The plain of steel did not release him all at once.
When his eyes opened, the shelter's ceiling came into view, but the weight of the dream remained lodged behind his sight, as if his thoughts had not yet decided which world they belonged to. The fragments were still there—countless shapes half-buried in dust made from ground-down blades. He could almost feel the uneven terrain beneath his feet, the way it resisted balance, as though the ground itself demanded awareness.
He lay still.
Breathing too quickly felt wrong. Moving too soon felt worse.
Only after several measured breaths did he allow his fingers to flex. They responded immediately. No stiffness. No lingering ache. That, too, felt wrong.
The pressure behind his eyes had not faded with waking.
It had settled.
The frame stood across the room, exactly where it had been the night before. The altered slot was unchanged—no new deformation, no glow, no sign of recent activity. And yet, the boy could not escape the sense that it was closer to him than it had been before, not in distance, but in relevance.
As though it had adjusted its expectations.
He sat up slowly, placing his feet against the cold stone floor. The sensation grounded him, but only partially. Some part of his awareness remained elsewhere, stretched thin in a direction he could not name.
Nothing manifested.
No blade. No distortion of air.
That absence unsettled him more than the projections ever had.
The mage was awake.
He stood near the far wall of the shelter, one hand pressed flat against the stone, fingers spread as if feeling for a pulse that did not belong to the earth. His eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow, controlled, but not calm.
"You felt it," the boy said.
It was not a question.
The mage did not open his eyes.
"Yes," he replied. "Just before dawn."
He lowered his hand slowly, as though withdrawing it from something that resisted release, and turned to face the boy.
"The frame hasn't changed," the boy said.
"No," the mage agreed. "But the world has."
They did not test the Eighth Card that morning.
The mage dismantled the pylons surrounding the frame with deliberate care, disengaging each stabilizing thread as if acknowledging that whatever threshold they had crossed could not be safely revisited. Each removal seemed to make the shelter quieter, emptier, as though the room itself understood that something essential had concluded.
"The card is stable," the mage said eventually, breaking the silence.
The boy watched him work. "Is that enough?"
The mage paused, fingers resting against the metal frame.
"It will have to be," he said.
The first undeniable sign did not come as a vision or an omen.
It came as absence.
A familiar flow of mana—one the mage had charted years ago, gentle and reliable—was simply gone. Not dispersed. Not consumed.
Gone.
The mage traced the pattern repeatedly, his movements growing sharper with each attempt, as though repetition might force the world to correct itself. It did not.
"They're active," he said at last.
The boy looked up. "The cards?"
"Yes." The mage's jaw tightened. "But not dormant. Not waiting."
He hesitated, then added quietly, "They are being worn."
The words settled heavily between them.
The shelter grew smaller as the day progressed.
Not physically, but emotionally, as though its walls were drawing inward, no longer capable of containing what had begun. The boy found himself glancing toward the horizon repeatedly, his attention pulled by something that existed just beyond perception.
The pressure behind his eyes intensified.
Without thinking, he extended his palm.
A blade formed.
Cleaner than before. More precise. It existed only for a breath, then dissolved into nothingness, leaving his hand empty and trembling.
The mage watched.
"It didn't respond to danger," the boy said.
"No," the mage replied. "It responded to distance."
By evening, the decision had already been made.
Not spoken. Not debated.
The mage prepared supplies the boy did not ask for. Food that would spoil before it could be eaten. Tools the boy already knew he would not use. Finally, he folded a cloak—old, repaired countless times—and placed it into the boy's hands.
"You will not need this," the mage said.
The boy accepted it. "I know."
They stood at the threshold of the shelter.
The barrier shimmered faintly, reacting to the presence of the Eighth Card as though uncertain whether to bar or permit passage. For a moment, the boy wondered if it would resist him.
It did not.
He stepped forward, and the world expanded.
Cold air. Open sky. Distance without boundary.
He did not turn back.
Behind him, the mage remained standing, watching until the boy's presence faded beyond what even the frame could assume.
Far away, unseen and unacknowledged, something ancient stirred.
The world had begun to move.
And it would not wait.