Chapter 20
The glass plains stretched endlessly, reflecting the bleeding dawn. Kian walked at the front, his boots crunching over the fused sand. Behind him, Lian hummed a fragmented tune—the same one Kian had sung to the Flame. It prickled the air like static.
Jin Yue watched them both, her sword hand twitching at phantom threats. "How much farther?" she called to Master Liangu, who trailed last, his fingers brushing the scarred earth as if reading braille.
"Until the land remembers itself," the old monk replied. "A day. A decade. Time is… polite now."
Lian giggled. "Time's never polite."
Kian glanced back. The boy's eyes flickered gold when he laughed.
The Campfire
They stopped at a skeletal tree, its branches twisted into a cage. Jin Yue lit a fire with a snap of her fingers—a new trick, born of necessity.
"Show me your hand," she said to Kian.
He hesitated, then uncurled his fist. The spiral scar gleamed, its edges blackened where the dagger had pierced.
"It's spreading," she noted. Thin gold veins now crept toward his wrist.
Master Liangu leaned in. "Not spreading. Rooting."
"What's the difference?"
"One is an invasion," the monk said. "The other is a homecoming."
Lian poked the scar. "It tickles."
Kian flinched. "You can feel that?"
"The Flame talks through you now," Lian said, matter-of-fact. "Mostly whispers. Sometimes screams."
The fire crackled, uncomfortably loud.
The First Dream
That night, Kian dreamed of falling.
Not through space, but time—each era a blade slicing his skin. He landed in a mirrored chamber, his reflections warped: some armored, some skeletal, one with Lian's face.
A woman stood at the center, her back to him, hands clasped around the First Shard.
"Mother?" The word escaped before he could stop it.
She turned. Not his mother.
Lian's eyes. Lian's smile.
"You woke the Flame," she said. "Now wake us."
The mirrors shattered.
Kian jolted awake, his scar searing. Across the embers, Lian stared at him, awake and weeping silently.
"You saw her too," the boy whispered.
The Omen
At midday, they found the city.
Or what remained of it—spires of melted stone, streets preserved in glass. At its heart stood a temple, untouched by time. On its altar lay a scroll, sealed with a familiar wax emblem: Master Liangu's personal sigil.
"You've been here before," Jin Yue accused.
The monk palmed the scroll, his calm fracturing. "A lifetime ago. This temple… it's where the First Shard was forged."
"By who?" Kian pressed.
"By those who thought to master time. They failed." Liangu unrolled the scroll. Ancient ink swirled, forming a mural: a woman with Lian's eyes standing over a molten Shard, her hands bleeding into the fire.
Lian traced the figure. "She's sad."
"She lost her son," Liangu said quietly. "To the Flame's hunger."
Kian's scar pulsed. The mural shifted, showing a boy consumed by gold light.
"An heir," Liangu said. "A sacrifice to stabilize the Shard. Sound familiar?"
The air chilled. Jin Yue stepped between Lian and the altar. "You think Kian's—?"
"No," Liangu said. "He's something new. The Flame's partner, not its pawn."
Lian hugged Kian's arm. "We're the same now. Both part of the song."
The Threshold
They camped in the temple, its walls humming with old power. Jin Yue kept watch while Liangu meditated, his brow furrowed.
Kian found Lian atop a broken pillar, kicking his feet over the void.
"You're avoiding sleep," Kian said.
"She's louder in dreams." Lian's small hands gripped the stone. "The lady in the fire. She wants me to come home."
"Home?"
"Where the Flame began. She says… says I have to finish it." He looked at Kian, terrified. "Will you make me go?"
Kian knelt, eye-level. "Never."
"Even if it fixes everything?"
"Some things aren't yours to fix."
Lian pressed his forehead to Kian's. The scar on their palms glowed in tandem.
The Second Dream
The woman awaited him again, her form flickering.
"You stole my son," she hissed. "Twice."
"He's not yours," Kian said.
"He is everyone's." She gestured to the mirrors. Reflections of Lian appeared—a prince, a beggar, a corpse. "The Flame's heir belongs to all timelines."
"He belongs to himself."
She laughed, cold and resonant. "You'll see. When the Wound opens, you'll beg me to take him."
The dream dissolved into screams. Not hers.
Jin Yue's.
The Waking
Kian woke to chaos.
The temple shook, cracks splintering up its walls. Jin Yue grappled with a figure cloaked in smoke, her sword arm bent at a sickening angle. Master Liangu chanted barriers that crumbled as fast as he cast them.
And Lian—
Lian stood at the altar, his small body rigid, eyes fully gold. The First Shard hovered before him, reassembling from dust.
"Stop him!" Liangu shouted. "He's reigniting the forge!"
Kian lunged, but the smoke figure intercepted him—a living shadow with the Fractured's smile.
"Told you," it rasped. "Some threads can't be rewoven."
Kian drove his scarred palm into its chest. The shadow screamed, dissolving, but not before whispering:
"She's coming."
The Choice
Kian reached Lian as the Shard clicked into place.
"It's okay," the boy murmured. "I can fix it. I can make us whole."
"At what cost?" Kian gripped his shoulders. "You don't owe the world your soul."
Tears cut tracks through the gold in Lian's eyes. "But I'm not a soul. I'm a… a note. One you added to the song."
"Then let's change the melody."
Kian seized the Shard.
And pulled.
The Echo
Light erupted. The temple collapsed.
When the dust settled, Jin Yue cradled her injured arm, Liangu's barriers shielding them. Lian lay unconscious in Kian's arms, the Shard reduced to ash in his grip.
But the scar on Kian's palm was gone.
"What did you do?" Jin Yue breathed.
"Gave it back," Kian said.
In the ruins, the woman's voice wailed, fading. "You delay the inevitable! The Wound will consume—"
Silence.
Master Liangu touched the ash. "You severed the Shard's tie to the past. But the Flame…"
"Is ours now," Kian said. "Mine and Lian's. We'll carry it together."
The March
They left the temple at dawn.
Lian slept, his breathing even, the gold faded from his eyes. Jin Yue's arm hung splinted, her sword in her other hand.
"Where now?" she asked.
Kian adjusted Lian's weight on his back. Ahead, the glass plains gave way to rolling hills, green and impossibly alive.
"Forward," he said.
And they walked, the scars on their palms hidden but humming, into a world learning to sing anew.