Kaelen barely slept. Even after Caldra's warning, after the name had surfaced in his mind like a drowned memory clawing back to the light — it echoed.
Ashra.
He didn't know her. But the shard did.
And somehow, that mattered more.
By dawn, Caldra had packed her things.
"You can't stay here," she said, latching the last of her Veilwire traps to her pack. "Not with that thing waking up. The swamp hums different when something old starts remembering its name."
Yreya tried to argue. Caldra shut it down fast. "I helped. I read the shard. That's all. You stay, you draw attention — not the kind that knocks. The kind that rips holes."
They left before the fog cleared.
And Kaelen felt it — the second shard was heavier now. Not physically. Spiritually. Like he was dragging a second spine inside his chest.
They weren't halfway to the ridge line before Bren spotted them.
Figures. Wrong-shaped. Hooded in bone-cloth, faces hidden behind masks carved to look like they were smiling.
The Hollow Choir.
Kaelen had only heard stories — cultists who worshipped Fracture, who believed breaking yourself open let divinity in.
Now they were here. And they were walking straight for him.
"Don't run," Bren muttered. "They like that."
Kaelen stood still. The shard pulsed under his ribs like it was watching.
The lead figure stopped ten paces away.
"You carry her," the thing said, voice soft and hollow.
Kaelen's hand found the hilt at his side. "Not by choice."
"You walk with a god unborn. A wound unfinished. Give her to us, and you'll be spared."
Kaelen laughed — short, bitter. "I've never been spared."
The Choir moved as one.
Bren struck first. Steel met bone, sparks flying. Yreya shouted something — a word of binding — and three of them froze mid-step, limbs locking.
Kaelen didn't draw.
He reached.
The shard in his chest flared. His vision blurred.
For a heartbeat, he was her.
Standing in a burning world. Holding open the Veil with both hands, screaming something no language could hold.
Then light.
Then nothing.
He woke three hours later, mouth full of ash.
Bren was bruised but breathing. Yreya was covered in burn marks but alive.
The Choir was gone.
So was half the hill.
Caldra had said the shards were cages.
Kaelen was starting to think they were doors.
And he had just opened one.
That night, Yreya handed Kaelen a sealed scrap of parchment.
"Tavrin left this with me. In case you ever showed up."
Kaelen turned it over in shaking hands.
Inside, written in Tavrin's messy, hopeful scrawl:
If you're reading this, it means you finally did it. You finally stopped running from it.
I always believed it would be you.
Just… don't lose yourself. Not to her. Not to what she wants.
Find the third shard. And don't open it until you're sure.
Kaelen didn't sleep that night either.
The map Tavrin left was burned at the edges, but the path was clear: the Red Hollow, three days through broken country.
They moved fast.
Veilstorms tore the sky twice. They sheltered under an old spire both times.
Kaelen felt the third shard before they even saw it.
Buried in the heart of a shattered altar. Covered in runes no one could read.
Yreya reached out first.
It didn't burn her.
It ignored her.
Kaelen touched it — and it pulsed, steady and strong, like a second heartbeat syncing to his own.
He didn't take it.
He absorbed it.
Like it had been waiting.
And suddenly, he could see the Veil.
Not cracks. Not tears.
Doors.
Everywhere.