The climb back through the catacombs felt longer than before.
Stone pressed close on every side, slick with the residue of the Vein's awakening. Each step sent a faint hum through my boots — the echo of something vast and unseen breathing just beneath us.
Jarek led the way with a torch balanced against his shoulder. Its light played tricks against the walls, turning the carved glyphs into rippling faces. He muttered something about "ghosts getting territorial," but his voice didn't carry far.
Kaelen moved behind me, silent as thought. Only the occasional brush of his sleeve against stone reminded me he was there — a shadow tracing a shadow.
Selene's voice lingered in my mind like the aftertaste of calm. Breathe. Let the Vein adjust to you. Don't resist its rhythm — listen to it.
I tried. But the rhythm wasn't steady anymore. It pulsed with me, matching my heartbeat one moment, then slipping away like a tide. I could feel its awareness curling at the edges of my thoughts, curious, patient, impossibly alive.
When we reached the last bend of the passage, Jarek slowed. "Hear that?"
I strained to listen. Above us — faint, filtered through layers of stone — came the low murmur of the city. Voices, carts, distant chimes. Normal sounds, yet they carried a strange shimmer now, like glass vibrating just shy of breaking.
Kaelen's whisper brushed my mind. The currents are shifting. The Heart's pulse is echoing upward.
A chill slid down my spine. "It shouldn't reach this high."
"It does now," he murmured.
The tunnel narrowed, then opened suddenly into light.
We stepped out into the under-hall beneath the central district — a cavernous space supported by columns of clear glass that shimmered faintly with inner veins of blue. I had seen them a hundred times before, but tonight they were… alive. The light moved within them like trapped lightning.
Jarek lifted his torch higher. "Is it me, or is the city breathing?"
"Not just you," I said quietly.
We passed through the last archway into the open air.
The night hit like a surge — wind sharp with metallic scent, rain threatening in the distance. The upper streets of the Glass City stretched out before us, glowing faintly from within, their reflections trembling in the puddles.
But the sky—
The sky was broken.
A web of thin cracks laced across the clouds, glowing with the same blue-white light that pulsed beneath the streets. For a heartbeat I thought it was lightning, but it didn't fade. It stayed, branching wider, splitting the heavens into a hundred shifting shards.
Kaelen's breath caught. "The Vein's reflection has reached the Aether layer…"
Jarek squinted upward. "So that's bad, right?"
"Not yet," Kaelen murmured. "But it means the city's heart is no longer contained. Its rhythm is touching everything — even the sky."
Selene's voice brushed through me again, calm but taut. You bound with the Vein. Now it's searching for its mirror. Be careful — every bond leaves an echo.
I looked up at the cracked sky, feeling the pulse in my chest answer the glow above.
One heartbeat. Two. Then three — perfectly in sync.
The city was calling back.
And something in the rhythm whispered that the conversation had only just begun.
By the time we reached the surface square, the air itself was trembling.
The plaza — normally calm and crystalline — had erupted into noise. Traders shouted, glass chimes clattered like anxious teeth, and the faint tremor beneath the streets made the fountains shudder.
A ripple of fear was moving through the crowd, subtle but growing, like a current beneath still water.
"They feel it," Jarek muttered beside me, his hand resting near the hilt of his sidearm. "Even if they don't understand it."
He was right. No one could see the Vein — not truly — but every instinct screamed that something fundamental had shifted.
I watched as a mother pulled her child away from a luminous crack in the plaza tiles, where blue light pulsed faintly between the stones. The child reached out, fascinated. The mother didn't look back.
Selene's voice brushed through my mind again — quiet, steady. Do not interfere. Let the rhythm balance itself first.
But the balance was gone.
The first surge hit like a wave.
A low hum spread across the square, and every glass surface — every window, every crystal lantern — began to vibrate in unison. The sound built until it was almost a voice, too deep to decipher but too resonant to ignore.
People screamed. Others dropped to their knees, covering their ears.
I felt it inside me — the same frequency echoing in my bones, my pulse syncing to it against my will. For a terrifying instant, I was the sound.
Then Kaelen's hand brushed my shoulder, grounding me. "Breathe. Control your part of the current."
I drew a slow breath. The hum lessened, the resonance shifting, until the edges of the square began to still.
But peace lasted only a heartbeat.
Across the plaza, a line of armored figures emerged from the mist — their insignia glinting dull red in the fractured light. The Chainbearers.
Jarek swore under his breath. "Of course they'd show up now."
They moved in formation, precise and silent, their glass-plated armor reflecting the chaos like a distorted mirror. The leader stepped forward — tall, mask smooth as ice, voice amplified through a thin band of resonance.
"By order of the Council," the Chainbearer said, "this manifestation is to be contained. Step away from the epicenter."
Jarek muttered, "Epicenter. That's one way to describe a living city."
Kaelen's tone was sharper. "They're not here to contain it. They're here to test who controls it."
The leader's gaze fixed on me. Though I couldn't see his eyes, I could feel them — that subtle pull of attention that slid beneath the skin.
"You've been beneath the Heart," he said. "We felt the shift when you returned."
The murmuring crowd fell silent.
I met his stare. "You speak as if the city belongs to you."
"It belongs to order."
"And order," I said quietly, "belongs to those who understand its rhythm."
A flicker ran through his armor — a brief distortion of light, as if my words had disrupted the frequency sustaining it.
"Aradia," Jarek murmured, "maybe don't antagonize the people with reinforced chest plates?"
But the pulse beneath my skin had already quickened. The Vein was awake now, responding to the Chainbearers' presence.
I raised a hand slightly — not in defiance, but in recognition. The ground beneath us shimmered, threads of faint blue light rising like veins in stone. The Chainbearers tensed as the glow reached their boots, humming faintly.
The leader's mask tilted. "You would weaponize it?"
"No." I stepped forward. "I'm listening."
The light surged up through the plaza, brightening until the whole square seemed suspended in liquid glass. For a heartbeat, everything froze — the crowd, the Chainbearers, even the sound of rain.
Then the Vein answered.
A pulse rolled outward, soft but absolute. Every crack in the glass reconnected for an instant, fusing like healed flesh. The trembling stopped. The light dimmed.
And the Chainbearers — those proud enforcers of control — stepped back as if something unseen had pressed against their chests.
When it was over, only the faint hum remained. The people stared — not in fear now, but in something close to reverence.
The leader of the Chainbearers recovered first. His tone was measured, but I heard the edge behind it.
"This isn't finished, Aradia. The Council will want answers."
"Then they should start by listening," I said softly.
Jarek's grin broke through the tension. "You love making friends in high places."
Kaelen only watched me — quiet, thoughtful, eyes dark with something unreadable. "The city heard you," he said. "But so did everything else."
The cracked sky above flickered once, as if echoing his words. A soft rumble followed — distant, uncertain.
And beneath the glass streets, I felt it again.
That same slow rhythm, deep and deliberate, listening back.
The pulse beneath my feet deepened.
Once.
Twice.
Then the world split.
Light exploded upward from the cobblestones, swallowing sound, air, everything.
For a heartbeat, I thought the city itself had shattered.
And then — silence.
When I opened my eyes, the plaza was gone.
I stood in a void of glass.
The air shimmered, heavy and sharp, each breath tasting like powdered crystal. Shards floated in slow orbit around me — reflections of myself caught in a thousand broken mirrors. Some smiled. Some bled. Some simply stared back, hollow-eyed.
Every version whispered, their voices brushing like wings.
We remember what you did.
We remember what you'll become.
My knees trembled. I clutched my arms to my chest. "Stop."
The whispers didn't. They wove together, forming a single echo that pulsed through the space like a heartbeat.
Then a voice — smooth, quiet, certain — sliced through the noise.
"Back again."
I turned.
She stood on a bridge of light, shards orbiting her like obedient moons. My face, my posture — but her eyes burned brighter, colder. The crowned version of me.
"You," I said, my voice catching.
"Always me." Her smile was faint, cruelly calm. "Always you. You touched the Heart. The city knows your rhythm now. You could rule it. Mend it. End the chaos."
Her hand lifted, and the shards around her aligned in perfect formation — a throne of glass blooming behind her.
Images flickered in the air — a city remade, radiant and whole, its people kneeling beneath a spire of light.
No fear. No war. No pain.
But also... no freedom.
The silence of a caged song.
I felt my pulse quicken. "That's not peace. That's obedience."
She tilted her head, still smiling. "Obedience is just another form of balance."
Then came a hiss — low and wet, crawling from the fractures beneath my feet.
The ground splintered.
Something dragged itself upward.
The shadow version of me emerged from the cracks, skin streaked with molten lines that pulsed like living magma. Her eyes burned red, her grin too wide.
"Balance is a lie," she rasped. "Break it all. Let them choke on their own light."
The heat from her presence seared my skin.
Between them — the crown and the shadow — the air wavered like glass under pressure.
"You expect me to choose?" I whispered.
The crowned me laughed softly. "Choice is an illusion for those who fear consequence."
The shadow sneered. "Choice is the lie that keeps you chained."
Both of them reached toward me.
The shards spun faster, slicing the air in glittering circles. I felt them cut into my skin — small, glowing wounds that turned to light instead of blood.
Their voices clashed in my head — one promising order, the other destruction — until it all blurred into a single deafening hum.
And somewhere under it, tiny but real, a whisper rose.
Not the queen.
Not the shadow.
Something else.
A voice I hadn't heard in years.
Remember who you were before the shards.
A memory flashed — rain-slick streets, laughter echoing through alleys, the weightless joy of touching something fragile and not breaking it.
I saw the girl I'd been. The one who believed the world could still be beautiful, even when it hurt.
My breath steadied.
"I don't need to rule," I said softly. "And I don't need to destroy."
The shards slowed, listening.
"I can weave."
I reached out — not commanding, but inviting.
The shards came to me, glowing, warm, their edges softening as they spiraled close. They didn't pierce. They merged.
Light filled everything — fierce, clean, and alive.
The crowned me screamed. The shadow howled. Both shattered into dust that drifted like ash across the void.
And when the light dimmed, I was kneeling on the market stones again.
Jarek was beside me, eyes wide, face pale.
"You okay?" he asked, voice trembling. "Your eyes were doing that... lava thing again."
I drew a shaky breath. "I'm fine." I paused. "I think."
The boy — the one who'd glowed like the Vein — was staring at me, eyes full of awe and fear. "You made the glass listen."
I looked at my hands. Faint threads of light still wove between my fingers, flickering, fading. "Maybe it was waiting to be heard."
Behind us, a soft crack.
The Chainbearer leader had fallen to his knees, his blade splintering into dust. His voice was reverent and afraid. "Weaver... you bent the fracture."
Jarek helped me to my feet. "So... what now? You fix the sky, or do we start with lunch?"
I almost laughed, but the sound came out tired — too heavy for humor, too light for despair.
The air trembled softly. The city itself felt alive, its glass veins glowing faintly, pulsing like veins beneath skin.
"I don't think this is over," I said.
"It never is," Jarek replied. "But you bent it. That's a start."
I lifted my gaze to the cracked sky. The fractures glowed softer now, their edges breathing light instead of bleeding it. The hum under my skin had steadied — not silent, just... in rhythm.
"I didn't fix it," I whispered. "I just taught it to breathe."
Jarek slung an arm around my shoulders, his grin crooked and exhausted. "Shardweaver, huh? Sounds fancier than 'trouble magnet.' But I'll take it."
I smiled back, faint but real. "You should. It's going to be a long night."
Above us, the glass veins pulsed once — like a heartbeat.
The city was listening.
And somewhere deep below, something listened back.