Chapter 5: The Shatter Between Words
The training yard was hidden in a half-collapsed cathedral, vines creeping through shattered stained glass, and the floor carved with forbidden runes older than the city itself.
Kael stood at the center, his coat thrown aside, runes flickering across his skin like old scars.
"Again," he said.
Sol, breathing hard, stepped forward. Ink danced along his fingers, ghost-letters flickering like fireflies. He carved a glyph into the air.
Kael parried with his own Thread—a sweep of null-light that blurred space around him.
The clash sent a shockwave through the yard.
As Sol pushed forward, Kael suddenly shouted:
"Careful! You're writing with emotion again—keep control—!"
But something was already slipping.
A ripple moved through Sol's vision.
The cathedral's stained glass shifted—no longer a ruin, but whole. He blinked, and it was as if time twisted around him.
He was no longer in the present.
He saw a boy—young, terrified, locked inside a cage of ink and silence. Shadows spoke in languages too old to name. A hooded figure stood nearby, holding a page stained red with blood.
And he saw himself... screaming.
"Remember your name.""Remember your sin.""You opened the door that should have stayed shut."
Reality snapped back.
Sol was on his knees, hands trembling. But his eyes had changed.
No whites—just shifting script.
Then, without warning, the ink around him erupted. It shot outward in jagged spirals, corrupting the very air, warping Kael's Threads into gibberish. The glyphs Sol had summoned began devouring Kael's words, unraveling the older man's defenses mid-chant.
Kael was fast—but not fast enough.
"Sol—STOP!"
The boy didn't hear.
He screamed, and the very sky above the cathedral tore, revealing a glimpse of some deep, stygian plane beyond comprehension. Creatures whispered from the rift—watching. Laughing.
Kael braced himself, heart pounding. He whispered something under his breath.
"So this is where I die…"
Then, a bell rang.
A single, clear note—cutting through the chaos like a blade.
A figure dropped from above, landing in front of Kael.
A girl, no older than Sol, wrapped in a coat of silver-threaded shadow. Her eyes glowed like molten obsidian. Around her shimmered dozens of tiny floating charms, each shaped like closed eyes.
Without a word, she stepped toward Sol, raising her hand.
"Sleep, Thornborn," she whispered.
And her glyphs—a completely different weaving of threads—wrapped around Sol like ghost-chains. His berserk power fought it, snarled, lashed out with inky fangs and fractal limbs—
—but her seals held.
"Name collapse: delayed. He's not ready," she said quietly, sweat dripping from her brow.
Kael coughed, wide-eyed. "You—how did you…?"
She didn't answer.
Only turned toward him and said:
"We need to talk. Before he remembers anything else."
Sol lay unconscious, breathing heavy, surrounded by a pool of unmoving ink that didn't reflect anything.
Kael sat beside the newcomer.
"What do you know that I don't?"
She looked down at Sol and whispered:
"That he's not the first to awaken the Throne's shadow…"
"He's the last."