The fire refused to die.
It smoldered long after the screams had faded, a low, hungry glow beneath the bones of the street. Charred beams sagged and cracked under their own weight. The air shimmered with heat, heavy with the stench of oil and blood. When I breathed, it burned. When I exhaled, the smoke clung to my lips like guilt that wouldn't leave.
Shards littered the ground—my shards—still humming faintly in the ruin's silence. They jutted out of the cobblestones like broken teeth, catching the dying light in cruel little glints. Each one whispered when the wind passed over it. Not sound exactly, but a tremor in the air, a hum beneath my skin.
It felt like the city was murmuring to me.
Reminding me that I was no longer just Aradia.
I sat on the cracked step of what used to be someone's home, my hands trembling, soot streaking my wrists. Beneath the dirt, faint lines of shardlight still flickered across my skin, refusing to fade. Every pulse echoed in my ribs like a second heartbeat I didn't own.
Footsteps echoed through the haze.
Kael emerged first, his silhouette cutting through the smoke, his posture straight and unyielding. He moved as if the fire bent around him, as if he had already decided the world was his to rebuild. Behind him, his rebels picked through the wreckage—some carrying the wounded, others looting what was left, all of them watching me.
Kael stopped a few paces away, the glow of the embers painting his face in shifting orange and shadow. His expression wasn't arrogance this time. It was something else—something close to reverence, but sharper. Dangerous.
"You are the storm we prayed for," he said, his voice low but carrying, echoing over the crackle of dying flames.
The words rippled through the crowd behind him.
And then came the murmurs.
Weaver. Weaver. Weaver.
The name struck me like a stone dropped into still water. Each repetition sent a pulse through the air, through the shards, through me. The title vibrated in my bones, unwanted but already claimed by too many mouths to take back.
I wanted to scream that they were wrong.
That I hadn't chosen this.
That I hadn't asked to become their myth, their symbol, their weapon.
But my throat wouldn't move. My breath came shallow, and the hum beneath my skin grew stronger, steadier, hungrier.
Kael's eyes gleamed in the reflected firelight. He didn't see the fear. He saw power. He saw purpose. He saw something he could follow—or perhaps something he could use.
The crowd's chant grew louder, swelling, spilling over the edges of the ruined street. Their voices blended with the crackle of flames until I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
Weaver. Weaver.
I pressed a hand against my chest, trying to quiet the pulse that wasn't mine, but it only beat harder. The shards around me answered, a soft ringing, almost melodic. It sounded beautiful. Terrifying. Alive.
I realized then that the fire wasn't the only thing still burning.
Something inside me was too.
And it wasn't going to fade.
Veyra's voice cut through the smoke before I even saw her.
Calm. Sharp. Measured in a way that made every word feel deliberate.
Like a knife sliding between ribs.
"You'll twist her power into your banners," she said to Kael, her silver-grey robes streaked with ash and blood. "You'll bleed her dry to make her your weapon."
Her gaze was cold fire as it swept over the shattered street—the broken bodies, the jagged glass, the sky still smudged with smoke. Then her eyes locked on Kael again.
He smiled. Of course he did.
The kind of smile that burned too bright, too sure of itself. "Better a weapon for us than a slave for them," he replied, jerking his chin toward the towering spires of the Council Hall still untouched by flame. "The people have seen her. They will rise."
The crowd murmured again, the same old hunger wrapped in new words. Freedom.Rebellion.Rebirth.
But all I could hear was the hum of the shards under my feet, whispering like restless ghosts.
Veyra crouched in front of me, her face close enough that I could see the faint burn marks on her cheek, the ones she hadn't noticed—or didn't care to hide. Her voice dropped to a whisper that cut deeper than Kael's roar ever could.
"They will make you their god or their monster, Aradia," she said. "Either way, you will not be free."
Something in my chest cracked a little.
Not from her words—from their truth.
I swallowed hard, tasting soot and iron. The shards responded to my pulse again, faint flickers of light tracing the ground like veins under glass. I didn't want to move. If I moved, I might break something else.
The rebels stood behind Kael, still watching.
Waiting.
Waiting for me to rise.
To speak.
To become whatever they already believed I was.
I didn't want their awe.
I didn't want their fear.
But I could feel both wrapping around me like smoke that wouldn't lift.
When I finally spoke, my voice came out softer than I expected, hoarse from ash and silence. "I didn't choose this."
Kael didn't even flinch. "Choice doesn't matter anymore," he said. "The city already chose you."
Veyra's hand tightened briefly on my shoulder—whether in comfort or warning, I couldn't tell. She stood, brushing the soot from her robes with slow, deliberate grace. "Then may the city choke on what it's chosen," she murmured, before turning away.
The words lingered long after she was gone.
Hours bled together. The fires dulled to embers. The crowds thinned. The silence that followed was almost worse.
I found myself sitting again, the edge of a burned cart beneath me, the street beneath my boots still cracked and glowing faintly. The shards pulsed like a heartbeat I couldn't quiet.
Jarek appeared out of the haze, the boy bundled in his arms. His face looked older, the ash settling into the lines around his eyes. He knelt beside me, exhaustion heavy in his every breath.
"You can't keep doing this," he said quietly. "Every time you pull the shards… it spreads."
I followed his gaze downward.
The street was no longer stone—it was webbed with glowing fractures, molten veins threading between broken glass and bone. The pattern stretched far beyond sight, fading into the city's shadow.
"You've changed it," Jarek said, his voice cracking. "You're changing it just by standing here."
I closed my eyes, listening to the low hum beneath the ground. "I don't know how to stop."
"Then we need to learn."
His voice was quiet. Steady. But trembling at the edges. "Before it kills you. Or everyone else."
The boy stirred slightly in his arms, eyes fevered, lips whispering something that sounded like a name. Or maybe a warning. The shards around us vibrated in answer.
I pressed my palms against my knees, grounding myself, the warmth of the earth still humming up through my veins. But beneath it—beneath all of it—was something colder.
Not control.
Not chaos.
Something between.
Something alive.
And it was listening.
Far above the wrecked streets, the Council Hall still gleamed untouched.
Its glass walls caught the faint glow of the burning districts below, reflecting chaos as light.
Inside, the air was too still. Too clean.
The incense hung in careful curls, masking the scent of fear that no perfume could hide.
The High Seer stood before the great window, hands clasped behind his back, watching the fractured glow spread through the lower quarters. His reflection shimmered faintly in the glass—composed, unreadable, listening.
Behind him, armored Enforcers knelt in a half-circle.
Their commander's voice broke the silence. "The rebellion failed to contain her. The shards— they moved at her will."
A pause.
The High Seer didn't turn. "Do you understand what that means?"
No one answered. The question wasn't for them.
He let the silence breathe, long enough to make it sharp, then spoke again, softer.
"She has shown herself. The fracture walks openly now."
A murmur rippled through the chamber—unease, half-swallowed fear.
One of the elder councilors leaned forward, voice rasping through the incense haze. "Then she must be contained. Controlled. Or excised."
The Seer's mouth curved faintly, almost kind. Almost.
"Oh, we will contain her," he said. "But not with chains."
He turned then, eyes gleaming with cold light. "We will offer her choice."
The word fell heavy in the room—so quiet it almost burned.
Choice. Freedom. Power.
Every syllable a promise that sounded too much like a trap.
Back in the streets below, dawn was trying to rise.
The fires had burned down to embers, smoke curling like ghosts through the ruins. The first weak light brushed across the shards still jutting from the cobblestones, painting them in pale gold and bruised pink.
I stood in the center of it all, surrounded by silence and ash.
The shards still hummed underfoot, their song softer now—but alive. Always alive.
Kael's shadow stretched across the street as he raised a makeshift banner over the ruin. The wind caught it, tugging the tattered fabric until it rippled like flame.
He didn't look at me when he spoke.
"The war has begun, Shardweaver," he said. "And we are only the first to take up the call."
The name hit me like a spark that refused to fade.
Shardweaver.
Not a curse.
Not a crown.
A burden made of both.
The boy stirred nearby, murmuring something in his sleep—soft, broken words that could've been the Vein whispering through him. Jarek hushed him, but his eyes were fixed on the cracks still glowing faintly beneath our feet.
The fractures stretched into the distance, weaving under homes, under streets, pulsing like veins of molten glass.
I could feel them. Every heartbeat. Every whisper. Every tremor the city tried to hide.
The city wasn't waiting anymore.
It was awake.
I pressed a hand to the nearest shard. It throbbed faintly, warm against my palm. The hum echoed through me, deep in my ribs, settling into rhythm with my own pulse.
It wasn't the same power as before—wild and consuming.
This was quieter. Older. Intentional.
We see you, the city seemed to breathe. We move with you now.
The thought sent a shiver down my spine.
Because I knew, in that moment, that everything had changed.
The fracture wasn't just in the ground anymore.
It was in me.
In them.
In the world itself.
And there was no going back.
I looked toward the horizon. The light of dawn was spreading, cutting through smoke and ruin, glinting off every shard like a promise and a warning at once.
I wasn't their savior.
I wasn't their queen.
But I wasn't just Aradia anymore.
I was the Shardweaver.
And the city would bend with me…
or break.