"Some truths don't break you; they break the space you kept around them."
The fracture didn't open with sound.
Sound would've been kindness.
This—
this was a visual scream across the sky.
A single line of light split the horizon, bright enough to bleach the mountain's silver surface into white. The line pulsed once—deep and heavy, like the heartbeat of something waking in the wrong world.
Aarav staggered back.
Meera caught his arm. "No. No no no—tell me this isn't what it looks like."
Arin didn't answer right away. His silence was the kind that said _he already knew the ending what was going to happen and hated it._
Then—
"It's the Convergence," Arin whispered. "The moment when two layers… overlap."
Amar shifted the hollow man on his back and stepped protectively in front of the boy. "Define overlap."
Arin pointed to the fracture—
which widened.
Slow.
Steady.
Inevitable.
"That."
The silver grass around them bent inward as though bowing toward the rift. Shadows twisted into long spirals. The air thinned, then thickened, then thinned again, like the atmosphere was forgetting how to be itself.
Aarav felt the hum in his chest surge—
not painfully,
but with a fierce, burning clarity.
"He's coming," Aarav whispered.
Meera froze. "The King?"
Arin shook his head once. "Not fully. Not yet."
Amar cursed. "Then what _is_ coming?"
Arin turned to Aarav—
no teacher, no mentor, just someone terrified for him.
"His _presence._ The Convergence projects what the King seeks most. And right now… that's you."
The fracture bulged.
Light swirled inside it, forming a shape that was not a shape—
a silhouette without features,
a presence without form,
a shadow cast by a world that wasn't here.
The boy grabbed Meera's sleeve. "Is that a monster?"
Meera swallowed. "Feels like one."
Aarav stepped forward before he realized he'd moved. The air in front of him changed instantly—threads of resonance curling around him, rising from the ground like mist drawn to heat.
Arin hissed, "Aarav, stay back!"
He shook his head. "No. It's searching for me. If I run, it spreads."
The light inside the fracture condensed.
Curled.
Bent.
And from the center of the rift, a single arm reached out—
not flesh,
not energy,
just void taking shape.
Aarav's pulse stuttered.
The Echo Chamber had shown him possible versions of himself.
The Hollow Echo had shown him his brokenness.
But this—
this was neither.
This was the King's silhouette.
Not fully formed.
Not whole.
Just a fragment.
A sliver of intention tearing through the boundary.
The arm extended further, fingers of shadow stretching toward the summit.
Amar stepped up beside Aarav. "So what's the protocol for 'ancient cosmic entity reaching through the sky to snatch our guy'?"
Arin raised his staff, voice shaking for the first time Aarav had ever heard.
"There is no protocol."
The arm reached downward—
toward Aarav.
Only Aarav.
Meera stepped in front of him. "Back off."
A gust of force blew her sideways, not violently, but decisively.
The King's shadow didn't want her.
It wanted him.
The arm stopped inches from Aarav's chest.
Resonance crackled through the air—cold, metallic, wrong.
Aarav whispered, "Why me?"
The shadow answered—
—not with words,
but with memory.
Aarav's vision flashed:
A different world.
A king standing alone in a broken hall.
A crown shattered in his hands.
A single word echoing through darkness—
_Anchor._
Aarav gasped, snapping back into the mountain's cold air.
The shadow-arm hovered closer.
Meera tried to stand; Amar held her back.
The boy cried.
Arin lifted his staff with both hands.
Aarav lifted his own.
"Stop," he said quietly. "I know what you're trying to do."
The shadow recoiled slightly.
Aarav stepped forward.
"You're searching for something you lost."
The fracture pulsed.
"You want your Anchor back."
The shadow froze.
Aarav's voice hardened.
"But I'm not him."
The hum inside Aarav erupted outward in a blast of raw resonance—
not elegant,
not refined,
but chosen.
The shock wave struck the shadow-arm.
For the first time, the King's presence flinched.
The rift rippled violently.
The silhouette twisted.
The arm recoiled, collapsing into smoke and light.
Arin shouted, "Aarav—withdraw! You can't—"
Aarav stepped forward again.
"Listen," he said, voice shaking but sure.
"I'm not replacing him.
I'm not becoming him.
I'm not your lost Anchor."
The fracture split wider in fury—
light screaming through cracks in the sky.
Aarav raised his hand.
"But if you want to reach me—
you come in full.
Not piece by piece."
The fracture convulsed—
the rift collapsing inward, then outward, then—
SNAP.
The rift slammed shut.
Silence detonated across the mountain.
Aarav fell to his knees, breath ragged.
Meera reached him first.
Amar second.
The boy threw his arms around him crying.
Arin knelt last, placing a hand on Aarav's shoulder.
"You just rejected the King's call."
Aarav wiped sweat from his brow. "Yeah. Felt like blocking a company takeover."
Arin stared at the horizon. "He won't stop now. The real Convergence will follow."
Amar sighed. "When?"
Arin tightened his grip on the staff.
"Soon."
The mountain beneath them pulsed once—
a warning.
A countdown.
Aarav stood shakily.
"I'm ready."
The Vale answered with a low, resonant hum—
not approving,
not denying,
simply acknowledging the path ahead.
And the King had noticed.
"He let the truth stand beside him, and the chamber eased its breath."