The sky didn't begin to crack until midmorning.
It wasn't a loud event—no thunder, no lightning—just a deep, resonant pop, like the world had hiccuped. Mira turned her head toward the horizon, where thin, iridescent lines split the clouds, like spiderwebs drawn in shimmering ink.
"Oh, brilliant," she muttered. "Reality's starting to look like broken phone glass."
She and the group stood on the edge of the Skyglass Vale, a valley so high in altitude that clouds floated below it. The terrain sparkled with veins of silicate and faintly glimmering moss. Airships sometimes passed overhead, carried by elemental gusts and unreasonable optimism.
"Do we… go in there?" Reeko asked, holding his cloak tighter. His lute, now fitted with a seventh string made from something disturbingly sinewy, hummed with unease.
Pipla stomped forward, squinting. "I don't trust it. Too shiny. Like it's pretending not to be dangerous."
Jory, perched on a low ridge, let a small glass sphere roll between his fingers. "The wind speaks in whispers here," he said. "Old ones. They remember Fatebinders."
Mira raised a brow. "Do they remember the last one exploding?"
Jory grinned. "Parts of him, maybe."
The path ahead twisted through crystal arches and precarious ledges. The Vale was beautiful, like a cathedral sculpted from dreamstone—but it pulsed beneath their feet. Like a sleeping thing waiting to be disturbed.
They began the trek.
The terrain was deceptive. Where it looked stable, it wobbled. Where it appeared fragile, it held firm. Mira had to constantly test her footing, one eye on the Die pouch at her side. The silver cubes throbbed faintly with energy, growing warmer the deeper they went.
She glanced back at the others. Pipla marched ahead like she could punch the terrain into compliance. Reeko had resorted to tying himself to Jory, who in turn muttered riddles about cloud spirits and vinegar.
"I'm just going to say it," Mira said. "We've been through fire gardens, trick trees, cursed libraries, and a temple that nearly erased our bones. But this—this looks like a Final Boss's front porch."
No one disagreed.
A moment later, the clouds below parted.
From the swirling mist emerged a figure—floating. Not flying. Drifting. Wrapped in a shroud of dark feathers and starlight, the being glided upward toward the edge of the Vale, where they stood.
Reeko yelped. Pipla reached for her hammer. Mira stepped forward.
The figure spoke with a voice like wind through hollow bone. "Fatebinder. We've met.
Mira frowned. "Have we?"
"You will. I have walked your path in reverse. I remember your end as my beginning."
Jory squinted. "Oh, a future echo. Or a paradox echo. Possibly both. Delicious."
Mira studied the figure. Their eyes shimmered silver-blue, like her Die. A second Fatebinder?
"Wait," she said slowly. "You're… me?"
The figure chuckled. "Not quite. Another. Another bearer. Another thread. We're chapters in different books—shelved close, sometimes sharing ink."
Pipla blinked. "Do we have to fight you or follow you?"
The figure lifted a hand, revealing a strange object—half medallion, half compass, with a fractured rune glowing at its core.
"You follow," they said. "The storm gathers above the Vale. Velcrath's tether deepens here. You need the skyshard to sever it."
Reeko whispered, "Skyshard. That sounds legendary and highly flammable."
Mira stepped closer. "And this tether—this is what's letting Velcrath pull reality apart?"
The echo-Fatebinder nodded. "Yes. He's anchored here. The Vale's resonance amplifies fate disruptions. If you don't cut it—he'll walk your world by next moonrise."
Mira reached for the Die.
She felt the shift.
Time bent.
Clouds froze.
The wind silenced.
"Okay," she said aloud. "Let's roll."
18
A surge of clarity hit her. The path to the skyshard was not a straight one—it wound upward through inverted gravity pockets and invisible mirrors. Traps, illusions, and something with a lot of teeth waited.
But she could see the path.
Just barely.
"I know the way," she said. "But we'll need tether ropes, climbing claws, and possibly a strong emotional support platypus."
"I have twine!" Reeko announced proudly.
Jory held up what looked like a mummified duck.
"That'll… do," Mira muttered. "Let's move."
They climbed.
It wasn't really climbing—it was more like swimming upward through gravitational chaos. Each step carried a risk of floating sideways or backward, and the air shimmered with refracted fate.
At one point, Pipla's boots caught fire. She kept walking.
At another, Reeko temporarily turned into an origami swan. He was fine. Mostly.
Mira felt the Die pulse stronger with each step.
They reached the Skyglass Apex by late afternoon.
There it was.
The skyshard—a crystalline spike embedded in a floating platform of glass-like stone. Around it curled long strands of shadow, thick as ropes, connected to an invisible anchor above.
And wrapped around the shard's base was something monstrous.
It had wings of broken metal, a face like a mask of grief, and eyes that bled violet flame.
Velcrath's herald.
It turned as they approached.
"Fatebinder," it hissed. "Your thread ends here."
Mira drew a breath. "Nope. My thread escalates here."
She drew the Die.
15
Good. Not perfect. But good enough.
She lunged as the air around them shattered into chaos.
The air exploded.
The Herald moved like a thought turned violent—one moment coiled around the skyshard, the next surging toward Mira in a plume of violet fire. Wings of broken iron sliced wind into weapons. Its voice, when it spoke, was pain in phonetic form.
"You should not exist."
Mira rolled aside, her boots skidding across the glassy surface. Sparks ignited where her feet struck—magic reacting to presence, to possibility. She didn't look back.
"Join the club!" she shouted.
Pipla was already in motion, warhammer raised. She launched off a floating shard of crystal and collided with the Herald's flank. It staggered—but not much. The impact left a dent, but the beast hissed and spun, slamming Pipla into a nearby spire.
Reeko strummed three discordant notes on his lute. "Guarding melody! Defensive polka!"
A shimmering barrier formed around Jory, who didn't seem to notice. He was busy drawing a sigil with bone chalk, muttering, "Echo in the flame, name the price of futures sold…"
Mira dug into her satchel and yanked the Die.
Natural 20!
Time slowed.
The world shifted into focus, like a film frame snapping into clarity. Mira knew—deep in her marrow—where the Herald would strike next, where the weak point glimmered, how the tether behind it twisted through the shard like thread in a needle.
She shouted orders.
"Jory! Cut the third arc when it pulses. Pipla—left wing, aim for the joint. Reeko—get behind that pillar and don't ever stop playing."
Then she ran straight at the Herald.
It was like charging a hurricane. Wind howled, fire licked her heels, the shard pulsed with eldritch warning. But Mira ducked beneath a sweeping claw and vaulted over a crack in the platform. She slapped the Die against the shard.
16
A surge of energy rocketed through her spine. Her mind filled with visions—images not her own. Other Fatebinders. Other threads. A desert storm. A drowned city. A crown of teeth. All roads that had not been hers. Yet each was bound to this same shard.
The shard screamed.
So did the Herald.
It roared and twisted toward her, its burning face drawn into a sneer. A lash of shadow slammed into Mira 's side, sending her sprawling across the crystal. Pain spiked down her ribs. She heard Pipla shout and the sound of something breaking—glass, maybe bone.
Jory finished his sigil.
The air fractured.
Dozens of overlapping silhouettes appeared—echoes of people Mira didn't recognize. Past Fatebinders? Ghosts? Future versions? One looked like an older Mira with scorched armor and a blade of constellation light.
The Herald staggered. It hissed and lashed out in every direction.
That's when Reeko changed the tune.
A minor chord.
A grieving note.
The wind stilled.
The clouds opened.
And the echo-Fatebinder from earlier appeared again, stepping onto the platform as if born of stormlight.
"Strike now," they said.
Mira didn't hesitate. She grabbed the Die again.
19
She slammed the Die into the shard.
Light burst.
Not just light—memory. Fate. Everything the shard had stored pulsed outward, a shockwave of forgotten potential. Threads of destiny rewove themselves in real time. The tether connecting Velcrath to this realm screamed, convulsed, and finally—snapped.
The Herald howled.
It collapsed in on itself, wings folding like broken umbrellas, flame snuffing out as its tether dissolved. In its place, a smear of darkness scattered to the wind, leaving behind only a single burning feather.
Mira dropped to her knees.
Breathing hard.
Pipla limped toward her, one arm cradling her ribs. "That… was fun."
Reeko leaned against a floating stone, panting. "I've aged four years and I think my lute is pregnant."
Jory nodded solemnly. "The Herald is gone. But the tether was only one."
The echo-Fatebinder stepped forward.
"There are three," they said.
Mira winced. "Of course there are."
"One in the sky. One in the deep. And one in the heart. This was the sky."
The clouds below them shimmered, parting to reveal a path spiraling downward.
"You must journey to the Cavern of Stillblood next," the echo said. "That is where the deep tether festers. After that… the final one lies in the Cradle. A place you'll have to find within yourself."
"Vague much?" Mira asked.
The figure smiled. "That's fate for you."
With a gust of wind, they vanished—leaving behind a single shard of mirrored crystal.
Mira picked it up. The moment her fingers closed around it, she saw a glimpse of herself—older, stronger, wearing strange armor, leading an army.
"I don't want to lead an army," she whispered.
But the Die pulsed.
They disagreed.
By nightfall, they had left the Skyglass Vale behind. The clouds returned to stillness. The platform receded into legend.
Mira didn't speak for a while.
The others, unusually, let her be.
But as they made camp on the edge of a star-lit ridge, Reeko passed her a warm flask of something vaguely cinnamon.
"You did good," he said.
"Did I?" Mira asked.
"Better than I would've. And you didn't even explode."
Jory sat on a rock and began humming a new tune. Pipla leaned against a tree, cleaning her cracked armor. Mira sat beside the fire and stared up at the stars.
Tomorrow, they'd descend into darkness.
Tomorrow, they'd face the deep.
But tonight—
Tonight, they were alive.
And the Die, warm in her satchel, no longer throbbed with uncertainty.
They pulsed with purpose.
Descent into Stillblood
The next morning, the sky was the colour of old parchment soaked in ash. Beneath them, the path that spiraled from the Skyglass Vale toward the Cavern of Stillblood was neither road nor rope nor stair—it was simply there, suspended like a dare from the world itself.
Jory sniffed the air. "Smells like secrets."
Pipla spat. "Smells like mildew and regret."
Reeko played a slow note on his lute and muttered, "Feels like the middle bit of a song where everyone thinks the hero dies."
Mira wasn't listening. Not entirely. She'd had dreams. Not the hazy kind where you forget them the moment your eyes open—but the sharp-edged, fate-woven kind that stuck to her bones.
Dreams of chains. Of blood rising like tidewater. Of eyes beneath the earth.
And a whisper: "Stillblood waits."
They descended.
The world grew colder with every step.
The wind thinned. The clouds above vanished. The sky, which had been their ceiling for days, became a forgotten thought. Soon they moved through tunnels carved from salt and obsidian, their torches flickering with unnatural colours.
Jory occasionally vanished and reappeared with disturbing nonchalance.
"Scouted ahead," he'd say, "tunnels merge like bad policy. One path forks into thirteen, then loops back and asks for exact change."
"Anything try to kill you?" Pipla asked.
"Three times."
"Good. Means we're close."
After hours of descent, they arrived at a chasm.
A thin bridge of bone and mineral crossed it, suspended by nothing but silence.
Beneath, nothing. Not black. Not void. Just… absence.
Reeko's voice shook. "That's not a drop. That's anti-fall. You fall down there, you don't hit the bottom—you un-exist on the way."
"Encouraging," Mira muttered. "Everyone stay close."
They crossed, one by one. No handrails. No second chances.
Halfway across, the bridge whimpered.
Then sang.
Faintly, like a bone flute.
Jory whispered, "That's the lullaby of the Worm-Priests of Dalch."
Mira blinked. "Are you making that up?"
"Maybe. That's the terrifying bit."
When they reached the other side, their torches dimmed.
Before them stretched a corridor made of bloodstone.
The air felt thick—like swimming through sorrow.
And at the end of the corridor was a door.
It was shaped like an eye. And it blinked.
Mira rolled
11
She flinched nervously.
The eye didn't just blink—it saw her.
It peeled her open with perception sharper than knives. Her memories twisted like paper. The smell of her mother's perfume. The sound of her first breakup. The silence of the hospital room when she said goodbye to her nan. Everything bare.
Pipla stepped in front of her and slammed the door with the flat of her axe.
The eye vanished.
And the door swung open.
"Sometimes," Pipla said, "you just gotta glare right back."
Inside was the Cavern of Stillblood.
And it was worse than Mira imagined.
There was no floor.
Only a thin film of crimson mist, coiling above an invisible surface. The cavern walls pulsed like a heartbeat—slow, languid, unnerving.
Pillars of blackened bone curved toward the ceiling like the ribs of a sleeping beast.
And in the centre stood an altar made of flesh and glass.
Above it floated the second tether.
It resembled a root grown from a god's memory—pale, knotted, pulsing with thought and hate. It twisted through the cavern like a snake made of stolen prophecy.
And below it—
A figure.
Bound in chains of echo-metal. Eyes closed. Lips moving in silent prayer.
"Who's that?" Reeko whispered.
"Another fatebinder," Jory murmured. "A lost one. Trapped here to feed the tether."
Mira stepped forward.
The Die in her satchel burned.
Not warm. Not pulsing.
They ached.
"This place…" she said. "It's a wound."
Then the tether noticed her.
And screamed.
The scream was sound and force and memory all at once. The cavern twisted. The walls spat blood. The mist turned solid and clawed.
The tether unfurled like a serpent. It spoke not with words—but with need. With hunger.
And it lashed toward them.
Mira dodged—but barely. Pipla threw herself in front of Reeko. Jory vanished again.
The bound figure at the altar opened their eyes.
And whispered:
"End me, and break the chain.
Mira yanked the Die free.
14
She flung the Die into the air and shouted:
"Disrupt the tether—now!"
A burst of raw fate energy shot outward, striking the tether mid-lash. It faltered—only for a heartbeat—but that was enough.
Pipla leapt and drove her warhammer into its side.
The cavern convulsed.
Jory appeared behind the tether, tossing powder into the air. "Binding dust! From the Tomb-Merchants of Tyrk!" he shouted, although it could easily have been curry.
Reeko strummed a shattering chord and howled lyrics that felt older than time.
The tether reared, screeched And retaliated.
Spikes of regret. Blades of sorrow. Screams from timelines that never happened. It launched them like missiles. One tore through Reeko's coat. Another grazed Pipla's arm. Jory caught one and folded it into a napkin, muttering something about dessert.
Mira staggered toward the altar.
The figure chained to it met her eyes.
"You must end this," they said. "The tether drinks from me. Break me… or it lives."
Mira shook her head. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't," the figure said gently. "Fate doesn't give discounts."
She looked at the Die.
They shimmered.
Then… she noticed something.
A crack in the tether.
A single, glimmering thread that wasn't tied to the figure—but to something else.
A shard embedded in the altar.
The true source.
She called out, "Jory! Reeko! Pipla! Hit the shard! Not the person!"
Jory tossed a knife at it.
Reeko played a high note.
Pipla charged.
18
Mira joined them.
The four of them struck at once—blade, note, hammer, Die.
The shard cracked, Then shattered.
The tether screamed. Not in anger. In surprise.
It reeled, lashed wildly, and then Evaporated.
Gone.
The cavern sighed.
The mist cleared.
The chained figure collapsed, unconscious but alive.
Mira fell to her knees.
The Die, at last, cooled.
Later, they sat on a quiet ledge outside the cavern. The rescued Fatebinder slept peacefully beside the fire, watched over by Reeko's extremely off-key lullaby.
Pipla was eating something pickled and gristly.
Jory was carving a symbol into the rock. Probably protective. Possibly just decorative.
Mira stared into the flame.
"That was two," she said softly.
"The sky," Reeko added.
"The deep," Pipla said.
Jory nodded. "Only one left."
"The Cradle," Mira whispered.
"The heart," said the voice of the wind.
They all turned.
The echo-Fatebinder stood behind them again, cloaked in starlight and shadow.
"You've done well," they said.
"Not sure it feels like that," Mira muttered.
The echo stepped closer and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"The Cradle is not a place. It is the storm where choices are born. It is where your journey ends. Or begins again."
They handed her a small orb—glowing with light from both shards she had claimed.
"Find the third. Then… we'll stand together."
Mira looked at the orb, Then at the horizon, Then at her friends.
One final tether, One last thread to cut And she would face it With Die in hand And fate on her side.