the night."
"I control the path."
Lioren's face went white.
"Aurelianth....what does that mean!?"
He lifted his head, eyes wide with terror.
"It means… I can decide when it comes."
Lioren swallowed.
"And the Pulse…"
"…can now decide how it comes."
The cliff floor shook violently.
The runes carved by the Pulse glowed red-hot and then cracked.
A sound like bone breaking echoed beneath them.
The earth split open.
The Thing That Crawled Out of the Stone
A low groan rose from deep beneath the cliff not a creature's voice,not human,not wind.
Something ancient.
Something sealed.
Something the Pulse had been waiting for someone to free.
Lioren clutched Aurelianth's shoulders, dragging him away from the splitting stone.
"Aurelianth....Aurelianth, MOVE....!"
He stumbled to his feet as the stone he'd just knelt on cracked open like an egg.
A shape rose from it.
No…
A silhouette.
A shell.
A body made of stone and runes, hollow inside....shaped exactly like the Hollow Pulse's earlier echoes....but bigger.
Much bigger.
Tall as three men.
Arms like carved pillars.
A head with no face just a single vertical line of light.
Lioren screamed.
"What....IS THAT!?"
Aurelianth's pulse froze.
"It's… a vessel."
"A vessel for WHAT!?"
"For the Pulse."
The vessel lifted its stone head, joints grinding like ancient doors opening.
Then it moved....fast.
Impossible fast.
A stone arm swung across the platform, slamming into a cliff pillar and breaking it in half. Pebbles and dust exploded outward.
Lioren dragged Aurelianth behind another pillar.
He gasped, chest burning.
"The Pulse can't come through yet," he whispered. "But it can send this."
Lioren tightened her grip on his hand.
"What do we do!?"
Aurelianth stared at the glowing rune on his chest....the one he had carved into himself by force.
"We test my rule."
"What rule!?" she cried.
"The Pulse follows my timing.
Not the vessel's."
He raised his hand.
His new rune flared bright....so bright it illuminated the entire summit and the vessel froze.
Mid-stride.
Mid-attack.
Stone fingers still curled mid-swing.
Lioren gasped.
"Aurelianth… you stopped it! You...."
He collapsed to his knees.
"Not… for long…"
Cracks spread across his chest rune, glowing dangerously.
Lioren grabbed him. "Stop! Your body isn't ready...."
Aurelianth forced his trembling hand upward.
"Pulse…" he whispered, "I control… the night.
And this night…is NOT YOURS."
The sky pulsed once...cold, approving, almost curious.
The vessel's body imploded....stone shattering inward, collapsing like a hollow sculpture crushed by invisible force.
A ripple surged outward across the cliff....a wave that extinguished the last Pulse runes.
Silence fell.
Aurelianth slumped unconscious into Lioren's arms.
Aftermath
Villagers arrived minutes later....elders, hunters, terrified children, all staring at the shattered stone vessel on the cliff floor.
"What happened!?" Elder Vesen demanded.
Lioren shook her head, tears streaking her cheeks.
"He….he broke a rule.
And the Pulse…answered."
They carried Aurelianth down the cliff.
His breath was shallow.
His veins flickered weakly.
The rune over his heart glowed like a dying ember.
Lioren held him the entire way.
"He stopped the Pulse's vessel," she whispered.
"But the Pulse learned from him."
The matriarch's face hardened.
"Then we have two nights left," she said.
"And the Pulse will not come quietly."
Lioren pressed her forehead to Aurelianth's.
"Please wake up," she whispered.
"We're running out of time."
Deep in the Dream
Aurelianth floated again.
Back in the Before.
Back in the white world.
The hollow original Aurelianth stepped toward him.
This time, his voice was quieter.
But clearer.
"You began the story."
Aurelianth whispered, "What happens now?"
The hollow figure lifted a hand.
A new tear appeared smaller, but faster, sharper, more violent.
"Now you survive your own decision."
Aurelianth's eyes widened.
The hollow Aurelianth leaned close.
"Night Two will not be forgiving."
And then everything broke.