Chapter 1 #2
The crystal responds, its energy flowing outward like water rather than drawing inward into itself.
There’s no violence here, no screaming or blood.
Just a gentle rhythm as power flows between the crystal and the people around it.
They’re participating in something larger, something that connects them all, instead of taking from it or forcing it to take from them.
The energy moves like it's alive, like it has a purpose beyond just existing.
“Before the Authority,” the woman continues, “power moved through all things. The crystal was its voice, its heart.”
The chamber transforms. Violence erupts where quiet ceremonies were once performed.
Bodies lie scattered across the floor, blood running in rivulets that form the Authority’s symbol.
The crystal’s radiance changes. No longer giving but taking, pulling visible strands of color from the fallen figures.
I watch as they die, their power taken from them.
The crystal pulses brighter with each death, gorging itself on power that was meant to flow freely through the world.
“The first purge.” Sorrow fills her voice. “When knowledge became forbidden. When power became taboo.”
A shiver runs through me. These aren’t random images, but scenes from Meridian’s past. A time when power was understood rather than feared, channeled rather than contained. A history the Authority buried beneath years of doctrine and lies.
The woman’s form flickers, edges dissolving as though holding her presence here demands more strength than she has left. Her eyes meet mine.
“Listen carefully, Elowen. If you forget everything else, remember this. The crystal did not destroy. It separated. What belongs together will find its way back. The Authority fears what it cannot control.” Her voice softens.
“What it does not understand, it seeks to destroy. What it covets, it perverts. The crystal was meant to unite, not to divide. To channel, rather than contain.” Her form begins to disintegrate.
“Remember the bracelet. Remember the storm. Remember what lies beneath.”
Then she’s gone, leaving nothing but the faint echo of her voice. The darkness surges forward, swallowing everything. Cold invades my senses. A bone-deep chill that spreads from the tips of my fingers inward. Pain builds in my head, pressure increasing until I’m sure my skull is going to crack.
I try to hold onto the things she mentioned.
Remember what lies beneath.
Beneath what? The Authority’s deceptions? Meridian itself?
Why do I need to remember the bracelet? And the storm? Is she talking about my power or something else entirely?
I have no idea what the connections could be, but I do know they’re important. The way she spoke, the urgency in her voice, everything about her says these aren’t just random clues. They’re the key to something, but I can’t make sense of what.
And then another thought breaks through the confusion.
Sacha.
Did he survive? Is he searching for me now? Can he feel me the way I can feel him, now that I’m thinking about him?
The bond between us, forged in the tower, tempered through danger, became something else during those final moments at Thornspire. I can feel him now, a faint touch, but it’s there, thin and distant, but real. I’m sure of it.
I remember the intense concentration on his face during our practice sessions. The way his expression softened in quiet moments. The fierce determination when he faced Sereven. The transformation after his healing. He stood taller, stronger, and more sure of what he was meant to be.
I can’t lose him. I can’t. The thought of losing him now, after everything we’ve been through, when our combined power is the only real threat the Authority can’t control, makes something cold settle in my stomach.
I reach for the power inside me again, willing it to answer. Just enough to let me know it’s still there. But there’s nothing. The magic that changed me at River Crossing has vanished, or it’s locked beyond reach.
Is this how Sacha felt during those years of captivity, cut off from the shadows that are part of who he is? Knowing they were there, but unable to reach them? The helplessness must have been unbearable.
I won't surrender to the emptiness, won't let myself be crushed down into nothing. I've survived too much to give up now.
Sounds pierce the blackness. Noises that belong to no place in Meridian. Voices whisper at the edges of my awareness, their cadence strange, their tone all wrong.
Where did the explosion send me?
Am I dead? In purgatory?
I strain to hear more, trying to make sense of the sounds. There’s rhythm, tones and pitches I’ve never heard in Meridian. Then voices slowly begin to separate from the noise, low and urgent.
They don’t sound like Authority soldiers. They don’t belong to Mira or Sacha, or the others who came to Thornspire with us.
These voices are different, and the wrongness of it sends cold dread spreading through me.
My mind continues to spin, throwing out questions I have no answers to.
What happened to the Veinwardens preparing to defend Stonehaven? To Varam, and the fighters who risked everything to free Sacha? What about Lisandra, locked away beneath Stonehaven, waiting for her execution?
The faces of everyone I’ve come to know flash through my mind. People who welcomed me, fought beside me, believed that shadow and storm together might turn the tide against the Authority.
They’ve become my family in ways I never thought possible.
Among them, I found purpose beyond survival.
I uncovered strength, determination, compassion, and a capacity for violence I never thought myself capable of.
All things I never thought possible in the comfortable, boring predictability of my life in Chicago.
Chicago. The place feels like a dream now. A fiction I told myself about who I was. That woman, with her job and quiet routines, seems as foreign to me as the woman in the visions.
She never had to make life-or-death decisions. She never had to choose between safety and doing what was right. She never had to look into the face of evil and decide whether she had the strength to fight it.
She was weak. Comfortable in her weakness. Content to let other people make the hard choices while she lived her small, safe, boring life.
I don’t want to be her anymore. Whatever else happens, whatever world I’m in now, I can’t go back to being that person. I won’t.
More memories flood through me.
The tower where I saw Sacha for the first time.
The desert and its scorching heat that burned my lungs with every breath.
Ravencross, caught between the Authority’s iron grip and the quiet resistance hidden beneath it.
Stonehaven and its underground chambers carved deep into the mountain.
River Crossing, where Sacha’s shadows were ripped from him, and my own power rose in a storm I couldn’t stop.
Each place, each moment, has carved itself into me. I carry them now. They’re more than just memories, the pieces of what I have become.
And then more intimate memories rise.
Sacha’s hand finding mine in the dark. The way his fingers curled around mine. His lips against my skin. The way shadow and silver light twined together.
The first time we kissed, in the depths of Stonehaven, when I touched his raven and our essences merged for the first time. The way he looked at me afterward, like he was seeing something in me I didn’t know was there.
The night before we left for Thornspire, when we lay together in his bed. The warmth of his body against mine. The steady rhythm of his breathing. The way his shadows curled protectively around us both, as though they could shield us from what was coming.
I knew then that I loved him.
The memories hold for a second before a new sensation cuts through them. Wet cold against my back and legs. It sinks into my clothes, clinging to my skin, chasing the warmth away.
My body feels wrong. Heavy in ways that don’t make sense. My limbs won’t answer me. Even breathing feels like effort.
Whatever I’m lying on is freezing, hard and unforgiving beneath me.
I need to see. I need to move. I need to find my way back to Sacha, back to Thornspire.
We don’t have time for failure. Too many are depending on us.
Waiting for answers, for hope, for some kind of future beyond this fight.
Sacha could be anywhere. He could be captured.
Or he could be holding his own against Sereven while I float here in this … nothing.
Everything we’ve done, everything we’ve risked to get this far, could fall apart if I don’t make it back.
I fight my way through the darkness, and slowly, so slowly, light begins to form ahead of me.
A tiny pinprick at first, but it grows larger as I push toward it.
The blackness breaks apart, light stabbing through the gaps in blinding beams. My eyes feel like they’ve been sealed shut.
Each attempt to open them sends spikes of pain through my head, but I keep trying.
My body won’t respond to my brain’s commands to move, but I refuse to surrender. I refuse to sink into this emptiness and never return.
With one final, desperate surge of will, I force my eyes to open.
Light explodes across my vision, bright enough to make my eyes water. I blink rapidly, waiting for the blurred images to settle into focus. Everything hurts—my head, my eyes, my chest. But I can see.
When the world finally clears around me, my heart stops.
I’m not in Thornspire Keep. I’m not even in the forest surrounding it.
My heart slams back into motion, beating hard enough to hurt.
The crystal didn’t just separate us.
It’s torn me out from Meridian completely.