Nezavek
The realm doesn't just shudder. It cracks.
Reality splits along invisible seams as the Bone Collector forces his way through dimensions. The incomplete bond between Yorika and me burns like a beacon, giving him exactly what he needs: a frequency to follow, a weakness to exploit.
I roll off Yorika immediately, shadow forming into armor, but it's already too late.
Ice explodes through the wall of my chambers. Not physical ice but crystallized reality, frozen possibility made solid. The Collector steps through the breach, and the temperature drops so fast that frost forms on every surface.
He's beautiful in the way an avalanche is beautiful: white, inevitable, and absolutely destructive. His form is translucent crystal shaped into something almost human, and when he smiles, light refracts through him in rainbow patterns that hurt to perceive.
"My apologies for the interruption," he says, voice like wind through ice caves. "But when I felt the bond strengthening, I simply had to visit."
Yorika scrambles off the bed, reaching for her knife. I catch her wrist.
"Don't," I warn. "He's not."
The door explodes inward. Mikaere charges through, all four arms raised, already moving to shield us. But the Collector just laughs.
"Ah, the faithful guardian. Still serving, I see. How touching." His attention shifts to Yorika, and his smile widens. "And the sister. Perfect. I have one crystal sculpture, and now I'll have the matching set."
"You fucking monster," Yorika snarls.
"Monster?" The Collector tilts his head.
"I'm an artist. Your sister is my masterpiece, aware, eternal, perfectly preserved at the moment of exquisite transition.
And you..." He inhales deeply. "Oh, you're delicious.
All that rage, that pain, that desperate hope she might still be saved.
" The Collector's laugh echoes through the breaking reality.
"Did you enjoy the hunt, little human? Three years of searching for the wrong monster?
" His crystalline features shift into mock sympathy.
"The Vorthan broker never mentioned my gifts to her, did she?
Just enough truth to make it credible. Every grieving family member seeking revenge, I send them after him.
" He gestures at me. "You're the forty-third to fall for it.
Though I must admit, you're the first to actually reach him alive.
The others died trying. Less determined than you, perhaps. Or less lucky."
He takes a step closer, and I move between them.
"She's mine," I growl.
"Is she?" He laughs again, the sound like breaking glass.
"How thoroughly you've marked her. Like an animal claiming territory.
How primitive. How perfect." His eyes, pale blue of deep ice, fix on Yorika.
"Did he tell you what marking means, little human?
How you'll never be free? How you'll need him to survive? "
"I know what I chose," Yorika says, though I feel her emotions spike. Anger, fear, and doubt mixed into a cocktail of turmoil.
"Do you? Because from where I stand, you look like prey that's been seasoned for consumption." He gestures, and ice begins forming in the air around us. "But don't worry. I'll preserve you properly. You'll be aware forever, just like dear Melara."
That name on his lips breaks something in Yorika. She lunges past me, knife raised, a scream of pure rage tearing from her throat.
The Collector catches her easily, one crystal hand wrapping around her throat. "Perfect. That expression, that's what I'll preserve."
"No!"
I attack, shadow expanding into weapons, into claws, into void itself. But the Collector is ready. He throws Yorika aside and meets my assault with crystalline ice that cuts through shadow like light through darkness.
Mikaere joins the battle, his stone fists crashing against crystal barriers. The chamber tears apart under our combined assault, walls cracking, reality bending, the carefully maintained structure of my realm groaning under the strain.
But something's wrong. Every surge of emotion from Yorika, her fear for me, her rage at the Collector, her grief for Melara, he somehow twists into power. The incomplete bond broadcasts her turmoil, and he drinks it like wine.
"Fascinating," he says, deflecting both my shadows and Mikaere's stone. "The bond is incomplete but so very loud. Every feeling she has makes you both weaker and me stronger."
He's right. I can feel it. Yorika's emotional chaos disrupting my focus, making my form less stable. The tremors I've been fighting return with vengeance.
In the library, I sense P?ivi desperately reinforcing reality's fabric, trying to keep the realm from collapsing entirely. But she's weak because I'm weak, her power directly tied to mine.
Another exchange of blows. The Collector's ice pierces my shadow-form, actual pain blooming where it strikes. Mikaere catches a crystalline spear through his shoulder, light leaking from the wound like golden blood.
Yorika gets back to her feet, that knife still in her hand, preparing to rejoin the fight.
No. She'll die. Without the completed bond, without access to my power, she's just human. Brave and skilled, but human.
"I'm sorry," I tell her, no more than a whisper.
Her eyes widen. "Don't you dare."
I wrap her in shadows, pouring energy I can't spare into transporting her away. She fights it, screaming my name, but I force the teleportation. She dissolves into darkness just as the Collector's ice spear passes through where she was standing.
"How noble," the Collector mocks. "Sending away your only anchor. Do you know what that costs you?"
I do. Without her proximity, even incomplete, the dissolution accelerates. My form starts scattering immediately, edges becoming smoke.
"Pathetic," the Collector says, dodging my next strike with ease. Where before my shadows had substance, now they pass through him like mist. "Three hundred years of hunting me, and this is how it ends? Dissolving for a human you've known for days?"
I launch myself at him again, but my form won't hold. The attack that should have been devastating disperses before impact. The Collector doesn't even move this time; my shadows part around him like water around stone.
"Master!" Mikaere roars, throwing himself between us despite the crystalline spear still lodged in his shoulder.
His four fists connect with the Collector's form, actually forcing him back a step.
But the Collector's hand reshapes into a blade, slicing through one of Mikaere's arms. It falls, shattering on impact.
"Your loyalty is touching," the Collector tells him. "I'll preserve you next to your master's remains."
Through fragmenting consciousness, I feel P?ivi abandon her attempts to hold the realm together. The library's entire collection of knowledge condenses into her form as she materializes beside us, no longer paper but something harder, sharper, weaponized information.
"You were weak even when we worked together," she hisses at the Collector, and that stops me cold. Worked together?
The Collector laughs. "Together? Is that what you tell yourself, librarian? You catalogued my research. Nothing more."
P?ivi attacks, reality itself bending around her strikes. For a moment, the Collector actually struggles, his crystal form cracking under the assault of pure, concentrated knowledge. But I'm falling apart too fast to capitalize on the opening.
"Two hundred and forty-seven victims," the Collector says, catching P?ivi's next attack and freezing her solid with a touch.
She shatters into a thousand paper fragments that struggle to reform.
"Do you remember their names, Shadow Walker?
I do. Each one. Marina, who begged for her children.
Senna, who sang until her throat crystallized. Vera, who."
"Stop." My voice barely exists.
"And Melara, of course. The artist. She had such beautiful eyes when they finally went still." He steps over Mikaere, who's trying to rise with three arms. "Her sister has the same eyes. I wonder if they'll crystallize the same way."
Rage gives me a moment of solidity, enough to grab his throat. But my fingers pass through him, and he backhands me with casual force. I scatter across the chamber, consciousness spreading thin.
"You're dying," he observes. "How disappointing. I'd hoped to preserve you fighting, not fading." He turns toward the door, then pauses. "The girl will return for you. They always do, these humans with their attachments. When she does, I'll complete my collection."
The realm shudders. Cracks spread across the walls, the ceiling, reality itself fracturing without my will to maintain it. The Collector glances around with mild interest.
"Ah. The cascade begins. How long before your entire realm collapses, I wonder?
Hours? Minutes?" He steps toward the breach he created.
"I'll wait in the gallery where her sister stands.
Tell the girl, if you still can when she returns, that Melara is conscious.
Still aware. Still hoping for rescue that will never come. "
He leaves through the tear in reality, ice sealing it behind him.
Mikaere drags himself to where my consciousness pools in shadow. His three remaining arms try to gather me, hold me together, but I slip through his fingers like smoke.
"Master, please. Hold on. She'll return."
P?ivi reforms partially, pages scattered but voice intact. "I'm... trying to stabilize... the framework. But without his core consciousness..."
I feel myself spreading thinner, thoughts becoming harder to hold. The realm groans, architecture twisting as physics fails. Somewhere, through the fading bond, I sense Yorika's fury, her desperation.
She's coming back.
But there might be nothing left to save.