The morning market bustled with the rhythms of village life that Kalen had known since childhood. Sunlight streamed through gaps in the canvas awnings, casting dappled patterns across weathered wooden stalls not unlike the blue-silver designs that had haunted his dreams. He paused at the edge of the square, running a hand through his dark, unruly hair, momentarily studying his reflection in a copper pot. His frost-blue eyes with their unsettling silver rings stared back, somehow more vibrant than they'd been just weeks ago.
"Fresh bread! Still warm!" called a vendor, the rich aroma of baked goods mingling with the earthy scent of summer vegetables and the tang of cured meats. Kalen moved through the crowd with practiced ease, his lean, wiry frame slipping between villagers who haggled over prices and exchanged local gossip. At seventeen, he stood taller than most boys his age, though his frame carried the understated strength of a blacksmith's apprentice rather than bulk.
A blacksmith's coin purse slipped from a man's belt ahead, falling toward the cobblestones. Without conscious thought, Kalen's fingers twitched, and for the briefest moment—a heartbeat, nothing more—the metal seemed to hesitate in its fall, as if reluctant to obey gravity's command. Then the sensation vanished, and the purse hit the ground with a musical jingle. Kalen blinked, confused by what he'd felt—a momentary connection, like a whispered word almost too faint to hear. He scooped up the purse and returned it to its grateful owner, the strange sensation already fading like morning mist under sunlight. But something cold settled in his stomach—this wasn't the first such incident in recent weeks.
A prickling sensation at the base of his neck made him turn toward the eastern edge of the village. Something felt... wrong. The air seemed to compress around him, like the pressure before a storm, though the sky remained clear blue. His fingers tingled with that same strange awareness he'd felt intermittently since the dreams began—a heightened sensitivity to the metal tools hanging at his belt, to the coins exchanging hands at market stalls, to the nails and hinges in the buildings around him. The rough leather of his belt pouch rasped against his palm as he instinctively reached for it, seeking the comfort of familiar textures when everything else felt increasingly alien.
Gareth appeared at his side, weathered face creased with concern. At forty-five, the smith still moved with the fluid grace of a much younger man, though silver now threaded his dark beard and creased the corners of his deep-set eyes. Those eyes now fixed on the horizon with alarming intensity.
"Kalen," he said, voice tight with barely controlled fear, "they've found us."
The strange lights on the horizon solidified into humanoid shapes, moving with unnatural speed toward Emberfall. Kalen stared in disbelief as Gareth's grip tightened on his shoulder, fingers digging into muscle with desperate urgency. The lights—no, the figures—covered ground with impossible swiftness, their movements jerky yet precise, like marionettes controlled by an unseen puppeteer. Each step brought them closer, their forms gaining definition against the pale blue morning sky. A high-pitched whine, just at the edge of hearing, seemed to accompany their approach—a sound that made Kalen's teeth ache and the tiny hairs on his arms stand on end.
"They've found us," Gareth repeated, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper that scraped against Kalen's ear. "Get to the forge—now."
Questions burned in Kalen's throat, but the look in Gareth's eyes—a cold, focused intensity he'd never seen before—froze them unspoken. This wasn't his mentor's usual stern demeanor; this was something else entirely. Something that made Kalen's skin prickle with instinctive warning. In that moment, Gareth seemed like a stranger wearing the familiar face of the man who had raised him.
Before he could respond, the first scream tore through the morning silence—high and terrified, abruptly silenced. At the village's edge, a building erupted in blue flame that crawled unnaturally fast across its roof. The fire moved with almost sentient purpose, too bright, too quick, consuming wood and thatch with eager hunger. Through the growing chaos, Kalen glimpsed the attackers—six figures in fitted dark clothing, faces obscured by smooth metallic masks with no features save for narrow eye slits that glowed with an eerie amber light.
One raised a hand, and the air above it distorted like heat shimmer before coalescing into a sphere of churning energy that pulsed with sickly yellow light. The sphere hummed with a sound that set Kalen's teeth on edge, a frequency that seemed to vibrate through his bones. With a casual flick of long fingers, the attacker sent it crashing through the wall of the village's grain storage. The explosion ripped outward with concussive force, the sound hitting Kalen's chest like a physical blow. Splintered wood and stone erupted in all directions as villagers scrambled away, their screams blending into a cacophony of terror.
A sharp ringing filled Kalen's ears, and the world tilted precariously. He swallowed against rising nausea, tasting copper and dust. His temples throbbed with a pressure that seemed to build from inside his skull, strangely familiar yet entirely alien—like the sensation just before lightning strikes, but centered within his own body.
"What are they?" Kalen gasped, his body frozen between terror and fascination. The sight defied everything he thought he understood about the world, yet something about the energy—about the patterns it formed in the air—resonated with the images from his dreams. The blue-silver spirals that had haunted his sleep were different from these harsh amber manifestations, but the underlying structure, the way they manipulated reality, seemed connected by some fundamental principle he couldn't articulate.
"Astral practitioners," Gareth answered, already moving toward his home with purposeful strides. His shoulders set in a fighter's stance Kalen had never seen him adopt before, tension radiating from his frame like heat from a forge. "Boundary Hunters. They're not here for the village—they're here for what I've hidden."
The words meant nothing and everything to Kalen. Astral practitioners—the term Gareth had mentioned once before, when speaking of distant Imperial concerns. But Boundary Hunters? That was new, and it sent a chill down Kalen's spine that had nothing to do with the morning air.
"You've hidden something? From them?" Kalen managed, struggling to keep pace with Gareth's urgent stride. "What could possibly—"
"Later," Gareth cut him off, eyes scanning their surroundings with practiced efficiency. "If we survive."
Whatever—or whoever—they were, the destruction they wrought seemed almost secondary to their purpose. They moved with methodical precision through the chaos, ignoring fleeing villagers unless they got in the way. Kalen noticed that each of the six attackers bore subtle distinctions—the leader, taller than the others, wore a mask with intricate etchings across its metal surface and moved with predatory confidence. Another, more slightly built, darted between buildings with unnatural agility, leaving faint green traces in the air. A third, broad-shouldered and deliberate, carried what appeared to be a staff that crackled with suppressed energy.
As he followed Gareth through streets rapidly descending into panic, Kalen noticed something disturbing about the attackers' movements. They weren't searching randomly—they were following a pattern, converging on the forge from different directions, as if they knew exactly what they sought. Their coordination was perfect, inhuman, like the components of a complex machine.
At the forge, Gareth threw open the door to his living quarters and headed straight for a weathered trunk in the corner. His fingers worked at a complex lock mechanism with practiced speed, manipulating hidden levers and tumblers that Kalen had never noticed despite his years in this house. The lock yielded with a series of soft clicks that somehow cut through the distant screams from the village square.
"What I'm about to show you," he said, urgency making his voice rough, "I should have given you weeks ago, when the dreams started. It's yours by birthright."
Birthright. The word hung in the air between them, laden with implications Kalen couldn't begin to decipher.
"Birthright?" Kalen repeated, his voice rising with disbelief. "What are you talking about? My father was a soldier, my mother—"
"Not everything you know about your parents is true," Gareth interrupted, his hands still working at the trunk. "Your mother was far more than you remember." His words came in quick, precise bursts as he rummaged through the trunk. "Your mother was Vale-born. Your eyes—that silver ring—it's the mark of her bloodline. The dreams started at seventeen, just as hers did. And those patterns you draw sometimes, without realizing—they're Boundary Script, not meaningless doodles."
A fragment of memory surfaced in Kalen's mind—his mother's hands surrounded by a faint blue-silver glow as she repaired his broken toy soldier, the metal flowing like water at her touch. He had always dismissed it as a child's imagination, but now...
"My dreams," Kalen said, the realization striking him with physical force. "She could do it too, couldn't she? The patterns, the metal—but why did you never tell me?"
Gareth paused, meeting Kalen's eyes with a mixture of regret and determination. "Three reasons. First, the Empire hunts anyone with these abilities—they would have taken you for 'training' that few survive. Second, the power manifests fully at maturity—telling you earlier would have meant years of fear without purpose. Third," his voice dropped lower, more intense, "your mother made me swear to keep you hidden until you could defend yourself."
A thunderous crash from outside cut through his words. The distant screams grew more desperate, closer.
"They're coming," Gareth said grimly. "We have minutes, if that."
"But what am I?" Kalen demanded, grabbing Gareth's sleeve. "What was my mother?"
Gareth's expression shifted, a shadow passing over his features. "Your mother was one of the last known Boundary Shapers—direct descendants of those who created the barrier between worlds. The Imperial Reformation declared them heretics, hunted them to extinction." His weathered hands trembled slightly. "And I was one of the Academy's hunters, before I learned the truth and helped her escape."
The revelation hit Kalen like a physical blow. His knees weakened as the world seemed to tilt beneath him. Gareth—the man who had raised him, taught him, been his only family—had once hunted people like his mother? Like him? The betrayal and confusion must have shown on his face, because Gareth's expression crumpled with shame.
"I've spent seventeen years trying to atone," he whispered. "Your mother forgave me before she died. I pray someday you might too."
Before Kalen could respond, Gareth turned back to the trunk and withdrew a small leather pouch with reverent care. With a quick glance toward the door, he tipped its contents into his palm—a jagged fragment of metal no larger than a coin, its surface etched with the same intricate patterns that had haunted Kalen's dreams for months.
In the dim light of the forge home, it glowed with inner blue-silver radiance, pulsing gently in time with Kalen's heartbeat. Or was his heart adjusting to match its rhythm? The moment the fragment was revealed, something responded within Kalen's chest—a resonance, a recognition that bypassed his conscious mind and spoke directly to his blood. His fingertips tingled with the urge to touch it, to claim what Gareth had called his birthright.
The fragment wasn't just metal—not iron or steel or any alloy Kalen had ever worked with. It had the weight and solidity of metal but possessed qualities that defied his understanding. The patterns etched into its surface weren't static; they shifted subtly, like ripples across deep water, rearranging themselves even as he watched. They were familiar in a way that went beyond his dreams—as if he'd known them before he was born.
"This is a Boundary Fragment," Gareth explained hurriedly, his eyes never leaving the door. "A piece of the original barrier that separates our world from the Astral. What lies beyond that barrier..." His voice faded, and for the first time, Kalen saw genuine fear in his mentor's eyes. "What lies beyond would consume our world if it could. The why, the how—that's the mystery no one fully understands. Not the Empire, not the Academy, not even the Boundary Shapers themselves. But the Fragments are the key—to strengthening the Boundary, or destroying it entirely."
The wall exploded inward in a shower of splinters and stone, the force of the blast throwing Kalen against the opposite wall. His lungs seized, dust filling his throat as he gasped for air. Pain bloomed across his back where he'd hit the wall, and the impact sent black spots swimming across his vision. Through watering eyes, he saw two masked figures step through the debris, their movements fluid and predatory.
The leader stood at least a head taller than his companion, his mask etched with swirling patterns that seemed to catch and distort the light. His hands were wreathed in crackling energy—amber tendrils that coiled like serpents around his fingers. The smaller figure beside him manipulated what appeared to be shards of sickly green crystal that orbited around their hands like obedient satellites.
"Subject located," the smaller attacker said, voice high and mechanical through the mask's filter. "Fragment presence confirmed. Neutralization protocol authorized."
The taller one spoke, voice deeper, distorted through the mask, the words emerging with a metallic resonance that seemed to bypass Kalen's ears and vibrate directly against his skull. "The Fragment, old man. Give it to us now, and your deaths will be quick."
Deaths. Plural. They had no intention of leaving witnesses.
Through his dazed state, Kalen saw Gareth close his fist around the fragment, which flared briefly brighter before dimming. A subtle shimmer passed over Gareth's form, like heat distortion, and then was gone.
Gareth straightened, his demeanor transforming from that of a village blacksmith to something altogether different—a warrior's stance, balanced and dangerous. Years seemed to fall away from him as his posture shifted, revealing the ghost of whoever he had been before settling in Emberfall. With blinding speed that belied his age, he drew a sword from beneath a workbench, its blade inscribed with the same glowing patterns as the fragment. The weapon hummed with subtle energy, the edge catching light that wasn't present in the dim room.
"Run, Kalen," he commanded, all pretense of the simple craftsman gone. The man who stood before Kalen now was a stranger—hard-eyed, dangerous, a coiled spring of potential violence. "Take the western path into the mountains. Find the marker stone with the three circles. Go now!"
Part of Kalen wanted to obey, to flee from this incomprehensible nightmare. But a deeper part of him—the part that had always felt different, apart—refused to abandon Gareth. He reached for the nearest tool, a heavy hammer meant for shaping plate armor, and hefted it with grim determination. The metal felt alive in his grip, more responsive than usual, as if it sensed his need and aligned itself with his purpose.
"I'm not leaving you," he said, the words emerging with surprising steadiness despite the fear churning in his gut.
The fight that followed was like nothing Kalen had ever witnessed. Gareth moved with impossible speed for his age, the pattern-etched sword cleaving through energy constructs the attackers hurled at him. Each slash left trails of blue-silver light hanging in the air for heartbeats afterward, like tears in the fabric of reality that slowly mended themselves. The taller attacker summoned whips of crackling amber energy that scorched deep gouges in the wooden floor when they missed their target. The second attacker, smaller but somehow more menacing, manipulated what looked like shards of green crystal that materialized from thin air, launching them at lethal velocity.
Gareth parried and dodged with the skill of a master swordsman, not a village blacksmith. But they were two, and despite his skill, they drove him back step by step. A crystal shard caught his shoulder, drawing first blood. The wound sizzled unnaturally, the edges glowing green as if poisoned. The taller attacker pressed the advantage, energy whips lashing with increasing ferocity.
"The Fragment doesn't belong to your kind anymore," the taller attacker hissed, the mask giving the words an inhuman quality. "The old ways are dead. The Empire has decreed it."
Gareth's laugh was bitter, sharp with an anger Kalen had never heard from him before. "The Empire knows nothing of what it forbids. The Boundary weakens, and your masters play with forces they cannot comprehend."
The words meant little to Kalen, but the reaction they provoked was immediate. The taller attacker's energy whips flared brighter, their movements becoming more erratic, driven by rage rather than calculation. "The Boundary serves the Empire now. The Reformation has rewritten the rules of reality."
Kalen seized his opportunity, lunging forward with his hammer, aiming at the smaller attacker's knees. The figure sidestepped with inhuman grace, then flicked a dismissive hand in Kalen's direction. Invisible force slammed into his chest, sending him crashing through the rear door and out into the alley behind the forge. The impact drove the air from his lungs, and for a terrifying moment, he couldn't breathe at all.
He hit the ground hard, skidding across rough stone. Pain bloomed across his back and ribs, and he tasted blood where he'd bitten his tongue. For several heartbeats, he could only lie there, struggling to breathe, the world spinning around him. Inside, the sounds of combat continued—metal against energy, Gareth's grunts of effort, the eerie humming of Astral powers he couldn't comprehend.
As Kalen struggled to his feet, using the wall for support, he felt something warm trickle down his temple—blood from a cut he hadn't realized he'd sustained. He wiped it away, his hand coming away smeared with red. The world steadied gradually, though each breath sent sharp pain through his ribs. He had to help Gareth. But as he turned back toward the forge, the sounds of battle from the village center reached him—screams, crashing timber, the unnatural crackle of more of those energy constructs.
The main square had become a nightmare of destruction—buildings ablaze with multicolored flames, villagers running in terror, two more masked figures methodically searching homes, hauling terrified occupants into the street for questioning before moving to the next building. Through the smoke and chaos, Kalen could see they were working their way toward the forge, closing a net around Gareth's home.
A familiar voice called his name, weak and pained. Kalen turned to see Tomas—his childhood friend, the baker's son who only yesterday had invited him to the Midsummer bonfire—pinned beneath a collapsed market stall. Blood stained his tunic in an expanding circle, and his face was ashen with shock and pain. His legs were trapped beneath a heavy wooden beam that had once supported the stall's awning.
"Help me," he gasped, reaching a trembling hand toward Kalen. "Please."
The sight of Tomas—sandy-haired, freckled, always quick with a joke or a smile—lying broken and bleeding triggered a rush of memories. Tomas sharing his lunch when Kalen had none. The two of them swimming in the creek during scorching summer afternoons, splashing water and competing to see who could hold their breath longest. Tomas defending him against village bullies when they'd called him strange for preferring the forge to their games. The bond between them stretched back as far as Kalen could remember, a constant in a life marked by loss.
"Kalen," Tomas wheezed, blood flecking his lips, "I can't feel my legs."
The choice tore at Kalen's heart—help his friend or return to aid Gareth. Two lives hanging in the balance, and he could only choose one. The weight of the decision was crushing, made worse by the knowledge that whichever choice he made, he would carry the consequences forever.
Kalen took one step toward Tomas, then froze as a crash and shout echoed from the forge. Gareth was alone against two Astral practitioners. Without help, he would die—and whatever secret the Fragment held would be lost with him. The secret that was somehow connected to Kalen's dreams, to the patterns, to whatever birthright Gareth had started to reveal.
Nausea rose in Kalen's throat, bitter and acidic. His hands trembled as the seconds stretched into an eternity of indecision. He could almost feel himself splitting in two, one version rushing to Tomas's aid, the other racing back to the forge. Either choice meant betraying someone he loved.
"I'll be right back," he lied, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "I'll send help. Hold on, Tomas."
The betrayal in his friend's eyes was a wound deeper than any physical injury, a look of disbelief that shifted rapidly to understanding and then to resignation.
"You're leaving me," Tomas said, not a question but a statement of fact. His voice held no accusation, which somehow made it worse.
"I have to help Gareth," Kalen said, his voice breaking. "There are things you don't understand—"
"Go," Tomas whispered, a single tear tracking through the dust on his cheek. "Just go."
Kalen turned away, his vision blurring with tears he refused to let fall. His stomach heaved, and he nearly retched from the guilt that crushed his chest like a physical weight. Every step away from Tomas felt like a betrayal, yet every second delayed was another moment Gareth faced death alone.
I'm sorry, he thought, the words inadequate even in his own mind. I'm so sorry.
He hated himself for the choice even as he made it. Gareth was alone against two Astral practitioners. Without help, he would die—and whatever secret the Fragment held would be lost with him. The secret that was somehow connected to Kalen's dreams, to the patterns, to whatever birthright Gareth had started to reveal.
Inside, Kalen found a scene straight from his worst nightmares. The interior of the forge home was destroyed, furniture shattered, walls scorched with energy impacts. Blood—Gareth's blood—spattered the floor in a trail that led to the center of the room. Gareth knelt there, one hand pressed against a vicious wound that extended diagonally across his chest. The injury pulsed with unnatural green light, spreading tendrils of sickly illumination beneath his skin. Blood seeped between his fingers, dripping onto the floorboards in a steady rhythm. The Fragment was gone.
The lead attacker stood over him, a curved blade raised for the killing blow. The metallic mask caught the light from the fires outside, making it appear as though the face was shifting, melting, revealing glimpses of what might lie beneath—not human flesh, but something else, something wrong.
"You should have given it willingly," the attacker said, voice cold and mechanical through the mask. "Now I'll take your life too, last of the old guard."
Through the cloudy haze of pain, Kalen saw Gareth battling two of the attackers, his movements precise and measured, revealing years of combat training that Kalen had never witnessed before. But there were still three others, and one was approaching where Kalen lay, partially hidden by fallen debris.
His hand closed around something hard—the fragment that had fallen during the explosion. The moment his fingers made full contact with the etched metal, a sensation like lightning surged through his arm, up into his head. The world around him changed. The normal vision in his right eye remained, but his left eye perceived something else entirely—a translucent overlay of flowing, interconnected lines of light that pulsed through everything around him. The currents were densest around metal objects, glowing in distinct colors and textures: the steel of weapons sang in deep blue harmonies; the copper fixtures in the room hummed a warm orange-red; the iron nails holding the walls together thrummed in a low, steady, forest-green pulse.
And within himself, a resonance built—a pressure seeking release.
The attacker spotted him and lunged. Pure instinct took over. Kalen raised his hand, not to block but to push at those glowing currents. The pressure inside him released in a rush that left him momentarily light-headed, and every metal object in the vicinity—nails, tools, broken hinges, even the swords and knives of the attackers—responded. They didn't just vibrate; they exploded from their positions toward the ceiling, then hovered, suspended in defiance of gravity, spinning slowly in place.
For a brief, stunning moment, the fighting stopped. Every eye turned toward the impossible spectacle.
Kalen's breath caught in his chest. He could feel every piece of metal—their weight, composition, and shape registered in his mind like points of light on a constellation. Each had its own resonance, its own song: steel whispered strength and versatility, a cool blue presence that responded eagerly to his call; iron rumbled with deep, ancient power, resilient but stubborn to change; copper flowed warm and compliant, carrying a melodic orange charge that tingled across his senses; silver—there was a single silver coin in someone's pocket—it sang with a high, pure note that cut through the others, bright and quick to answer.
But the awareness came with consequences he hadn't anticipated. His left temple throbbed with sudden, intense pain, like an ice pick driving into his skull. Warm wetness trickled from his nostril—blood, he realized. And a deep fatigue swept through him, as though he'd worked the forge for days without rest.
The sudden weakness made his concentration slip. The suspended metal began to tremble. One of the attackers—a woman with pale eyes and a sergeant's insignia on her uniform—recovered faster than the others.
"It's true," she said, voice tight with something between fear and triumph. "Grab him. The fragment too."
The floating metal objects jerked erratically as Kalen's focus wavered. He couldn't maintain this—whatever "this" was—much longer. His body was betraying him, muscles trembling with fatigue, vision blurring at the edges. The connection to the metal was slipping, like trying to hold water in cupped hands.
Do something. Anything.
He didn't know how to control this power precisely, but he didn't need precision—he needed chaos. With the last of his strength, Kalen released the pressure that had been building in his mind, not with a controlled push but an explosive release. The metal responded with equal violence, flying outward in all directions. Weapons, tools, nails—all became deadly projectiles, embedding themselves in walls, furniture, and flesh.
Screams filled the room as the attackers tried to shield themselves. One wasn't fast enough—a blacksmith's hammer caught him squarely in the chest, the sickening crunch of ribs audible even through the chaos. Another attacker took a handful of nails to the arm and shoulder, pinning her sleeve to the doorframe.
The momentary advantage created by the flying metal gave Gareth the opening he needed. He dispatched one opponent with a brutal efficiency that Kalen had never imagined his mentor capable of, then turned to help Kalen to his feet.
"The back door," he urged, half-carrying Kalen through the forge. "We need to get you out of the village—to the Academy."
"The Academy?" Kalen gasped, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Each step felt like wading through mud, his limbs leaden and unresponsive. His left eye had returned to normal vision, but the world still tilted and shifted around him. "The people—Tomas—"
"Can't help them if you're dead," Gareth cut him off, his voice harsh with urgency. "Or worse, captured. You've just revealed yourself, boy. The Empire will tear apart this entire village looking for you now."
Guilt churned in Kalen's stomach, bitter as bile. His village burned because of him—because of something in his blood he'd never known about until today. Because of a heritage he'd never asked for. The weight of it pressed down on him, heavier than the exhaustion wracking his body.
As they reached the back door, Kalen stumbled, and his hand brushed against the iron latch. Instantly, the green-hued sensitivity returned to his left eye, but attempting to draw on the power again made his vision swim with black spots. Blood flowed freely from both nostrils now, and the hammer-strike pain in his temple redoubled.
"Don't," Gareth warned, catching him as he swayed. "Using the power twice in such quick succession could kill you. It takes years of training to safely channel it, and you've already pushed too far."
"Then teach me," Kalen managed, tasting copper in the back of his throat.
"That's the plan," Gareth replied grimly, "if we live long enough to get you to those who can."
They emerged into the alley behind the forge. The air was thick with smoke, and in the distance, the screams continued—his friends, his neighbors, people he'd known his entire life, suffering because of him. The knowledge was a physical weight crushing down on his chest.
With the Western path ahead and the ruins of his old life behind, Kalen Frost took his first steps toward becoming what his bloodline had always meant him to be—not just a blacksmith's apprentice, but something far more ancient and dangerous.
A Boundary Shaper. The last of his kind.
Or perhaps, the first of something new.
As he disappeared into the treeline, the ring on his finger pulsed once with blue-silver light, and somewhere in the depths of the forest ahead, something answered.
As he crept through the village outskirts, staying to shadows and avoiding the Imperial patrols, sweat trickled down his back in rivulets. The summer heat pressed down like a physical weight, insects buzzing in the thick air. He passed the village well where, just weeks ago, he'd seen the boundary marker that had triggered this catastrophic chain of events.
A sound made him freeze—a distinctive high whistle, like metal singing at impossible frequencies. He recognized it instantly, though he'd heard it only once before. One of the hunters was still nearby.
The whistling grew louder—closer—approaching from the northeast. Without conscious thought, Kalen reached for his power again. The response was feeble, barely a whisper compared to the symphony he'd experienced earlier. His nose immediately began to bleed, and dizziness nearly brought him to his knees. Too soon. The cost was too high.
Risking a glance back, Kalen saw columns of smoke rising from what had been his home for seventeen years. From this distance, he could see what he couldn't from within—a perimeter forming around the village. Imperial forces were establishing checkpoints on every road. Soon, no one would enter or leave without scrutiny.
He touched the ring on his finger, feeling the pattern etched into its surface. Find Regent Thorne. Find the Vale family. Learn to control the power before it consumes me.
The Western path stretched before him, a narrow track disappearing into dense forest. The sun had begun its descent, casting long shadows across the land. Somewhere ahead lay answers about his heritage, about the Boundary Shapers, about the Fragment's purpose. Somewhere ahead also lay Nova Valtoria, its gleaming towers only a legend to most villagers.
As he reached the edge of the forest, movement to his right caught his eye—Tomas, limping heavily, blood staining his tunic, heading toward the soldiers. Their eyes met across the distance, and in that moment, Kalen saw the betrayal and rage in his friend's expression. Tomas raised his hand, pointing directly at Kalen, his mouth forming words Kalen couldn't hear.
But he didn't need to hear them to understand. Tomas was turning him in.
Three Imperial scouts immediately changed direction, moving swiftly toward where Kalen stood partially exposed at the forest edge.
He plunged into the trees, heart hammering. The forest floor was damp despite the summer heat, ancient leaves muffling his footsteps as he ran deeper into the green twilight. Behind him, he could hear the scouts calling to each other, coordinating their pursuit.
The weight of Gareth's sword bumped against his back with each step, and the metal within it sang to him in a voice that seemed almost alive—a legacy from a man whose past remained a mystery even in death. In his pocket, the locket containing his mother's portrait grew warm against his skin, almost as if responding to his fear.
As darkness fell, the forest changed character, becoming something wilder and more ancient. Trees that had seemed merely tall near the edge grew to towering giants here, their canopies blocking out what remained of the sunset. Luminous fungi glowed with eerie blue-green light along their trunks, illuminating a path that seemed to form before him and vanish behind.
The voices of his pursuers faded, but a new sound took their place—a rustling in the underbrush, too coordinated to be natural, too deliberate to be wildlife. Not Imperial scouts. Something else. Something that moved with the forest rather than through it.
Hunters. Three, maybe four, circling to cut him off from the Western path.
A branch snapped to his left. Kalen veered right, only to hear the distinctive whistle of a hunter's signal from that direction too. They were herding him. Not toward the village, but deeper into the forest—away from the paths Gareth had told him to follow.
Toward the Boundary.
As if summoned by the thought, the air ahead of him rippled like heat above a forge, colors that shouldn't exist bleeding into his vision. The trees beyond the distortion looked wrong somehow—too angular, their proportions subtly altered. The Boundary was thin here, just as Gareth had warned.
Kalen halted, caught between two dangers—hunters behind, the thinning Boundary ahead. In that frozen moment of indecision, the ring on his finger pulsed with sudden warmth, and a voice that wasn't a voice whispered in his mind: Through.
Impossible. Yet the command came again, clearer this time: Through the Boundary, Kalen Frost. Your bloodline's purpose awaits.
A sharp crack cut through the night as something struck the tree beside him—a hunter's bolt, designed to paralyze rather than kill. They were close now. Very close.
With one final glance behind him, Kalen Frost took the most dangerous step of his young life—directly toward the shimmering distortion where reality itself seemed to fold and unfold like origami in invisible hands.
As he crossed the threshold, two things happened simultaneously. First, the patterns beneath his skin flared to brilliant life, forming a network of glowing lines that spread across his entire body. And second, the fragment of metal in the hunter's bolt that had embedded itself in the tree suddenly tore free of the wood, flying toward Kalen's outstretched hand as if magnetically drawn.
It never reached him. The distortion swallowed Kalen whole, the patterns on his skin flaring like blue-silver fire as the Boundary between worlds parted for the first time in five centuries.
The last thing he saw before the familiar world vanished was the mask of the lead hunter, removed to reveal a face identical to the portrait in the locket.
His mother's face, unchanged by time or death.
They emerged from behind the forge to a scene of chaos. Buildings burned, villagers ran in every direction, and several black-clad figures moved through the crowd with predatory purpose. Gareth pulled Kalen toward the forest edge, using buildings and smoke for cover.
They had almost reached the relative safety of the trees when Kalen heard it—a voice he'd know anywhere.
"Help! Someone, please!"
Tomas. His oldest friend, the butcher's son he'd known since childhood.
Kalen stopped, turning toward the sound. In the alley between two burning buildings, Tomas lay pinned beneath a fallen timber, blood seeping from a gash in his leg. Their eyes met across the distance, and Kalen saw recognition, then desperate hope bloom in his friend's face.
"Kalen! Help me!" Tomas called, reaching out a hand.
Kalen took an instinctive step toward him before Gareth's iron grip closed around his arm.
"We can't," Gareth said, his voice low and urgent. "The hunters are searching for you. Every moment we stay increases the risk."
A memory flashed through Kalen's mind—Tomas and him at ten years old, blood dripping from their palms as they made the pact: Brothers beyond blood, I'll never leave you behind. The same Tomas who had stood up to the miller's sons when they'd cornered Kalen behind the granary. The Tomas who had wept openly at Kalen's mother's funeral when Kalen himself had been too numb to cry.
"I can't just leave him," Kalen said, the words torn from somewhere deep in his chest.
"If the hunters find you, everyone in this village is as good as dead," Gareth countered, his grip tightening. "Including Tomas. They'll burn everything to the ground to erase any trace of a Boundary Shaper."
Kalen's gaze returned to Tomas, still calling his name. He could save him. It would take less than a minute to lift the timber, to help him to safety.
"I—" Kalen started.
"The burden of your bloodline," Gareth cut him off, "means sometimes choosing the greater good over what feels right in the moment. You can save one life today and lose hundreds tomorrow, or make the hard choice now."
Tomas's voice grew more desperate. "Kalen, please! I can't feel my leg!"
"A Boundary Shaper's first duty is to the Boundary," Gareth said, his voice gentler but no less insistent. "Without you, there may be no one left who can repair it. All of Emberfall against the fate of the world—that's the weight you must carry now."
Kalen stood frozen between them—Tomas with his outstretched hand and desperate eyes, Gareth with his grim certainty and ancient knowledge. The moment stretched, impossible.
Then, without conscious thought, Kalen's hand went to his chest, where Tomas's copper medallion had hung for seven years—a gift from his closest friend to "keep your heart strong when your head is weak." Last week, Tomas had been outraged when Kalen had arrived without it, unable to understand how Kalen could have lost something so precious. But it hadn't been lost. Kalen had traded it to Lira, the potter's daughter, for a kiss and a promise of more—a secret he'd kept from everyone, especially Tomas.
The shame of that small betrayal burned alongside the much larger one he was about to commit. Perhaps he had always been destined to let Tomas down.
"I'm sorry," Kalen whispered, the words far too small for the magnitude of what he was doing.
He turned away, Tomas's pleas following him like physical blows. Each step felt like walking through deep mud, his body rebelling against his mind's decision. He couldn't look back. Looking back would break him.
Gareth led him into the shelter of the trees, but they couldn't outrun the sound of Tomas's voice shifting from desperate pleas to something else—something that would haunt Kalen long after the fires of Emberfall died down. Betrayal. Rage. A promise that sounded like a curse.
"I'll tell them everything about you, Kalen Frost! EVERYTHING! Traitor! TRAITOR!"
The words echoed through the forest long after they'd moved beyond hearing range, carving themselves into Kalen's memory and conscience with every footfall that took him farther from the only home he'd ever known.
"You made the right choice," Gareth said eventually, breaking the heavy silence between them. "The hard choice, but the right one."
"Then why does it feel like I just destroyed something I can never rebuild?" Kalen asked, his voice hollow.
Gareth had no answer for that.