We woke to the sound of water crashing against stone.
The waterfall roared beside us, loud enough that it felt like it pressed directly into my skull. Cold mist clung to my skin, seeping into half-closed cuts and stinging the moment I shifted. When I tried to sit up, my body rebelled—muscles locking, joints screaming, a sharp flare ripping through my side hard enough to steal the air from my lungs.
The pain hadn't lessened.
Sleep hadn't healed anything. It had only delayed it.
The worst part wasn't the pain itself—it was how familiar it already felt. How easily my body accepted it, adjusted around it, as if this was the new baseline. I tried to stretch my fingers, then stopped when my side protested sharply, breath hitching in my throat.
The waterfall drowned out everything else. No birds. No insects. Just water hammering stone over and over again, relentless and uncaring. It felt less like nature and more like pressure—constant, unavoidable.
I wondered briefly how long it would take before the sound stopped bothering me.
That thought scared me more than the pain.
I forced myself upright anyway, teeth clenched, breath shallow as the ache spread deep and grinding, like something inside me had shifted and refused to settle back into place. The stone beneath us was slick with moss and cold enough to pull warmth straight from my bones. My hands trembled as I braced myself.
Trace stirred then.
She pushed herself up slowly, eyes unfocused at first, then sharpening as they landed on me. I felt her gaze linger longer than necessary. Her brow creased—not in alarm, but something closer to concern.
"…Your eyes," she said quietly.
I looked up.
"Your grey eyes look so empty," Trace continued, voice low, almost thoughtful, "yet always filling… in a way I never noticed before."
I didn't know how to answer that. I raised a hand to my face without thinking, rubbing at my eyes as if I could feel whatever she was talking about. They felt the same. Heavy. Tired. Nothing more.
But Trace wasn't looking at me like she was worried about my health.
She was studying me.
Like something she recognized had shifted, but she couldn't tell whether it was dangerous yet.
"You've always had that look," she added after a moment. "Like you're standing just a step back from things. But now…" She shook her head slightly. "Now it's like you're standing somewhere else entirely."
I looked away first.
Whatever she was seeing, I wasn't ready to name it.
I wasn't sure I understood it myself.
Whatever she saw there, it wasn't something I could feel—only the constant weight in my chest, the dull burn in my side that made every breath deliberate. If my eyes were changing, it was because something inside me already had.
Trace turned away after a moment, kneeling near the pool to wash dried blood from her hands. The water darkened briefly before carrying it off downstream.
Sare woke shortly after, pushing himself upright with a tired grunt, one hand pressing into his ribs as his eyes snapped toward the tree line before the rest of him caught up.
The Hallow lingered in more than memory. Its presence still pressed against my thoughts, a phantom pressure that refused to fade. The forest watched us in return—branches unmoving, birds silent, thin strands of light breaking through the canopy without ever quite reaching the ground.
We drank from the waterfall. The water burned cold going down, sending a shock through my system that made my wound throb harder instead of easing it. It didn't dull the pain. It just reminded me I was still alive.
Trace straightened and faced us.
"We move forward slowly," she said. "If we don't find another place to rest, we come back here before nightfall."
Sare nodded. I followed, even though the motion sent another sharp spike through my side.
And as we left the sound of the waterfall behind, the soul shards weighed heavy at my side—another reminder that whatever was hollowing me out… was also filling something else in.
We walked on for a while, the forest swallowing the sound of the waterfall behind us. Every step sent a dull pulse through my side, a reminder I couldn't afford to ignore. As I adjusted my grip and steadied my breathing, something else settled into my awareness.
The soul shards.
They were still with me.
Since I couldn't use them, keeping them felt wrong—dead weight when resources mattered more than pride. The decision formed slowly, pushed forward by necessity rather than generosity.
The soul shards pressed at my awareness as we walked—not like a temptation, but like unfinished business.
I couldn't use them. Not now. Maybe not ever.
They were just… there. Proof of things that had died so we could keep moving.
Carrying them felt wrong.
Not because I wanted their power—but because someone else might need it, and every step I took without deciding was a step closer to wasting that chance.
I'd seen how fast things went bad out here. How one mistake turned into blood on the ground. If that happened again, and I was still carrying shards I couldn't spend…
That wouldn't be caution.
That would be negligence.
I adjusted my grip, pain flaring sharply through my side, and let the thought settle.
I wasn't the strongest among us.
I was just the one holding the weight.
"Trace. Sare."
Both of them turned instantly, hands shifting toward their weapons, stances tightening on instinct alone. The forest had trained us well.
The words hung between us. Shards weren't something you mentioned lightly, much less offered without reason. I waited for the questions—for suspicion, for demands to know how, or why.
I hadn't expected it to be that simple.
We walked on for a while, the forest tightening around us as the last echo of the waterfall disappeared. My side burned with every step, but I kept pace, eyes forward.
Then the weight at my belt pulled at my awareness.
The soul shards.
"I've got five soul shards," I said. "You're going to use them."
No pause. No explanation.
"They'll keep you alive if things go bad. That keeps all of us alive." I finally met their eyes. "Call it even for now. We balance it later."
That was it.
Not a request. Not a confession. A decision made for the group, framed as necessity. There was nothing there to question without sounding reckless.
I handed the soul shards to Trace and Sare. Sare glanced at them briefly before pushing one back toward Trace.
"Take the extra," he said. "You're stronger than me."
Trace hesitated only a second before nodding.
"Alright," I said. "That works. And anything else we get from beasts—we split it evenly. Keeps it fair."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Sare smiled first, a small thing at the corner of his mouth, followed by Trace. Her lips curved wider, the tension easing from her shoulders. It wasn't relief—it was something closer to trust.
The kind you don't give lightly.
"How do you have so many?" Trace asked, staring at the shards in her palm. Her voice carried a note of disbelief she didn't bother hiding.
"Four of them were from one beast," I said, shrugging slightly. "The other came from something weak."
I said it casually. Too casually.
Trace froze.
Slowly, she looked up at me.
"…You killed an Ascended rank?" she asked.
Her mouth fell open. Her eyes widened, surprise flashing across her face so openly I couldn't fault her for it. Ascended beasts weren't something you ran into. They were something you avoided—something entire groups died to escape.
"We're still only Touched," she said quietly, almost to herself. "Not even fully Awakened…"
"I know," I replied quickly, before the thought could spiral. "That's what caused my wound."
I tapped my side lightly, the motion sending a dull ache through me.
"And I didn't kill it with my hands," I added. "I just got lucky."
That last part wasn't entirely true.
But it was close enough to keep the weight off my shoulders—and the fear out of her eyes.