Eight #4
The Mother Shard keeps changing faces, as though she cannot remember which mask to wear.
Sometimes she is Atheron, mocking and cruel.
Sometimes she is Morwen, eyes weeping but mouth unable to move.
Sometimes she is Kael, looming and dark.
Sometimes—worst of all—she is me, standing before me, eyes hollow and empty, my mouth stretched into a grotesque smile that doesn’t belong.
“Something about you is wrong,” the voice says, gentler than it has ever sounded. “You do not belong. Even your echoes are broken. Your resonance is tainted. Shallow. Dirty. Wrong.”
I shake my head. I try to apologise. But I am struck dumb, paralysed by my own nothingness.
A river of liquid glass flows around me, lined with Waterborn draped in silver and blue.
The voice softens.
“They are pure,” it whispers. “My strongest children.”
There is devotion in the way it speaks of them.
The void fractures once again and I am alone for a moment before faces press in from every angle, chanting in a dozen voices:
“What are you? Your light is broken. Your light is dim.”
The world drops away, shattering as I fall. And as I fall, I anchor to the memory of Kael’s delicate fingers lingering on my cheek, the burning shame of feeling seen.
As I tumble through the abyss, a voice wraps around me, a final caress. Kael’s true voice.
“I see you, little rabbit. I’ve got you.”
And then, nothing. No sound, no colour, not even a body to return to. Just the memory of that voice, curling itself inside me like a sentinel, waiting for its time to act.
I wake with the disconcerting certainty that something is wrong. Not pain exactly. More like something is out of place. My head feels weightless, as though part of me is still trapped in the dream, but my skin doesn't sting, and my face doesn’t hurt.
I sit up much too fast and the world goes sideways; for a moment, I think I might vomit, but the feeling subsides.
The usual murmuring hum of the Embrace feels muted, replaced by an unnatural quiet, as though the room is waiting for me to speak.
My bed is different. The blanket feels heavier, and the pillow has the faintest whiff of spices. The air is also cooler than I’m used to. Most unnervingly, there is no crack on the ceiling—
A cold draft slithers through the room. To my left, a simple chair—straight-backed and uncomfortable looking—has been placed.
Kael sits in it, arms folded, legs spread wide, feet planted firmly.
His eyes are open, but he isn’t looking at me.
His gaze is angled down, boring into the stone floor as if possessed.
Shadows curl off his skin, clinging to his hands and shoulders like living things.
His knuckles are brilliant white, balled tight.
The veins stand out sharply along his forearms. The shadows dance and flicker like pitch-black flames.
It is hard to tell where his clothing ends and the darkness begins.
For a long time, neither of us speaks. I can hear my own heartbeat as blood rushes behind my ears, causing me to wince in pain.
Kael’s eyes finally meet mine. The stare feels like a challenge, but it is also loaded with questions. He holds it, waiting, daring me to break.
I glance around, confirming what I already know.
I am in Kael’s room. There wasn't much in these rooms to begin with, but Kael’s room is even more sparse and featureless than I could have expected.
There is not one piece of clutter on any surface, everything is neat and ordered, as though he has stripped the room of any comfort.
I swallow. “Did you carry me here?” I ask, my voice cracking.
He doesn't answer, just watches me. His face is calm and unreadable.
The silence presses against my skull.
I try to relax my hands, unclenching fists that I don’t remember making. My body feels tense, struggling to shake the memory of violence. All the while, Kael sits there, a statue haloed in darkness.
He blinks, slowly. The black in his eyes spreads and retreats in slow pulses, like smoke trying to slip its way under a closed door.
We stay like this for a long time.
Neither of us looks away.
I wonder if this is what it feels like to be prey. To feel a predator watching and know that running might only trigger the chase. Terror presses heavily inside me, tangled with something far worse: awe.
Eventually, Kael stands, unfolding himself with practised grace. His movements are deliberate, and for a moment I think he might say something, answer my question perhaps, but he just walks to the door, places a hand on the knob, and looks back at me once.
The shadows around him writhe, as if reaching for me.
“Why didn't you protect yourself?” he asks, something vulnerable slips into his voice.
I don’t know how to respond. There is no singular answer.
I open my mouth to speak but close it again.
He sighs deeply, resigned, before he opens the door and steps into the corridor.
The door clicks shut behind him, and I am left alone.
Alive and well? Yes.
But lost.
The question follows me long after he leaves.
Why didn't you protect yourself?
Most inexplicably of all, my chest aches as though I've disappointed him.