Four #2
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers.
It is.
And somehow, that feels worse than the fear.
The bridge comes to an end without warning.
One moment there is only endless light beneath our feet and the low hum of the Mother Shard vibrating through my bones.
The next, solid ground.
Relief hits me so suddenly my knees almost give out beneath me. The burning sensation that had followed every step across the bridge begins to fade at once, retreating slowly from my legs until only a dull ache remains behind. I hadn’t realised how badly it hurt until it stopped.
The Heartlands stretch endlessly around us.
At first glance, the land looks empty. Flat stone and pale dust spread outwards beneath a colourless sky, broken only by jagged clusters of rock that rise from the ground like exposed bones. There’s no grass. No trees. No sound beyond the distant hum of the Mother Shard.
Nothing lives here.
At the centre of it all, the Mother Shard rises into the sky.
Up close, she is almost impossible to look at directly.
The crystal surface glows from within, soft pink threaded with veins of purple.
The colours shift beneath the surface like something breathing beneath layers of glass.
Parts of her are smooth and impossibly clear. Other parts are fractured.
Jagged dark-blue cracks spread across one side of the enormous structure, splintering through the crystal like old wounds.
I stare at them too long. Something about the damage catches beneath my skin.
The Overseers continue forward through the dust without looking back. Their forms flicker strangely against the pale light around us, robes shifting at the edges as though they aren’t entirely solid.
Marissa moves closer beside me.
“I thought it would be…” She trails off quietly.
“Different?” Callen mutters.
She nods once.
I understand what she means. For something at the centre of the world, the Heartlands feel strangely dead. And not in a peaceful way.
As we continue walking, I begin noticing movement at the edges of my vision. At first, I think exhaustion is finally catching up with me, but I see it again: a figure standing motionless beside a cluster of rocks.
I turn sharply, but the figure is already gone.
The further we walk, the more often it happens.
Half-seen silhouettes. A boy kneels in the dust with blood running down his throat.
A girl stumbles forward with empty hands held against her stomach as if she’s trying to keep something inside.
Shapes flicker into existence for only a heartbeat before dissolving back into the mist.
Marissa sucks in a sharp breath beside me.
“You saw that too?” she whispers.
Before I can answer, another figure appears ahead of us. This one lingers.
A young man stands in the middle of the path, his body translucent beneath the glow of the Mother Shard. His mouth is open in a silent scream. One arm hangs uselessly at his side while the other reaches towards something that isn’t there.
He disappears suddenly, and Callen swears quietly under his breath.
The Overseer nearest to us slows slightly, though it doesn’t fully turn around.
“Mana leaves an echo,” it says.
Its voice crackles strangely through the air, as though several people are speaking slightly out of time with one another.
Marissa stares after the place where the figure vanished. “What does that mean?”
The Overseer tilts its head.
“The Heartlands remember.”
The deeper we move into the Heartlands, the worse these Mana Echoes become.
They gather near the Mother Shard in greater numbers, overlapping one another in brief fragments of violence and terror: a body collapsing onto bloodstained stone, someone crawling forward with shattered legs, a handprint smeared dark against the ground before vanishing entirely.
I try not to look directly at them after a while, but it doesn’t help. I can still sense them there, lingering at the edge of my vision like memories trapped inside the air, repeating their final seconds.
The Mother Shard towers above us now, and the humming beneath my skin grows steadily stronger the closer we get to her.
Not always painful, but familiar. That frightens me too.
The crystal surface pulses once, slow and deep, and heat rolls through my body hard enough that I nearly stumble again.
I stuff it down, clenching my fists until my nails bite into my palms.
The Overseers drift towards a narrow fracture running vertically through the surface of the Mother Shard. At first, I think it’s another crack like the others, but as we approach, I realise it’s too thin. Too precise.
It’s a seam, barely wide enough for a person to pass through. The light inside it shifts strangely, bending inwards in impossible directions until looking directly at it makes my eyes ache.
The lead Overseer stops beside the opening.
“You will proceed,” it says.
Marissa stares at the seam. “In there?”
The Overseer does not answer.
Callen exhales sharply through his nose and steps forward first. Of course he does.
Marissa hesitates only a second before following after him, shoulders tight with fear.
I’m the last to move, but the moment I touch the seam, the world changes. The surface of the crystal gives way beneath my hand like warm water stretched impossibly thin. Pressure closes around my body from every direction at once, crushing against my ribs and ears until I can’t breathe properly.
The humming becomes deafening as light floods my vision—pink, gold, white—so bright it’s like something burning directly through my skull. For one horrible moment, I think the Mother Shard is trying to tear something out of me.
Then I fall forward, cold marble slamming into my palms and jarring my wrists.
I suck in a sharp breath and push myself upright too quickly. The air inside the Mother Shard feels different. Alive, but—heavy.
The chamber surrounding us is enormous, far larger than should be possible from the outside.
Pale marble stretches in every direction beneath soft golden light.
Water trickles somewhere nearby. Greenery spills from enormous stone planters, thick with flowers and twisting vines.
An ornate fountain dominates the centre of the room, sculpted figures pouring endless streams of water into a pool so clear it almost looks unreal.
It’s beautiful. Too beautiful. Like something designed to make people lower their guard.
Then I realise we aren’t alone. Twelve strangers stand scattered throughout the room, watching us in complete silence.
The other Offerings.
For a few long seconds, nobody moves.
The room feels unnaturally still after the endless humming of the bridge and the ghosts trapped outside. Water spills softly from the fountain at the centre of the chamber, the sound somehow louder in the silence.
Every pair of eyes in the room is fixed on us, and I become painfully aware of how we must look: dust-covered, exhausted, red marks still drying across our faces. Three more frightened sacrifices stumbling through the walls of the Mother Shard like lost children.
The other Offerings are scattered throughout the chamber in loose groups, though none of them look particularly comfortable beside one another. Some sit near the fountain. Others lean against the marble walls or stand half-hidden among the greenery, watching us with open caution.
No one smiles. No one speaks.
Marissa edges closer to me instinctively, close enough now that our sleeves brush together.