THE WEAVER OF GLASS SAND

Chapter 2: The Weight of Two Worlds

​The stranger didn't move, but the reality around him refused to settle. To Kaelia’s sapphire eye, he was a shimmering transparency, a glitch in the peaceful afternoon. To her amber eye, he was the only solid thing in a world of falling ash and jagged ruins.

​"I don't know you," Kaelia said, her voice trembling despite the melodic hum that still resonated in her chest. She reached for the crown, but the stranger’s gauntleted hand slammed down over it.

​"You know me in the dark," the man growled. He struggled to rise, his armor clanking with a heavy, rhythmic dissonance that set Kaelia’s teeth on edge. "Every time you 'see,' you pull at the fabric of my world. I am Prince Valen, or what is left of him after the Sky-Fall you haven't lived through yet."

​Kalu finally found his courage, stepping forward with a jagged shard of glass held like a dagger. "Get away from her! You’re a Revenant—a shadow from the Bleed!"

​Valen ignored him, his haunted gaze fixed solely on Kaelia. The black diamonds on the crown began to pulse, mirroring the neon glow of Kaelia’s tunic. The ripple in the air expanded, swallowing the golden light of Orizon and replacing it with the sulfurous scent of the prince’s dying timeline.

​"The Priestess told us the Bleed was a myth to keep us from the edges of the map," Kaelia whispered, the amber vision growing stronger, more suffocating. "She said Orizon was eternal."

​"Orizon is a bandage on a gaping wound," Valen rasped, standing fully now. He loomed over her, a dark omen in a land of glass. "And you, Sand-Seer, just ripped the stitches out. If we don't return this crown to the Altar of Echoes, both our worlds will shatter. Can’t you hear it?"

​Kaelia closed both eyes, but the sound was even louder in the dark: a high, piercing note like a glass flute being pushed past its breaking point. The ground beneath them groaned. A c***k appeared in the iridescent glass, not jagged, but perfectly straight, bleeding a thick, purple mist.

​"The time for singing is over," Valen said, extending a scarred hand. "Now, you have to scream."