The crystal cave hummed softly, its translucent walls refracting silver-blue light in shifting, hypnotic patterns. Vesperian leaned against the wall, staring at the luminous lines etched beneath his skin. They pulsed in a rhythm both alien and familiar, slower tonight, deeper—as though syncing to a heartbeat much larger than his own.
Since the amber liquid had worn away, the tethering had grown stronger. The Rift was no longer just a force around him. It had seeped into him, alive and insistent, an endless stream of whispers resonating in the hollow of his chest. It wasn't a voice exactly, but a sensation that flowed through every fragment of his sundered self. Outside, the Rift tide surged violently across the Crystalline Wastes, warping the world as easily as an artist might reshape clay.
"You should rest," Sereth said from her perch near the cave entrance. Her dagger rested across her knees, the etched runes on its blade flaring faintly in response to the ambient energy. She had been sitting there for hours, entirely still, as though standing watch against the chaos outside.
"I can't," Vesperian muttered. His crimson-violet irises darkened as he gazed at the jagged ceiling, the swirling patterns reflecting his growing unease. "Every time I close my eyes, I feel like I'm floating away. If I lose focus, I won't come back."
"You're overextended," Sereth replied, her amber eyes glancing at him briefly before closing again. "The tethering drains you whether or not you feel it. Even Rift-born can only bear so much before they burn out."
He didn't argue, although her words left a bitter taste in his mouth. He wanted to believe he could fight this. But every hour, every minute, he felt the Rift creeping closer, its fingers probing the hollow within him.
It wasn't just fatigue keeping him awake. Memories of the crystal archway haunted his thoughts, of what he'd seen on the other side. His brother, suspended in darkness, bound by the Council's tools. That voice still echoed in his mind, laced with both warning and desperation. Find me before they use me to unmake you.
"What do you know about Void Fragments?" he asked, cutting through the silence.
At the mention of the word, Sereth's sharp features hardened. "What makes you ask?"
"The Warden used one when we escaped the fold-space. I saw another in the vision. On the Council's table."
She exhaled slowly, running her fingers over the hilt of her dagger. The silence stretched between them, weighted with secrets. When she finally spoke, her voice was brittle, like ice concealing deeper waters.
"They're what's left of when the world broke," she murmured. "The First Sundering. When the walls between dimensions shattered, pieces of that boundary calcified into solid form. The Council hoards them like treasures, calls them Void Fragments. Tools to stabilize what they fear. Weapons against what they can't control."
"They're used against people like me," Vesperian said, his crimson-violet eyes brightening with understanding.
A shadow crossed her face. "Against anything the Council deems a threat," she replied. "But yes. They're particularly effective against Rift vessels. Or those tied to them." Her voice dipped low. "Like Kalen."
He straightened. "You've mentioned your brother before. If the Council used these fragments on him, I need to know why. I need to know what happened to him."
Sereth's hand stilled on the dagger. When she finally met his gaze, her amber eyes carried storms of memory.
"Kalen was brilliant," she began. "Even as children, he saw the world differently. Where others looked at the Rift and saw chaos, he saw possibility. Meaning in the madness." Sereth allowed herself a fleeting, joyless smile. "He believed the Rift wasn't destroying reality but transforming it."
The crystalline walls brightened faintly, as though responding to her words. Vesperian felt something stir within him, a subtle thrum resonating with his hollow core.
"The Council recruited him young, lavished him with rewards. But their rules were chains to him. Kalen didn't want restraints—he wanted communion."
"Communion?" Vesperian asked, the word pulling at him like a distant current.
"He believed the Rift was reaching for us, speaking to us. That if we truly listened, we could understand it." Her eyes grew distant. "He began experimenting with deeper tethering techniques, bypassing Council protocols entirely."
Her voice thinned, anger and grief intertwined. "It started subtly. He called his vision Mira, as if she were a partner who guided him deeper into fold-space. But tethering exacts its price. Silver lines spread faster on his skin. He stopped sleeping. Then came the voices, the visions. He claimed he could see reality's threads unraveling."
"What happened to him?" The question came out tight, though Vesperian already suspected the truth.
"The Council sent Wardens." Her jaw tightened, fingers pressing into her dagger. "Three of them, carrying Void Fragments. I begged him to run, but he refused." A flash of pain crossed her face—a memory of that final desperate moment. "He said he was close to finding something that would change everything. When the Wardens arrived… they didn't just kill him. The fragments tore him apart. Not his body, but what he was. He dissolved, scattered like dust in the wind."
A cold dread crept into Vesperian's chest as her words settled. The hollow inside him pulsed, and a phrase rose unbidden in his mind.
The hollow knows its own shape.
"You think they'll do the same to me," he said quietly.
Sereth's face softened, though her voice remained firm. "If they find you, they won't hesitate. But your situation is different. Kalen was whole. You were never whole to begin with. You were born apart, sundered."
The keening wail of the Rift tide outside began to fade, leaving an unsettling silence. Sereth stood abruptly. "The eye of the storm. We have a brief window before the next wave hits."
Vesperian followed her to the cave's entrance and looked out over a transformed landscape. Where there had once been chaotic plains, there now stood a forest of crystalline spires, twisting upward in impossible formations. The ground shimmered like rippling mercury, reflecting trails of silver light.
"Stay close," Sereth warned. "The Wastes are most dangerous when they seem calm."
They picked their way through the maze of glassy spires, each one singing a different note as they passed. Faint whispers began to tug at Vesperian's attention, soft and insistent, slipping through the cracks in his thoughts.
The hollow knows its own shape. You seek reunion.
"Sereth, do you hear that?" he asked, his crimson-violet irises paling as the whispers grew louder.
She glanced back at him, wary. "Hear what?"
"The whispers. They're coming from the spires."
Her expression darkened. "Ignore them. The Rift preys on longing, on doubt. It'll say anything to draw you closer."
But the voice wasn't distant. It lived within him, a deep resonance pulling at the hollow inside, filling it with energy too vast to contain.
Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet rippled violently. Vesperian froze as the polished surface became transparent, revealing something beneath it. He saw dark stone walls, a circular chamber illuminated by arcane lights. Robed figures surrounded a burning shard of shadow. And in the center, a flickering figure of crimson-violet energy writhed in pain.
His brother. It had to be. Vesperian's breath caught in his throat as a wave of recognition crashed through him—not just visual, but something deeper. The flickering entity below shared his essence, his origin. Even torn apart and remade, they were still connected by an unbreakable thread that pulsed between them like a second heartbeat.
"Don't look!" Sereth barked, grabbing his arm. But Vesperian couldn't tear his gaze away.
The figure in the vision stilled, and its molten eyes—violet threaded with crimson, the perfect inverse of his own—locked onto his. A connection formed between them, impossible yet undeniable. Through the dimensional barrier, Headmaster Kaelir's voice called out with sudden alarm: "The sundered one watches! Strengthen the binding!"
Reality snapped back as Sereth yanked him forward, the earth beneath them cracking. The spires around them shuddered and twisted inward, reaching like claws.
"Move!" Sereth shouted, pulling him as crystalline formations erupted in their path. But their way forward transformed, the spires forming a wall of refracted light that burst apart into a humanoid figure. Its translucent body gleamed, lines of silver threading through it, gathering in its radiant eyes.
"Kalen," Sereth whispered, frozen in place. Her dagger trembled in her hand as decades of grief crashed through her practiced composure. "Kalen wouldn't—" she started, but her voice faltered, unsure if the lie was meant for Vesperian or herself.
The figure tilted its head, smiling unnervingly. "Sister. You've brought him."
"This… isn't you." Her voice cracked as she raised her trembling dagger. "You're not my brother."
"And yet I am," the figure replied, turning its piercing gaze to Vesperian. "And you, sundered one, must understand. Sundering is not a mistake. It is the first step toward becoming."
"What am I becoming?" Vesperian asked, the silver lines on his skin flaring bright enough to illuminate the crystals around them.
The figure's smile deepened. "You are the answer. The hollow knows its own shape. And it reaches."
Sereth's dagger slashed the ground, breaking the vision as the figure shattered into light. "Run!" she screamed.
Through the chaos, Vesperian was no longer running toward the Veridian Gateway.
He was running toward the truth.