I. The Day Before It Fell
It began like any other day.
Sky bright. Bells late. Breakfast burnt.
Kai sat beneath the fig tree again, sharpening a stick with a worn kitchen knife. Aren argued with one of the younger kids over who was better at sneaking bread from the pantry. Lina climbed the chapel roof to repair a loose tile no one asked her to fix.
Peace—fragile, fleeting—held like morning frost.
But something in Kai's bones felt wrong.
Like breath held too long.
Like a word that hadn't yet been said.
The shard under his shirt was colder than usual.
Watching.
Waiting.
II. The First Sign
It came with the wind.
A change in direction.
The scent of smoke—not woodsmoke, but old fire, the kind that clung to stone and never left.
Sister Olma noticed first. She stepped out of the chapel and stared down the path leading into the trees.
"Kai."
He looked up.
Her eyes weren't confused.
They were prepared.
"Take the younger ones to the west shed. Now."
A moment later, something screeched in the treeline.
A sound not meant for human throats—long, ragged, full of memory and rot.
The fig tree's leaves curled.
The grass bent inward.
"Go!" Olma shouted.
But Kai didn't run.
He turned toward the sound.
And saw them.
III. The Cult's Arrival
Three figures stepped from the trees.
Cloaked. Robed. Faces hidden behind veils of cracked mirror and cloth stitched with spiral glyphs.
One held a hooked relic-blade.
The second carried a chain with a shard fragment tethered at its end—its glow sickly green.
The third raised an empty hand, and the air around him rippled, bending the light like heat.
"He is here," the lead one whispered.
"We've found Kalai's Echo."
"Claim him."
Kai stepped back just as Lina landed beside him, breathless, clutching a rusted pole she'd pulled from the rooftop.
"They're not here to talk."
"I noticed."
Aren skidded into view from the side, blood already on his knuckles. "They took down the gatekeeper. Fast."
"They're spreading," he growled.
"Like they're searching."
"For you."
Kai's shard flared.
And then—
They struck.
IV. The Fight
The lead cultist lunged first, blade out, tracing glowing spirals through the air as they charged.
Kai shoved Lina aside and barely dodged the first slash—a beam of red force trailing behind the blade, burning the grass in its path.
Aren caught the second cultist mid-run and tackled him, fists swinging.
The third cultist raised his hand—sigils glowing down his arm—and muttered a word Kai didn't understand:
"Vel'torah."
A pulse of force hit them like a wave.
The ground buckled.
Kai was thrown into the fig tree trunk, dazed.
Lina screamed something—maybe a spell, maybe just rage—and swung her pole at the first cultist's side.
The metal connected—and bounced off, like it hit stone.
He backhanded her across the clearing.
She didn't get up.
"Stop resisting," the cultist hissed.
"You are the memory we were promised."
Kai's vision swam.
The world spun.
But the shard on his chest glowed white-hot now.
Not cold.
Not watching.
Awake.
"He is waking," the third cultist said.
"Do not let him speak—"
Too late.
Kai didn't know what word came from his mouth.
Didn't recognize the language.
But the spiral on his wrist burned, and light poured from his palm like fire drawn into form.
The blast wasn't clean.
It wasn't controlled.
But it struck the ground in front of the cultists and sent two flying—burning spirals etched into the soil behind them.
Aren dragged Lina back as Kai rose, breath ragged.
"I don't want to remember you," he whispered.
"But I will burn you if I have to."
The final cultist hissed.
Then—
"Fall back."
The three began to fade—into shadow, not air.
Not retreat.
Repositioning.
"This isn't the last time, Kalai."
"The chain will break."
"And when it does—"
"You'll come to us willingly."
And then they were gone.
Smoke.
Silence.
V. Aftermath
Sister Olma emerged moments later, staff crackling with sealed glyphs.
But the cultists were already dust on the wind.
Lina coughed, blood in her mouth.
"We're not safe here anymore."
Aren looked down at his bruised knuckles.
"We never were."
Kai stood where they vanished.
The grass around his feet was dead.
The fig tree behind him was withered black.
And the shard in his chest pulsed like a heart no longer sleeping.
"They know me," he whispered.
"And I think…"
He looked up at the chapel.
At Sister Olma.
At the cracked world waiting for him.
"I'm starting to know them, too."