Five #2
A wave of calm washes over me as the pressure lifts; then panic crashes into me all over again.
I lunge for the nearest blanket and throw it desperately across the cracked stone just as footsteps pass faintly beyond the corridor outside.
I collapse onto the bed, spent.
I don’t remember falling asleep.
I remember the light.
Not the warmth or the brightness.
But the pressure.
It presses against me now. Filling my eyes, my lungs.
Blanketing my skin. The world stretches thin around me, pale and endless, like glass blown too wide.
It shatters, leaving only white. Only humming.
As I walk, the ground beneath my feet is smooth and reflective, mirroring the Light Dominion sky. Too bright.
I’m not alone.
Footsteps fall beside mine, soft and familiar.
I turn, and Marissa walks at my side.
Her copper hair sways. She looks calm. Almost amused.
“You always look frightened,” she says.
Her voice echoes oddly, as if it’s being spoken through water.
“I’m not,” I lie.
She smiles wider than I’ve ever seen.
“You are.”
The sky flickers. A flame extinguished for but a moment.
Her face shifts—not grotesque, but unfinished somehow. The line of her jaw blurs and her eyes lose their colour.
Her shape stretches suddenly—taller, broader—and when I look again, Callen walks beside me instead.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says.
“I didn’t choose this.”
“Didn't you"?”
The words fracture in the air. Didn’t you didn’t you didn't you.
The ground vibrates beneath me, a slow vibration working its way into my bones.
Callen stops walking and turns towards me. His eyes are wrong now—far too bright, white instead of blue—and light spills from them in thin cracks like the ones I made on the floor.
“What are you?” he asks, but it isn’t his voice.
It’s layered and ancient. Straining and garbled.
I take a step back and the sky ripples.
His shape shudders—folding inwards, collapsing like parchment being crumpled into a ball.
When it settles again, it’s him.
The Shadowborn boy.
He is still, watching me the way he did in the corridor.
I don’t know his name. Only the weight of his stare.
He tilts his head slightly.
“Yes,” the voice says, though it’s not coming from his mouth. It echoes from everywhere at once.
“Yes. This one.”
The words sound pleased.
His lips move, but the sound doesn't match.
“That light.”
The phrase stretches too long, distorted and crackling.
“Strange.”
The word curdles my stomach, curling tight around my throat. I try to breathe, but the air feels heavy and wrong.
He steps closer. His outline flickers—solid, then not. Almost translucent, threaded with veins of pink and gold that fracture like crystals beneath his skin.
“What are you?”
The question cracks like the splitting of the stone floor.
“What are you?”
Again. Sharper this time.
“I’m nothing,” I say. It’s what I’ve always said.
The boy smiles, but it’s unnatural.
“Nothing,” the voice repeats. Mocking.
The ground beneath us fractures in long lines of light. Through the cracks I see a vast nothingness, before a crystal bursts in to view, split clean in two. One half blazes pink, the other darkest blue. The colours shift. One half now glowing a blinding white, the other hollow and dark.
They strain towards each other but never touch.
The boy lifts his hand, letting it hover above my chest, and the space there glows faintly.
“That light,” the voice whispers.
The words echo now, mimicking the way he had said it before.
The sky begins to hum louder, setting my teeth on edge.
“What are you?” the voice demands, distorting and cracking.
His face flickers.
Marissa. Callen. Myself. The Shadowborn.
Light then shadow.
I reach out without thinking.
The moment my fingers brush the air between us, he recoils.
The white sky fractures entirely, splintering into light and shadow.
A ringing sounds as the world tears itself apart, the voice stretching thin and weak across the breaking space.
“Yes,” it says again.
“This one.”
I wake with the echo of the dream still lodged somewhere beneath my ribs.
For a few seconds I lie completely still, staring at the ceiling above me while my heartbeat gradually settles back into something human. The room is silent apart from the faint hum that seems to permeate every inch of this place. Even here, behind closed doors, I can still feel her.
What are you? The question lingers in my head like a bruise.
I drag myself upright slowly. The blanket I threw across the floor during the night still hides most of the damage, though the golden fractures remain visible, peeking out beneath the fabric. The sight of them turns my stomach.
The room itself feels strangely artificial now that I’m properly awake.
Last night I barely noticed anything beyond panic and exhaustion, but in the pale morning light the chamber resembles something carefully constructed rather than genuinely lived in.
A large bed dominates one wall beside a polished desk and shelves lined with books that look far older than they are.
Candles burn steadily despite no one tending them.
Decorative ornaments sit arranged with unnatural precision across every surface.
When I pull one of the books free and open it, every page inside is blank.
Of course it is—nothing here feels real; even the silence seems staged.
I dress slowly, forcing myself to focus on practical things instead of the dream.
The uniform left for me fits too perfectly, snowy white leather reinforced with pale silver metal that catches the light whenever I move.
It looks less like armour and more like ceremony.
Something designed to display what I am before I even open my mouth.
Lightborn and harmless, safe to overlook. At least, that’s what people expect.
I tug the sleeves at my wrist out of habit and try not to think about the way the Mother Shard’s voice had wrapped itself around my thoughts last night.
In dream, we may commune.
A chill works its way slowly down my spine.
A small roll of parchment rests beside the door as though it had always been waiting for me. I hesitate before picking it up, half-expecting the paper itself to hum beneath my fingers. The wax seal cracks cleanly apart.
Inside is a list of names.
All eighteen Offerings, neatly separated beneath the symbols of their Dominions.
My eyes move instinctively towards the Shadowborn first.
Nyxen Varr.
Vaelis Dreth.
Kael Noctaryn.
The names lodge somewhere in my chest, unwelcome and immediate.
He is one of them.
Against my own better judgement, I want the boy haunting both my thoughts and my dreams to have a name.
I fold the parchment quickly and shove it into my pocket before I can linger on it any longer. I pull open the door and walk directly into a solid wall of muscle.
The impact jolts through me hard enough that I stumble backwards in surprise.
Firm hands grab me before I can fall, and for one dizzying second, all I see are black eyes.
Him again.
He towers over me in the narrow corridor, close enough now that I can make out every detail of his face.
Dark hair falls loosely across his forehead, but there’s nothing careless about him.
Every line is deliberate, controlled, dangerous.
Less like a person and more like the idea of one sharpened into a weapon.
“My apologies,” I blurt automatically.
His grip tightens slightly around my arms, not enough to hurt me, but enough to make me aware of exactly how easily he could.
For a moment he says nothing. His gaze moves over my face with slow, unsettling focus, as though he’s trying to place something he recognises but doesn’t yet understand.
The corner of his mouth lifts faintly.
“Those manners are going to get you killed,” he says. His voice is low and rough around the edges, carrying the same dangerous calm as the rest of him. “Or at least maimed. Maybe I’ll do it myself just to speed things along.”
Despite the words, there’s something almost amused beneath them. I should pull away.
Instead, I realise, with mounting horror, that I’m staring at him again.
Not openly this time, but I notice smaller things: the dark fabric stretched across broad shoulders, the shape of his hands where they still rest against my arms.
The scent of sweat and clean clothing hits me all at once.
I force myself to step backwards.
“Sorry,” I say again, and immediately hate how weak it sounds.
His expression sharpens with something dangerously close to amusement.
“I’ve heard the Lightborn are fragile,” he says. “But this is something else entirely.”
His eyes flick briefly over my face again, assessing. “You apologise too quickly.”
“Would you prefer I insulted you instead?”
“I’d prefer that you lie,” he replies smoothly. “Or at least pretend. It would make you seem slightly harder to kill.”
I should be offended. Instead, absurdly, part of me wants to laugh.
He releases my arms and moves to step past me but pauses halfway. Before I fully realise what he’s doing, his hand slips neatly into my pocket and removes the folded parchment.
I stare at him in disbelief. “That’s mine.”
“Mhm.”
He unfolds it lazily and scans the list of names. I move instinctively to snatch it back, but the moment our fingers brush, something sharp jolts violently up my arm.
I freeze and he stills too.
Not for long—barely a heartbeat. But long enough that I know he felt it too.
His eyes lift slowly back to mine, the air between us suddenly feeling too tight.
Just as quickly, the moment passes. He folds the parchment again and presses it back into my chest.
“Which one are you?” he asks casually. “Luceris, Callen or Marissa?”
“Luceris.” The name catches awkwardly in my throat.
“And you are...”
“Guess,” he says, amused.
“Kael?” I venture.
Something unreadable flickers briefly across his face. Then it’s gone. “That obvious?”
“A lucky guess.”
A faint smile ghosts briefly across his mouth, though it never reaches his eyes. “I like lucky people.”
“You’re not looking at one.”
“Pity.”
The corner of my mouth almost twitches.