The fall had no end.
Arin's stomach lurched as black wind whipped against his armor, tearing the breath from his lungs. He clutched the Veilshard with both hands, its pulse hammering through his bones. Seraphine's arms locked around him, her wings half-spread, feathers shredded by the abyssal gale. Below them, no ground appeared, only a horizon of shifting ash and fire that bent like water.
Then the world slammed upward.
They struck a slope of jagged stone and rolled, pain exploding across Arin's ribs. The Veilshard nearly flew from his grip. He clung to it even as he tumbled, crashing to a stop in a hollow of broken, glass-like rock. Dust filled his throat. He coughed hard, dragging himself to his knees.
The ground was alive.
Every stone pulsed faintly, glowing veins of ember running through blackness. Ash curled into the sky like smoke from invisible fires. The air tasted of copper and rot. In the distance, rivers of molten shadow twisted across a plain that shifted as if breathing.
This was Nethermere.
Arin's chest seared. The twin sigils blazed so bright he tore at his breastplate, desperate for air. Silver and crimson lines spread across his skin like living veins, colliding, fighting. He gasped, clutching his chest, as if his own body rejected itself.
The Veilshard pulsed once, black light stabbing through his hands. Agony flooded him. He collapsed to his side, screaming. His vision swam red and white, his ears ringing with whispers.
You are not meant to hold me.
The voice was inside his skull, deep as stone grinding on stone. His fingers convulsed, trying to release the shard, but his hands would not obey. The marks kept him bound.
Seraphine staggered into view, her armor cracked, her wings trailing sparks of fading light. She knelt over him, eyes narrowing. "Fool mortal. You are tearing yourself apart."
She pressed her palm against his chest. Light spread from her hand, silver fire washing over the marks. The pain dimmed, though it did not vanish. Arin's breathing slowed, each gasp ragged but survivable.
"Get it off me," he rasped.
Her eyes locked on the shard. "I cannot. It has chosen you. Or you have chosen it. Either way, it will not release you."
Arin coughed blood, spitting it onto the glowing stone. "Then it is going to kill me."
Seraphine's expression hardened. "Perhaps. But better you die than it falls into Maelkrath's hands."
Arin's glare cut through his pain. "I did not free you to be your weapon."
For the first time, her face softened, though her voice remained cold. "And I did not expect a mortal conscript to strike chains forged by gods. Yet here we are."
They stared at one another, both trembling from wounds and exhaustion. For a breath, the abyss around them seemed to quiet, as if listening.
Then the ground shifted.
Arin pushed himself upright, the shard heavy in his grip. "What now?"
Seraphine glanced toward the horizon. A line of black mist was rising, rolling toward them. Shapes twisted within it, thin, long-limbed, crawling things. The air vibrated with low growls.
"Now?" she said. Her eyes narrowed, wings spreading weakly. "Now we learn how long you can survive before this realm eats you alive."
The mist shrieked. Arin tightened his grip on the shard, his chest burning with twin fire. The wastes of Nethermere were already coming for him.
The mist reached them like a crawling tide. It did not come in a clean wall; it bled across the ground in fingers, dragging cold air behind it. Shapes moved inside, long and low, bulbous heads sweeping side to side. Arin tasted copper. His grip tightened around the Veilshard until his knuckles ached.
"Do not swing unless you must," Seraphine said. Her voice was steady but thin. "The shard will answer you, but it will take its price."
"They are coming," Arin said.
"They smell the shard," she replied. "They smell you."
The first of the scavengers peeled out of the mist. Its skin was the color of wet soot. Spines rose along its back like a broken crown. Two extra limbs dragged from its belly, ending in hooked pads that skittered on the glassy stone. It lifted its head and opened a mouth that split its face, teeth arranged in rings. Another slid beside it, then a third. They moved with a jerking grace, as if the ground itself pushed them forward.
Arin stepped in front of Seraphine without thinking. She caught the motion with a glance, said nothing, and shifted to his flank. Her wings were half folded, their light dim, but her eyes remained sharp.
The first beast lunged. Arin raised the shard and slashed.
The Veilshard did not cut like metal. It sang. A low tone, felt more than heard, rolled across the ground and up Arin's arms. Black light traced the arc of the swing, thin and clean, like ink pulled through water. The beast met the stroke with its teeth bared. The light touched its jaw and severed it in a single line.
The creature collapsed without a sound. Its head slid apart. Ash poured from the seam.
The singing did not stop. It climbed inside Arin's skull, pulling at his breath. His chest marks flared, silver and crimson, trying to find each other, failing, then crashing together. Pain punched through him. He staggered, almost dropped the shard, and swore through clenched teeth.
"See," Seraphine said, never taking her eyes off the mist, "price."
Two more beasts surged in. Seraphine stepped forward and thrust her palm. A fan of pale light burst from her hand, not the blaze Arin had seen in Aetheria, only a sharp blade of radiance. It clipped one beast's eyes and sent it reeling. The other barreled past and leaped for Arin's throat.
He moved late, too slow, and knew it. The shard was heavy as stone, then suddenly weightless, then heavier again. He ducked, and the beast's teeth scraped his shoulder guard with a sound like a knife on glass. He shoved the shard up, and the spine of the blade kissed the creature's chest.
The singing cut off. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then the beast came apart in dry petals, as if a flower made of ash had opened in the air around him.
Arin sucked air like a drowning man. He tried to steady the shard by bracing it to his forearm. The metal of his vambrace prickled with heat where it touched the black crystal. The twin sigils across his chest pulsed in a broken rhythm. He could not tell if the shard was hurting him or if he was hurting it.
"Back," Seraphine said. "We do not hold ground here."
"Where," he said, "do you suggest we go?"
She pointed with two fingers. The mist swirled between them, and a low ridge rose from the wastes, not a mountain, only a broken ring of stone. Beyond it, the edge of a ruined structure juts the way ribs jut through a dead thing's skin.
"Shelter," she said. "Ruin. We will not last in the open."
The beasts hissed and came on again. Arin tried to count them and gave up. Six, ten, more inside the mist. He set his feet and raised the shard in both hands. His arms shook. He did not want to swing again. The singing lived behind his eyes now, a pressure that begged to be released.
"Go," he said to Seraphine. "I will hold."
"You will die," she said.
"Then go," he said. "You are more likely to find a use for my death than I am."
A beat, then the smallest hint of a smile cut through the ash on her mouth. Not warmth. Recognition.
"Left," she said. "I will break right. Make them split."
She moved first, a burst of quick steps, a flare of light at her heels, then a leap that carried her to the side. The beasts pivoted after her, hungry for the brighter target. Arin charged the other way, directly into the thinner stretch of mist. He held the shard low, blade parallel to the ground, and forced himself not to swing.
The first scavenger in his path reared and slammed down with its forelimbs. Arin angled his shoulder and let the impact slide past. He snapped the shard up when its belly exposed itself, not a full cut, just a tap. The black edge shaved a line along its skin. The beast folded around the wound, as if the cut was an idea it could not accept. It hit the ground in two pieces.
Two more came, side by side. Arin stepped into them, then sideways. He felt the pull to swing wide and resisted. He made tight motions, wrists guiding, elbows locked to his ribs. He traced short arcs that barely moved beyond his own shoulders, each stroke a whisper. The beasts fell without sound. The shard sang softly, pleased.
Pain blossomed behind his sternum. He grunted. The twin marks felt hot enough to brand his bones. His sight edged with white. He blinked it away.
Seraphine called from the right. "Arin."
He could hear strain in her voice now. He glanced over. She stood over a small stack of glassy rubble with three beasts circling. She had one hand braced on the stone, the other raised, fingers splayed. Light sputtered and died, then returned, weaker. The beasts learned. They feinted, drew her throw, then slipped inside her reach.
Arin ran. The shard felt hungry in his grip. He pushed the feeling down. When he reached her, he cut once, quickly, and a beast fell in two halves. He stepped past Seraphine and took the space, made his body the threat, and let her reset her breath.
"Save your light," he said.
"Save your life," she answered.
They moved together without planning. She tapped the ground with low bursts that staggered a beast for half a heartbeat. He used that half and drew a narrow line with the shard. When the circle tried to surround them, she shifted so their backs met for a breath, then separated again. It was not grace. It was survival dressed like grace.
The mist thickened. More shapes pushed through. Arin counted his breath. In on one, out on two. He listened for the shard's pull and only gave it what he had to. His forearms burned. His left calf cramped. The scar along his ribs, old and ugly, tore open under his armor and wet his tunic. He did not look down.
The ground pitched under them. He thought it was another quake, then realized the stone itself had arched up, like a back rolling in sleep. The beasts stumbled. Seraphine took the opening and cut a lane with a clean sheet of light.
"Now," she said.
They ran. Arin did not look behind. He heard claws on glass, teeth scraping stone, and the soft slip of the mist trying to pour into his lungs. He coughed and tasted iron. The ridge loomed closer. The ruin beyond it showed more clearly a crescent of shattered walls and twisted pillars clinging to the slope. The silhouette looked wrong, as if geometry had grown tired and given up before it finished.
A beast sprang onto the ridge and skittered down toward them, forelimbs flailing for purchase. Arin planted and lifted the shard point. The beast fell on it and split itself without knowing how. Another tumbled behind it and slammed into Arin's shoulder. He went down on one knee. His left hand shot to the ground to catch his fall. The stone beneath his palm was warm, almost soft, and it pulsed once under his skin.
A voice slid through his head, low and curious.
Why do you cut, little bridge?
Arin ripped his hand away as if burned. He got his feet under him and ran again. The ridge broke. They cleared it. The ruin opened up, a bowl of fallen colonnades and a half-collapsed arch that leaned at a tired angle. The air inside felt still, not safe, only still, like the air in a held breath.
"Here," Seraphine said. "Two minutes, no more."
Arin wheeled, set his stance, and raised the shard. The beasts poured down the slope after them. The first wave hit the lip of the bowl and hesitated, as if some old rule lived in the fallen stones. The second wave did not care. They came on.
Seraphine touched the arch with her fingertips and spoke a word that sounded like a bell struck underwater. A thin band of light rolled from her hand and traced the curve of the doorway. The band tightened. When the first beast crossed it, the band snapped shut and shaved off the creature's front limbs. It writhed and thrashed on the floor of the ruin, teeth chattering against stone. The others fanned to the sides and sought another way in.
"Your word," Arin said, eyes not leaving the gap. "That was a vow."
"A fragment of one," she said. "Do not lean on it. It is thinner than it looks."
The next push came from the left. Arin met it. He found a rhythm at last, not the shard's rhythm, his. He let the blade be heavy and moved his feet. He let the beasts come close enough to smell their rot, then refused them the last inch with the smallest of motions. Whisper cuts. The singing stayed low. The pain in his chest did not worsen. It simply sat there, constant, a cost paid in slow coins.
A final beast launched high, clear of the band of light, and came for Seraphine's throat. Arin pivoted and threw the shard. It left his hand with a sound like a plucked string. The blade spun once, twice, and kissed the beast's neck. Head and body parted in mid-air. The shard punched into the fallen wall behind Seraphine and stuck there, half buried, humming.
Silence rolled over the bowl. Not true silence, only the careful kind that follows a fight, when everything decides what it will be next. The mist withdrew by degrees. The beasts that could still move pulled themselves back over the ridge, uncertain if the meal had ended.
Arin's breath shook. Without the shard in his hand, the marks in his chest cooled by a hair. He sank to a crouch and pressed his palm over the sigils, as if he could hold them still.
Seraphine walked to the embedded shard. She set her hand on its spine, just above where it sank into stone, and did not try to pull it free. Her eyes softened, briefly.
"It will never belong to you," she said. "It will only agree to be with you, for a time."
"It is like a person, then," Arin said. The words came out dry. "Difficult, expensive, and never fully yours."
A small sound escaped her that might have been the idea of a laugh. It died quickly. "You did well."
He looked up at her, surprised to hear it. "We are still alive. That is not the same as doing well."
"In Nethermere, it is."
He pushed to his feet and went to the shard. He wrapped his fingers around it and pulled. It came free with a sigh, as if the wall had not wanted to let it go. The humming returned, low and steady, and the marks under his palm answered it, not with fire now, only warmth.
"Two minutes," Seraphine said again. "Then we move."
"Where," he asked.
"Ahead," she said. "Always ahead."
He nodded. The ridge settled outside the bowl, the mist leveling, the last of the scavengers melting back into the wastes. Arin wiped ash from his face and tasted copper again. He tried not to think of Dreskin's last shout in the fall. He tried not to think of the Bridge screaming as it died.
The ruin held its breath with them. A tiny sound clicked somewhere deeper in the shadows, not claws, not stone. It sounded like a tongue on a palate, as if something without a mouth had learned to make a human noise.
Arin raised the shard a fraction. Seraphine turned her head, eyes narrowing.
"We are not alone," she said.
"No," a dry voice said from the dark, prim and offended. "You are very much trespassing, and in violation of three statutes, two of which I wrote badly, but they still stand."
Arin blinked. Seraphine exhaled through her nose. The voice continued, closer now, clipped and precise.
"Also, you left a terrible mess at the threshold. I have ankles, or I used to, and I remember what it is like to trip."
Arin lifted the shard higher, then lowered it. He did not see anything yet. Only a glow, like a candle inside bone.
"Show yourself," he said.
"Gladly," the voice said. "I dislike surprises almost as much as I dislike unpaid fees."
A floating skull drifted into the thin light, ivory stained with soot, glyphs scratched into its crown. It hovered at eye level, jaw moving with the fussy dignity of a clerk. Two candle-like points burned in its sockets.
Seraphine closed her eyes for the space of a breath, then opened them again. "Of course."
The skull sniffed, though it had no nose. "Welcome to my ruin, mortals. My name is Skiv. Please refrain from bleeding on the ledger stones. They are fussy about stains."
Arin lowered the shard all the way. His chest hurt. His mouth tried to find a smile and failed. He looked at Seraphine, then at the skull.
"I think we found shelter," he said.
"You found worse," Skiv said, almost cheerfully. "You found paperwork."
The ruin seemed to exhale, as if the realm itself enjoyed the joke.
And somewhere beyond the ridge, far under the mist, something larger shifted in the dark and began to listen.