The wind howled through the skeletal remains of the temple, carrying the stench of ash and decay. Kaelith crouched behind a toppled statue, its stone face half-melted, eyes staring blindly at the sky. The air was thick, gritty, like breathing sand. Her scarf, ragged and stained, clung to her mouth, barely filtering the dust that coated her tongue. She tightened her grip on the rusted knife in her hand, its edge dull but comforting. Out here, in the ruins of the Ashen Empire, you didn't survive without something sharp.
The temple was a graveyard of forgotten gods, its spires crumbled, its altars smeared with the black residue of old blood. Kaelith had scavenged places like this before—holy sites abandoned when the Veil started tearing, when the world began to eat itself. Most were picked clean, but sometimes you found something worth the risk: a shard of obsidian glass, a scrap of enchanted leather, anything the traders in Cinderhold would barter for a meal. Today, her stomach growled loud enough to rival the wind. She hadn't eaten in two days. Desperation made her bold.
She crept forward, boots silent on the cracked marble floor. Shadows danced in the corners, cast by the sickly green light filtering through the shattered dome above. The Veil was thin here, too thin. She could feel it—a pressure in her chest, like the air itself was watching. Places like this birthed Tears, rips in reality that spat out things that shouldn't exist. She'd seen one once, years ago, in a village east of the Bone fields. The screams still haunted her dreams.
"Focus," she muttered, her voice muffled by the scarf. Her brother's voice echoed in her mind, sharp and scolding. Stay sharp, Kael. Hesitate, and you're dead. He'd been the careful one, the planner. She was the reckless one, always diving headfirst into trouble. And yet, she was the one still breathing. The irony tasted bitter.
She reached the altar at the temple's heart, a slab of obsidian carved with runes that pulsed faintly, like a dying heartbeat. Her pulse quickened. Runes meant power, and power meant value. She traced a finger along the edge, careful not to touch the glowing lines. The stone was cold, unnaturally so, and it hummed beneath her touch, a low vibration that crawled up her arm and settled in her bones. She shivered, not from the cold but from the wrongness of it. This wasn't just a relic. This was something alive.
A glint caught her eye, half-buried in the ash piled around the altar's base. She knelt, brushing away the debris, and unearthed a small, black object, no bigger than her palm. It was a key, crafted from obsidian, its surface smooth and unmarred despite the centuries it must have lain here. The handle was intricate, shaped like a coiled serpent, its eyes tiny chips of red crystal that seemed to glow. Kaelith's breath caught. This was no ordinary trinket. This was trouble, the kind that got you killed—or made you rich.
She hesitated, her brother's voice whispering caution. Walk away, Kael. Some things aren't worth it. But her stomach growled again, and the memory of hunger drowned out the warning. She slipped the key into her satchel, its weight heavier than it should have been. The air grew thicker, the humming louder. The runes on the altar flared, bathing the temple in emerald light.
Kaelith froze. "Shit," she whispered. She knew that glow. She'd heard the stories—altars waking, ruins stirring, the Veil splitting open. She backed away, knife raised, eyes darting to the shadows. The wind stopped, the silence deafening. Her heart pounded, each beat screaming at her to run.
Then the ground shook.
It started as a tremor, a ripple beneath her feet, but it grew into a roar, the marble cracking like thin ice. The altar pulsed, its runes blazing now, and the air above it shimmered, warping like heat over a fire. A Tear was forming, a wound in the world. Kaelith stumbled back, her satchel slapping against her hip, the key inside it burning through the leather, searing her skin. She gasped, yanking the satchel open, but the key was cool to the touch, its serpent eyes glinting as if mocking her.
The shimmer above the altar split, a jagged line of darkness that bled ink-black mist. The mist coiled, solidifying into a shape—tall, skeletal, its limbs too long, its head a mass of writhing bone. A bone-wraith, one of the Veil's abominations. Its eyeless skull turned toward her, and though it had no face, Kaelith felt its hunger, a void that clawed at her soul.
She ran.
Her boots pounded the marble, slipping on ash as she sprinted for the temple's entrance. The wraith's scream tore through the air, a sound like shattering glass and dying men. It moved, not running but gliding, its bony limbs scraping the walls, leaving gouges in the stone. Kaelith ducked behind a pillar, her breath ragged, her mind racing. She'd fought scavengers before, even a starved ash-wolf once, but this was no mortal threat. This was a nightmare given form.
The wraith's claws raked the pillar, chips of stone flying. Kaelith bolted again, weaving through the ruins, her knife useless in her hand. The entrance was close, a rectangle of gray light in the distance. If she could reach the open air, she might lose it in the canyons outside. Might. The wraith's scream came again, closer, and she felt its presence, a cold weight pressing on her back.
She dove through the entrance, rolling down the temple's broken steps into the ash-choked ravine below. The impact knocked the wind from her, but she scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ribs. The wraith emerged, its form blurring in the daylight, but it didn't stop. It flowed down the steps, relentless, its claws outstretched.
Kaelith ran, the ravine's walls closing in around her. The key in her satchel bounced, its heat flaring again, and this time, it wasn't just warmth—it was a pulse, a rhythm that matched her heartbeat. She stumbled, clutching the satchel, and in that moment, something shifted. The air grew heavy, the world slowing, and a vision flooded her mind.
She saw a hanging, vast and endless, woven from threads of light and shadow. It stretched across the sky, connecting worlds, realms, stars. But it was fraying, its edges unraveling, holes spreading like rot. At its center was a figure, cloaked in darkness, holding a key—her key. The figure turned, and though she couldn't see its face, she felt its gaze, ancient and unyielding. A voice spoke, not in words but in her mind: You are the Shard bearer. The Veil is yours to mend—or break.
The vision shattered, and Kaelith was back in the ravine, the wraith's claws inches from her face. She screamed, not in fear but in defiance, and something inside her snapped. Power surged through her, raw and wild, erupting from her chest in a wave of shadow. It slammed into the wraith, hurling it back, its bones cracking against the ravine wall. The creature shrieked, its form dissolving into mist, but Kaelith didn't wait to see if it was gone.
She ran, her legs burning, her mind reeling. The key had done this. The vision, the power—it was all tied to that damned piece of obsidian. She wanted to throw it away, to bury it in the ash and forget she'd ever seen it. But she couldn't. Not now. Not after what she'd seen.
The ravine opened into the wastelands, a sea of gray dunes under a sky the color of bruises. Kaelith collapsed behind a boulder, her chest heaving, her hands shaking as she pulled the key from her satchel. It looked ordinary now, its glow gone, but she knew better. This was no trinket. This was a chain, binding her to something bigger than herself, something she didn't understand.
She thought of her brother, of his warnings, of the life they'd scraped together in this dying world. She thought of the hunger in her gut, the cold nights, the endless fight to survive. And now this—visions, monsters, power she didn't ask for. She wanted to laugh, to cry, to scream at the sky. Instead, she tucked the key back into her satchel and stood, brushing the ash from her cloak.
The temple was silent now, its green glow faded, but Kaelith felt eyes on her—real or imagined, she couldn't tell. The Veil was watching, and she was no longer just a scavenger. She was something else, something dangerous.
She started walking, toward Cinderhold, toward answers, toward whatever fate this key had dragged her into. The wind howled again, carrying whispers she couldn't quite hear. But one word echoed, clear and sharp, in the back of her mind.
Shard bearer.