Through the Breach

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The world beyond Vael was no longer just shadow: it was peril, jagged and ceaseless, cast in the cold silver of an unfamiliar moon. The forest’s bones prickled with chill and ancient magic; branches reached overhead like fingers grappling with the sky. Eiran, Mira, Talin, and Narsa pressed onward, tied together not by friendship but by terror, the groaning hush behind them urging flight.

They moved in fits—bursts of desperate speed broken by moments of panting stillness, ears straining for the slick, alien cries of pursuing things. Mist curled, thick as wool, turning trickling runnels into rivers, every rock a broken tooth. Boots slipped on old needles and moss. Even starlight was shy here: only flashes revealed the bruised treetops or the pale, haunted lines of their faces.

Narsa led at points, forging a path through nettled bramble and uprooted trunks with a quick, nervous certainty, staff gleaming in her grip. Eiran wondered—not for the first time—if something more than ordinary sight moved her feet. Mira kept behind him, silent but watchful, hand never straying far from the pommel of her sword. Talin melted into the margins as only rangers could, eyes sharp, body tense.

The ruin of Vael lingered in every mind. They carried the sounds with them: crying, burning, the bell’s last, broken toll. They moved because to stop was to surrender not just their lives, but whatever fragments of hope the world had managed to gather through long centuries.

A fallen cedar, moss-veined and slick, forced them to scramble across its trunk over a gully below—black water reflecting a mad, spinning sky. Mira went first, testing each foothold, whispering the way forward. Eiran followed, his hands numb, the star stone in his pack like a second heart.

Narsa moved more fluidly than the rest—unafraid of the dark, or perhaps intractably part of it. She paused midway, glancing back at Eiran. “Hurry. The things that hunt shadows don’t fear water, but they move slower at a crossing.”

Talin brought up the rear, gaze never leaving the treeline. He knelt on the far side, ear pressed to the ground. After a heartbeat, he motioned them up.

“We’re not alone,” Tala grunted, rising. “Keep close.”

They pressed on until the woods thinned, surrendering to low moor and wind-ravaged upland. The air here tasted of metal and frost. The thunderheads, earlier only a thickness on the horizon, now crawled overhead, silvered with erratic flashes. Every few moments, the ground shook—a deeper movement than mere weather. Eiran remembered Mira’s tale of falling lights, of stars breaking mid-heaven. The world was not merely under siege; it was coming apart, one piece at a time.

They came to a place where the land had split—the ancient earth torn to a yawning chasm half-swallowed in fog. Charred roots and stone teeth jutted into the void; the ground smoked as if the world bled. A broken bridge, centuries-old and crusted with yellow lichen, spanned the divide. Half its stones had fallen, dangling by a miracle or curse above the darkness below.

Mira blanched. “We go over, or we go back. And back means death.”

Talin inspected the bridge, testing each flagstone with a practiced boot. “I can make it,” he said. “Maybe three at a time. The span is bad, but the ropes—”

Narsa brushed past, her hands flickering with pale, hungry light. “We don’t have time for doubt.”

She stepped onto the bridge, staff raised. The air warped—a shimmering pressure squeezed Eiran’s head, making his vision swim. Narsa tapped the first stone; it glowed, embers running down the cracks. Each step bled a bit of light into the darkness, and as she went, the bridge seemed to resettle, ancient mortar sighing with borrowed strength.

“Quickly,” she said, voice distant, “while the magic holds.”

One after the other, they followed. Eiran’s legs shook with each footfall, but he kept his stare fixed on the flickering path Narsa forged ahead—a promise that something in this world still bent toward hope.

Halfway across, thunder growled. Far below, something moved, huge and unseen, scales scraping stone. Mira’s face tightened; Eiran felt a pulse from within his pack, the star stone growing hot. Behind, a shriek split the night—far off, but not far enough.

They sprinted the last paces, tumbling onto solid earth. Narsa dropped to one knee, staff digging a furrow as the light guttered out.

Eiran turned to her, words clumsy in his mouth. “Thank you.”

She flicked her gaze up, sharp as a blade. “Don’t thank me yet. Power has a price. And the cult—my old teachers—taught me not to trust easy gratitude.”

Talin bristled. “You spoke like a mage before. From the old city?”

Narsa’s chin lifted, defiant through her fatigue. “I was theirs once. Not anymore.”

Mira’s gaze, speculative but not unkind, lingered on her. “You wield flame and light for strangers. That’s not common among those who run.”

A silence fell. Narsa stood, dusting her knees. “What choice did you leave me, bringing the darkness down on this place?” Her eyes locked on Eiran. “You carry, all of you, the taste of prophecy. Even running, you bleed fate—like a beacon.”

Eiran didn’t know what answer she sought, only that the pain in her voice echoed his own. “Maybe. But we’re not killers, and we need you. The world needs you.”

Narsa’s face twisted. “Need is not trust.” But she walked with them, not away, as the night deepened and clouds shut out the stars.

They found uneasy shelter beneath a low shelf of rock, the wind blocked but not banished. Talin built a fire, hands swift but silent. By its meager warmth, rations were unpacked; the bread was dry, the water tainted with the taste of smoke. Mira took first watch, blade across her knees. Narsa sat apart, her staff across her lap, back pressed firm to stone.

Eiran tried to sleep, but the pain of loss and the dread of what lay behind spun on inside him. He watched Narsa’s silhouette, outlined in shifting firelight. She seemed so much older in the stillness—eyes lost to flames, hair wild, shoulders squared.

As the night drew tight, a strange hush fell. The air rippled; the fire dimmed. Sleep claimed Eiran not gently, but like a sudden plunge.

He stood in another world. Mist churned, thick as new milk, and a black river split the dreamland. Shadows writhed along the banks. Across the water, on a spear of stone, Narsa waited.

"Do you see it?" she called, her voice echoing thirteenfold.

Eiran's hands glowed—stars burning in his palms, pulsing with the same fever as the stone. The air shimmered; a cascade of voices swept the banks with words both alien and familiar:

The world is unmade, again and again. Stitch the light. Refuse the darkness. Or all is given to hunger.

Black tendrils leapt from the river, seeking Narsa. She raised her staff, and blinding light met shadow, driving it back. A shard of starfire fell between them, spinning slow, illuminating the pattern of cracks—a map, or a promise. Eiran reached for it just as the vision broke.

He woke, heart pounding, sweat slicking his brow. Across the fire, Narsa shuddered awake as well—eyes wild, throat working. They stared at each other, and for one moment, understanding passed between them. Different and alone, yet bound now by something no word could name.

Mira, roused by their movement, sat up. "What happened?"

Narsa wrapped her arms tight. “A dream. A warning. Or a test.” Her voice trembled, but she did not look away from Eiran.

Eiran nodded slowly. “We saw the same thing. Shadows, a river, shards… like the visions before.”

Talin poked the fire, sending sparks up into the dark. "Prophecy or nightmare, does it tell us what to do tomorrow?"

Mira met Narsa's gaze levelly. “No one rests easy tonight. But if you walk with us—magic or none—you stand with hope. Not alone.”

Narsa hesitated, pride and fear warring in her. But then she let out a shaky breath, and nodded just once. “Fine. I’ll help you. For as long as I can. But you owe me honesty.”

Eiran managed a small, exhausted smile. "We owe each other more than that."

Dawn crept slow above the moor. The party rose, battered but luminous in the first pale beams, finally united in purpose, if not in trust. And far to the east, across the rents in the land, the sky flickered—starfire or ruin, impossible to tell. The road to Astryn, and to whatever lay beyond, had claimed them all.

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