The fire at the center of the Shard of the Cold Open didn't give off heat in the traditional sense. It radiated intent. The flames were a flickering amber, and as Han stepped closer, he realized they weren't burning wood, but discarded first sentences.
“Once upon a time…” flared and died.
“In a hole in the ground…” sparked and turned to ash.
Han’s father, Thomas, looked at his son through the haze of smoke. He looked aged, not by years, but by the sheer density of the stories he was sitting upon. His coat was patched with fragments of maps from Shards that no longer existed, and his fingers were permanently stained with a deep, cosmic violet ink.
"You shouldn't have come to the Cold Open, Han," Thomas said, his voice grating like shifting tectonic plates. "This is the landfill of the i
