"Some moments don't test you—they invite you."
The tremor didn't fade.
It deepened.
Not like a quake. Not like the ground losing balance.
This was a resonance, a pulse dragging itself through the bones of the valley and into the ribs of anyone unfortunate enough to stand on it.
Aarav felt it before the others reacted.
Before Arin stiffened.
Before Amar's hand dropped toward his blade.
It started behind Aarav's ribs, a tug that tightened like someone hooking a thread through him and pulling hard enough to bruise. Then a pressure crept up his throat, thick and metallic, like he'd swallowed static. A warning hummed straight into his spine, vibrating bone before thought.
Arin spun toward the valley edge so quickly his cloak snapped against the wind.
"No. Not here. Not now."
The boy yelped as Meera grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back from the slope with practiced urgency. "Is it the spawn?"
Arin shook his head once, hair shifting with the momentum. "Worse."
Amar straightened, dagger already half-drawn. "Define worse."
Arin didn't answer.
He simply pointed.
Aarav followed the line of his trembling finger.
And the blood drained out of his face.
The sky was folding.
Not cloud movement.
Not storm churn.
Something far more unsettling.
A line of shimmering distortion stretched across the horizon—thin at first, then widening, rippling outward like the world itself was cracking open along a seam no mortal eye was meant to witness.
A fracture.
But fractures were small—ripples in abandoned ruins, tears around corrupted anchors, glitches in the fabric of localized resonance.
This was none of those things.
This was enormous.
Active.
Hungry.
A tear bleeding across the skyline.
Aarav staggered. "This one's… massive."
Arin didn't answer.
His silence did.
Meera swallowed audibly. "Arin?"
The look he gave her wasn't fear.
It was recognition. And dread.
This wasn't a local anomaly.
Not a remnant echo.
Not a leftover shard distortion.
This was a layer breach.
A tear between worlds.
A wound in the sky big enough for something on the other side to notice them—reach for them—push through.
Aarav grabbed the back of Arin's cloak, grounding himself. "Tell me what that means. Now."
Arin inhaled sharply, as if bracing himself to say something he'd hoped he'd die before admitting.
"It means he's searching. Harder than before. And the world can't hold his reach anymore."
The words hit harder than the tremor.
Meera tightened her grip on the boy's hand. "So he's… coming through?"
"Not fully," Arin said. "He can't. Not yet. But pieces of him will. Projections. Shards. Echoes. Whatever he lost when he broke—now he's clawing back."
Aarav's stomach twisted. "Because of me."
Arin turned so sharply his staff clinked against a stone.
"Stop. This is not your fault."
Aarav clenched his jaw until it ached. "Then why is everything waking up the moment I do?"
Arin's mouth opened.
Then closed.
He had answers.
But not ones he wanted the world to hear.
The fracture flickered—
a bright vein of light splitting apart and weaving itself back together like it was breathing through pain.
A wave of wrongness rolled across the valley.
Birds burst out of the treeline, screaming.
Animals bolted in packs, tripping over each other in frantic escape.
The grass rippled though there was no wind.
The air tasted like charged metal, like lightning chewing through the sky.
The boy pressed his face into Meera's leg. "Is it coming here?"
Amar crouched, leveling his voice with the child's. "Not if we move."
Arin drove his staff into the dirt, and the runes carved into its length flickered faintly. He traced the vibrations with a practiced tilt of his head.
"The fracture leads east."
Aarav stiffened. "To the Vale of Origin."
Arin nodded once. "He's pushing you there."
Meera blinked, stunned. "Why would the King want him at the Vale?"
Arin's voice softened into something almost reverent. Or haunted.
"Because the Vale is where Anchors awaken fully… and where they break."
The fracture pulsed again—
a deep, sharp resonance that cracked loose pebbles and sent them skittering down the hill.
Aarav steadied himself, every bone buzzing. "We need to move. Now."
Arin hesitated.
Just barely.
Just long enough for Aarav to notice.
Aarav stepped forward, heat flooding his voice. "Arin. What aren't you telling us?"
Arin exhaled like a man confessing to fire. "The Vale isn't just a birthplace. It's a convergence point. Every Anchor's resonance passes through it, alive or dead. If the King reaches the Vale before we do—"
Aarav finished for him.
"—he'll reach me. Even from the other side."
Meera cursed under her breath in a way that made even Amar glance over.
"Then we're not going to let him," she said, grabbing Aarav's wrist with defiant certainty.
Amar stood to full height, adjusting the unconscious hollow man over his shoulder with one practiced motion. "We move now. No breaks. No second-guessing."
Arin nodded grimly. "The path is dangerous. The land between here and the Vale warps under resonance. We'll see things that aren't real. Hear things that shouldn't exist."
Aarav swallowed. "But they can't hurt us, right?"
Arin hesitated again.
Aarav groaned. "Arin."
"Yes. Some can hurt you."
Meera dragged a hand down her face. "Perfect."
Aarav stepped toward the cliff's edge.
The fracture stretched wider now, a bright wound slicing clean through the horizon.
It pulsed in rhythmic flashes—light, void, light, nothing, light—like the world was blinking out of sync.
A sound carried up from the valley.
Not a voice.
Not a word.
An emotion.
Cold.
Recognizable.
Unwelcome.
A chill slid into Aarav's spine.
The same chill from the temple's remnant.
The same chill from the shard.
The same chill from the boundary he hadn't spoken of yet.
His breath hitched.
He heard it.
Soft.
Echoing.
Threading between heartbeats.
_Aarav…_
He stepped back instinctively, a crack of panic slicing through him.
Meera grabbed his hand immediately. "Don't listen."
Amar took his other arm. "We've got you."
Arin raised his staff until the runes pulsed faint blue. "We outrun it. We head east. The Vale is two days from here if we move fast."
The ground rumbled again, a warning tremor echoing through the valley like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
Aarav looked at the fracture one last time—
—and a shadow moved inside it.
Not a shape with form.
Not a recognizable figure.
Just presence.
A silhouette without edges.
A reaching without hands.
Something searching.
Searching for him.
He tore his gaze away before the thing on the other side noticed the stare.
"Let's move," he whispered.
And the group descended the slope—
fast, breathless, silent, unified—
as the fracture widened behind them like an eye stretching open across the sky.
A chase written not in footsteps
but in the pulse of the world itself.
Aarav didn't know what waited in the Vale of Origin.
But something in the fracture did.
And it was coming.
"He didn't realize he'd accepted the invitation until the chamber changed around him."