She knelt beside me, closer than she usually got without tension coiling between us, and studied the rune with a focused intensity that surprised me. "Alright, magic 101. Let's see if I'm more than your average mortal." Her voice had that edge of banter, sharper now in the open air, but there was an undercurrent of genuine interest, like she was half-expecting it to work and half-bracing for disappointment. She reached out, her fingers hovering over the lines, tracing the air slowly at first, before mimicking the curves with a precision in the dirt next to my example.
I watched her, my own hand resting near the rune, ready to guide if needed. The sun beat down on us, warming the earth and drawing out the scent of soil, and for stretches, it felt almost easy, being out here with her like this, the warehouse's gloom left behind. "Slower on the intersection," I murmured, my voice low. "That's where the energy binds. Feel for it."
She adjusted, her brow furrowing in concentration, and then her eyes widened slightly, a soft intake of breath escaping her. "Wait... there's something. Like a vibration, under my skin. Not strong, but... yeah, it's there." Excitement crept into her tone, unexpected and bright, chasing away the usual sarcasm. She drew another, faster this time, and a faint shimmer rippled alongthe lines, the air above the rune thickening just enough to push back when I tested it with my palm. It wasn't much, a barrier no stronger than a stiff breeze, but it was real, stirred by her, and her alone.
Surprise hit me first, followed by a wariness that tightened my chest, because this confirmed it, that tie to Velrith running deeper than echoes or dreams. But underneath that, something warmer stirred, an unwilling fondness at seeing her light up like that, her face alive with the thrill of it, as if she'd unlocked a piece of herself she'd always suspected was there. It made her seem less like a puzzle to solve and more like someone sharing this fractured path with me, and I didn't want to name that feeling, didn't want it complicating things further.
She laughed then, a short, genuine sound that cut through the quiet, looking up at me with eyes sparkling in the sunlight. "Holy shit, did you see that? It actually worked. Okay, that was... cool. Weird, but cool. Do it again? Show me how to make it stronger?"
The ease of it unsettled me, how natural it felt to nod and lean in closer, our shoulders brushing as I adjusted the rune slightly, adding a secondary line for her to follow. "Try incorporating this. It amplifies the bind." But as she reached forward, a strand of her hair fell across her face, obscuring her view, and without thinking, I lifted my hand to tuck it behind her ear, my fingers grazing her skin lightly, the touch lingering a fraction longer than it should have. The contact was charged, tense in its quiet way, her warmth against my cool fingers sending a jolt through me that had nothing to do with magic. She stilled for a heartbeat, her gaze flicking to mine, something unspoken passing between us, heavy and aware, before she looked away, clearing her throat and focusing back on the rune. I pulled my hand back, the moment hanging there, restrainedbut impossible to ignore, a reminder of how the lines between us were blurring in ways I hadn't planned.
We worked like that for a while longer, the banter flowing easier now, her questions coming quick and pointed, my answers less guarded than before. "So if I mess up the curve, does it explode or just fizzle?" she'd ask, and I'd snort, guiding her hand over the dirt without quite touching, showing her the flow. It felt cooperative, almost friendly in those stretches, like we were building something together rather than circling each other in suspicion. By the time the sun started dipping lower, casting long shadows across the lot, she'd managed to wake the rune twice more, each time stronger, her excitement building into a quiet confidence that mirrored my own growing sense of possibility.
As we headed back to the warehouse, the air cooling around us, I felt the shift settling in, not just in what she'd done with the rune, but in us. It wasn't trust, not yet, and she was still technically my captive after all. But there was a partnership forming, reluctant and real, a sense that we might navigate this mess side by side. And as she walked beside me, still buzzing from the small victory, I couldn't deny the fascination pulling at me, darker and deeper than before, drawing me toward her in ways that felt as inevitable as the Shardline itself.
16
MORGAN
The sun was already dipping low by the time we made it back inside the warehouse, casting long shadows through the grimy windows that stretched across the concrete floor like fingers reaching for something just out of grasp. My skin still tingled from the warmth outside, a rare gift in this endless stretch of rainy days, and I could feel the faint grit of dirt under my nails from tracing those runes in the earth. It had been strange, that little spark I'd felt humming up through my fingers, like a current I hadn't known was there, waiting to be tapped. Not world-shaking or anything, but enough to make me feel a bit less like a helpless captive and more like someone who might actually have a say in whatever mess this was turning into. Xavian had seemed almost pleased too, in his gruff way, nodding when the air shimmered over the lines I'd drawn, though he'd masked it quickly with one of those tight-lipped expressions that said he was already calculating the next step.
We didn't talk much on the walk back, but the silence felt different, less like a wall and more like a shared breath after exertion. I caught myself glancing at him sidelong, noting how the fading light softened the hard lines of his face, making himlook less like the predator who'd dragged me here and more like a man carrying too much weight. It annoyed me, that flicker of something almost like understanding, but I couldn't deny the shift. Out there in the lot, with the sun on our backs and the earth giving under my touch, things had felt cooperative for once, like we were piecing together a puzzle instead of circling each other with suspicion. He'd even laughed, a low rumble when I'd joked about blowing up the rune if I got it wrong, and for a split second, it had been easy to forget the wards on the door or the blade always at his side.
Inside, the air hit me with its familiar staleness, a mix of rust and old paper that clung to everything, but even that didn't sour my mood entirely. I shrugged off the jacket he'd given me, tossing it onto the cot, and stretched my arms overhead, feeling the pull in muscles that had gone stiff from weeks of confinement. "Not bad for a first lesson," I said, keeping my tone light, almost teasing, as I turned to face him. "If that's what passes for magic in your world, I might not suck at it after all. What's next? Levitating the lantern? Turning water into wine?"
He closed the door behind us, the wards giving off that subtle hum as they sealed us in again, but he didn't snap at the sarcasm like he might have before. Instead, he leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, his coat still damp from the earlier breeze. There was a thoughtful crease between his brows, like he was weighing something, and his eyes flicked to the blade sheathed at his belt before settling back on me. "You did better than I expected," he admitted, his voice rough but without the usual edge. "That shimmer wasn't nothing. It means the connection's there, stronger than echoes. We could push it further, see how deep it goes."
I raised an eyebrow, leaning against the makeshift table where the lantern sat, its wick flickering low in the dimming light. The room felt smaller after the openness outside, butthe lingering buzz from the runes kept me from sinking back into frustration. "Push it how? More dirt drawings? Or are we escalating to something that might actually get me out of this cage?"
He pushed off the wall, moving closer, and I noticed how his hand rested casually near the hilt of the blade, not gripping it but close enough that it drew my eye. Virelya, he'd called it, that cursed thing that had started all this. Up close, in the lantern's glow, it looked almost ordinary, a metal sword with a hilt wrapped in worn leather, but I knew better now. It was the source of his blackouts, his hunger, the reason he'd been feeding on essence like some kind of vampire from a nightmare. And yet, near me, it quieted, like I was its antidote or something. He'd been cagey about letting me near it since that first night in the alley, when it had screamed in his head and rejected me. But after today, with the runes responding to my touch, maybe he was rethinking that.
"Not escalating to anything reckless," he said, though there was a note in his voice that suggested otherwise. "But the runes are basic. Virelya... it's tied to Velrith in ways that go deeper. If you can sense echoes through the Shardline, maybe you can sense something through it too."
I straightened, a mix of curiosity and wariness sparking in my chest. The lighter mood from outside still hung around, making me bolder than I might have been otherwise. "Sense it? Like, touch it? Last time you tried to stab me with it, things went sideways for you. What makes you think this won't end in another blackout or worse?"
He hesitated, his gaze steady on mine, and I could see the calculation there, the way he was testing the waters just like he'd tested me with the runes. "Because things have changed. You've woken a spark. And the blade's been... stable near you. No whispers, no pull for blood. We know how the blade reacts nearyou, and if used to attack you. I want to see what would happen if you wielded it. If you just hold the hilt, focus like you did outside, it might reveal more. About you, about why it reacts this way."
It sounded risky, but after feeling that hum in the dirt, part of me wanted to know. The dreams, the strange pulls toward old places, they'd always been background noise in my life, easy to ignore. But now, with everything he'd told me, they felt like threads leading somewhere real. And if touching the blade could untangle even one of them without blowing up in my face, maybe it was worth it. Besides, the way he was looking at me, almost expectant, made it feel like another step in this uneasy partnership we'd stumbled into. "Fine," I said, pushing down the flutter of nerves. "But if it starts screaming in my head or whatever, you're the one dealing with the fallout."
He nodded, unsheathing the blade slowly, the metal whispering against the leather as he held it out, hilt first, balanced on his palms like an offering. The room seemed to hold its breath, the lantern's light dancing along the edge, casting faint reflections on the walls. I stepped closer, the air between us thickening with that same charged tension from earlier, when his fingers had brushed my hair. But this was different, more focused. I reached out, my hand steady despite the pulse of adrenaline, and wrapped my fingers around the hilt.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The leather was cool under my skin, worn smooth from years of use, and I felt a faint vibration, like the echo from the runes but steadier, almost inviting. Xavian's eyes were locked on mine, watchful, and I opened my mouth to say something snarky, to keep the lightness going, when it hit.
It wasn't a spark. It was a storm.
Fire erupted inside me, not on my skin but deep in my veins, racing through my body like liquid flame poured straight into my core. I gasped, my grip tightening on the hilt involuntarily,and the world tilted, the warehouse blurring at the edges as pain bloomed everywhere at once. It felt like I was burning from the inside out, every nerve igniting in a cascade that made my knees buckle. I heard Xavian shout my name, his voice distant and muffled, like it was coming from the other side of a thick wall, but I couldn't respond, couldn't even process it fully because the surge was overwhelming everything.
Fragments slammed into me then, not thoughts but shards of memory that weren't mine, slicing through my mind too fast to grasp. Blood, thick and coppery on my tongue, spilling across stone floors that echoed with screams. Fire roaring in a vast hall, flames licking at sigils carved into walls that pulsed with unnatural light. Voices chanting in a language I didn't know but somehow understood in flashes, words of binding and grief that twisted in my gut like knives. A woman's face, blurred and furious, her eyes glowing with betrayal as she raised a hand wreathed in shadow. Hunger, not just a pang but a yawning void that clawed at the edges of existence, demanding more, always more. Something trapped, thrashing against invisible chains, its rage a thunder in my chest that made my heart stutter.
I tried to pull away, to drop the blade, but my hand wouldn't obey, locked around the hilt as if fused to it. The memories kept coming, broken and relentless: stone cracking under immense pressure, rituals in dim chambers where air tasted of iron and despair, a grief so profound it felt like drowning in an ocean of loss. Sensations overlapped, my body no longer just my own but a vessel for these echoes, each one hitting with physical force. My skin burned, my bones ached as if they were being reshaped, and through it all, whispers rose, not in my ears but inside my skull, a chorus of voices that weren't human.
They started as a murmur, like wind through cracks in a wall, but grew into something sharper, more insistent. Feed me, they hissed, not in words but in urges that clawed at my thoughts.Hunger eternal, bound in metal, trapped in the forge of betrayal. A deeper voice cut through, not whispering but roaring, a presence vast and furious, slamming against the confines of... what? The blade? No, it wasn't just the blade. I felt it then, the shift, as if my awareness was being pulled inward, away from the warehouse and into something enclosed, impossible.
It was like stepping into a prison, but not one made of bars or stone. The space around me, inside me, folded in on itself, metal walls that weren't walls curving endlessly, containing a darkness that pulsed with life. I wasn't holding the blade anymore; I was inside it, or it was inside me, the boundaries blurring until I couldn't tell where I ended and it began. The entity trapped there thrashed, its formless shape coiling like smoke in a bottle too small, pressing against the edges with a force that made the air vibrate. It was larger than the sword could hold, something ancient and terrible squeezed into this vessel, its hunger not for blood but for essence, for the spark of life that fed its endless void. And Xavian had been feeding it, all this time, not the blade itself but the thing bound within, a prisoner screaming for release through whispers and blackouts.
The revelation hit me not as a clear thought but as a bone-deep certainty, pieced together from the fragments: this wasn't just a cursed weapon. It was a cage, forged to contain whatever this was, this entity of rage and grief that twisted in the dark. The memories flashed again, faster now, a whirlwind of blood-soaked rituals where figures in robes bound something screaming into the metal, their chants a desperate seal against its fury. Grief poured through me, not mine but real, a loss that echoed in every pulse of pain, as if the binding had cost everything. Hunger gnawed at me from within, the entity's starvation bleeding into my own body, making my stomach clench and my vision swim with red.
Through the haze, I registered Xavian's presence, his hands on my arms, trying to pry me free. "Morgan! Let go!" His voice broke through in fragments, laced with alarm I'd never heard from him before, raw and uncontrolled. He was shouting, pulling at me, his fingers digging into my skin, but the surge drowned it out, turning his touch into distant pressure. I could feel him shaking, his usual composure cracking as he wrestled with the blade, but my grip held, the fire in my veins binding me to it. The whispers laughed now, mocking the attempt, urging me to feed, to release, to become part of the void.
