Shards of Dawn
In a world where magic is carved from ancient relics and wielded by tyrants, a destitute orphan discovers she alone holds the key to ending the empire’s reign of terror. Hunted through slums, catacombs, and shattered ruins, Lyra Veil must unite rebels, outwit traitors, and master a forgotten magic—before darkness swallows the last hope for freedom.
Fires in the Blood
In the half-lit hush of early morning, the enclave huddled in defeat. Torch-glow flickered over battered faces and the splinters of hope left from their night’s gamble. Mira’s fingers trembled as she examined the relic-cored weapon, its wires still hissing faint malice. Lyra lay slumped on a threadbare cot, sweat beading her brow, the Shard cold and silent against her chest.
Jax’s voice ground through the room. “Nothing good’ll come if we stay. Mask’s dogs sniffed this place before—after what happened last night, they’ll be here by dusk.”
Mira straightened, brushing her singed sleeve. “There’s one left who might help us.”
“Orin?” Jax’s mouth twisted in doubt. “The mad hermit of Ashwater? You’d trust him with this?”
“We don’t have the luxury of trust,” Mira said. “He knows more about the Shards’ true nature than any living. He’s the only one alive who can tell us what Lyra’s become.”
Lyra tried to sit up. Her limbs felt leaden, as if the night’s magic had hollowed her bones.
“How far is Ashwater?” she rasped.
Kalen brought her water, gaze anxious. “Day’s march. Through the Wildways. Safer to go by tunnels part of the way, but at some point… the city’s shadow ends.”
Jax set his jaw. “We move at nightfall. I’ll take point. Are you fit, girl?”
Lyra managed a nod, gripping the Shard—not out of comfort but necessity. Each heartbeat dragged memory after it, images ghosting the edges of her mind: fire and stone, figures distant and luminous, whispering in all the tongues of the world. The gift had left a stain behind her sight; she worried it might never bleed away. Mira packed, hunched and muttering, while the others—those who’d once looked on Lyra as a blessing—now eyed her as if power itself was a contagious wound.
When night collapsed over Marrow’s End, the exodus began. Three rebels—Lyra, Kalen, Mira, and Jax—moved fast through the warren of tunnels, carrying what they could on their backs. At the rear, Arlen—the youngest left from last night’s raid—hobbled with a broken arm. Their footfalls echoed like hunted prey.
They surfaced near the city’s shattered edge, where the bones of ruined aqueducts choked the skyline. The world was gone to bramble and shadow; imperial markers carved on shattered pillars warned travelers away. Between the roots of the old city and the wildland beyond, a wet gray fog pooled, thick enough to suffocate sound.
Kalen ran point, eyes wary for patrols. Lyra followed, senses humming, the Shard’s pulse faint in her pocket. Each step away from old stones brought fresh pain to her head—as if unseen wires tugged at something inside her.
They pressed on. Wildways swallowed them; hostile trees grew through what had once been manor lanes, casting spiderweb shadows over moss and stone. The city’s poison bled here: broken shrines, relic graffiti, bones gleaned by crows. Somewhere out in the mists, the chime of imperial horns rang, distant but persistent.
The first attack came just as the moon climbed above the ruins. Kalen’s sharp hiss, “Down!”—and then bolts thunking into stone. Imperial Hunters, faces hidden behind black-masked visors, burst from cover. Their leader moved with terrible grace—a woman in gleaming armor, one hand on a sword wreathed in obsidian fire. Sable: Mask’s Shard-bearer, rumored to kill on command or whim.
Lyra felt the Shard scream an alarm in her blood. The world narrowed, colors leeching out until only shapes mattered.
Jax barreled forward, breaking the ring. “Scatter! To the canal!”
Kalen yanked Lyra by the arm, but before they could bolt, a Hunter hurled a spike of relic-light, searing toward Arlen. Lyra reacted: the Shard kindled in her palm, energy surging. She tried to shield the boy—but the light fought her, wild and brutal. The relic-light bent, shattered against her dawn-flare, but the recoil burned Lyra’s nerves as if white-hot wire passed through her arm.
Mira dragged Arlen out of the blast zone. Jax held the rest at bay long enough for the survivors to scramble onto a pillared causeway. Sable watched, cold and calculating, as Lyra’s magic finally collapsed with her onto her knees.
“We’ll meet again, child,” Sable called, voice echoing like iron in the fog. For a moment, something almost like regret flickered in her eyes.
They limped onward, bruised and scattered. By the next dawn, one more was lost—Cerin, a silent blade among the group, cut down in the escape. Arlen’s wound festered. Tension burned into every silence.
They camped at the lip of a dried fountain, taking turns on watch. Mira patched wounds, always keeping a measured distance from Lyra, watching every tremor. Jax’s nerves were threadbare; his suspicions fell on Lyra and the cost each new display of her power exacted on them.
“Whatever you draw from that thing isn’t free, girl,” Jax muttered, bandaging his leg. “If you break before Mask finds you, what good is it?”
Kalen tried to deflect. “She saved us. That’s more than your blade did.”
Jax’s eyes burned. “None of us want martyrs. We want to live. You trust the Shard, fine. But don’t you bet all our lives on her.”
Lyra stared into the dark, haunted by what she’d seen each time the Shard lit her veins. Now, hearthless and aching, the visions pressed harder—the world turned to flame, a golden tower falling, faceless god-beings hammering dawn into glass. Voices without mouths: You are the fire, child. The gate unclosed.
Mira knelt beside her, slow and gentle. “What do you see, Lyra?”
Lyra fought words around the horror and awe. “Waking-dreams. Old times. Makers. Every time I use it, I see them. Feel them. It… hurts. It’s like I’m another version of myself, older. Brighter.”
Mira nodded, gaze softening. “The Shards are fragments from the Age Before, made by hands not our own. You're not the first to bear that echo, but you’re tied closer than any I’ve seen. Use its power too fast and it’ll tear what makes you Lyra to splinters.”
A cold wind wound through camp. Above, the stars were cut by black-winged shapes—imperial crows, or something older lingering where the city failed.
By the third dusk, sheltering beneath a grove of glass-barked trees, their numbers thinned and nerves raw, Kalen told stories to keep the fear at bay. He spoke of lost towns, of the Emperor’s rise, his eyes never quite meeting Lyra’s. There was something guarded in his manner—his hand straying often to a pendant at his throat, old and battered.
When the others slept, Lyra slipped away to think. The Shard lay against her palm, faintly luminous, warm as a heartbeat. She tried to call for its music, but nothing answered—only the memory of the ancient voice: Power asks its price.
She was afraid—of power, of failing, of becoming something less than herself. The rebellion clung to her, fragile and desperate; she clung to them in return, knowing it wouldn’t be enough if she broke first.
Come dawn, fog parted to reveal the crumbling towers of Ashwater, dewbeads clinging to owl-picked windows. A tangle of waters, bridges, and half-drowned towers barricaded the hermit scholar’s sanctum from the world.
Mira found the sign—three carved lines above a rusted gate. A warning to enemies, a welcome to the desperate. The group shuffled through, black-eyed and silent.
Within, ash and dust hung thick in the air amid shelves splayed with relic fragments, scrolls, and bones. At the desk, ancient and hunched, Master Orin scribbled patterns on a web of oiled parchment. He turned, revealing eyes like cloudy sunstones, and smiled—a crack in the years. “So,” his voice grated, “the dawn rises at last. What price are you willing to pay for truth, little one?”
Lyra flinched from his gaze, visions still raging behind her eyes. The Shard gleamed, pulse quickening to match her own. Behind her, the resistance fragmented by grief and suspicion, she straightened her spine. Through pain, through doubt, she answered: “Everything I have left.”
Orin’s smile widened—pity and awe in equal measure. “Then step inside, Shard-bearer. Our war’s just beginning.”