Silence fell between them, heavier than the shadows that danced around the flickering candlelight. Kael could feel Yareeth’s gaze, sharp and searching, as he struggled to find the words to explain the inexplicable, to make sense of a world that had shattered and reformed around him, leaving him stranded in a reality he barely recognized.
The warmth of the inn, the savory aroma of the stew, the soft murmur of conversations weaving through the room—they felt distant, muted, a backdrop to the storm brewing within him. He’d laid bare his failures, his betrayals, and now the burden of her future, her survival, rested heavy on his shoulders, a responsibility he wasn't sure he could bear.
Yareeth’s eyes were wide, reflecting the flickering candlelight. The inn’s noise, a blend of laughter, hushed conversations, and the clinking of mugs, faded as she absorbed his words, the brutal truth settling upon her like a shroud. “So it’s gone?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “My home. My family. Everything…” She trailed off, her gaze unfocused, as if she were staring into the heart of the void, the fog of her lost realm clinging to her. He could feel the weight of her grief, a tangible presence beside him, a reflection of his own guilt.
Kael couldn’t speak. The weight of his responsibility was a physical ache. He just nodded, unable to lie, the truth a bitter pill. He'd wanted to be a hero. But this, this devastation, was the legacy he'd forged.
“This place, these… realms,” Her voice, fragile, strained, but still seeking some kind of logic, some semblance of order amidst the chaos he’d brought to her life. “They are… gone too? All of them?”
He nodded his head. "Yes. The realms, they… they shift, they change, always a new one. Your realm...” He couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't bear to voice the truth that hung heavy between them. Her realm was gone, devoured by the System, by the Void Shard, or wherever they went after the portal closed. Another sacrifice to fuel his growth, perhaps.
Her eyes narrowed, a flicker of suspicion in those dark, reptilian pupils. “And the creature?” she asked, her voice sharpening, her tail thrashing restlessly against the rough wood of the bench. “The one… the one that killed Vask. Is it… still out there?” It wasn't a question driven by vengeance. He could see that. It was a need to understand, to find a reason for the senseless slaughter.
“No,” He assured her. It was a lie, in a way. A technicality. The creature, the Blightmaw, yes, it was gone. Dead by his hand, and then consumed by the System, its essence perhaps repurposed, recycled. It was a thought that both terrified and intrigued him— a horrifying reminder of the vast, unknowable forces he was entangled with. “Each realm… it has its own… protector. Its own… boss. But they’re bound to their realm, they can’t—“
He shrugged, unable to explain something that was still a mystery, even to him. “The realms… they’re like pieces. Fragments of something larger. Something that… broke apart. The Shard, it draws their energy, their… essence. I don’t know why, how. Your village… that shouldn’t have happened.”
“Shouldn’t have happened?” She slammed her hand against the tabletop. The sound, a sharp crack that made heads turn, was startling in the midst of the inn's usually muted murmur. It wasn’t just the sound, it was the intensity, the rage behind it, a primal roar echoing the creatures he’d faced.
She lowered her voice then, her words a venomous hiss, a whisper laced with venom. “My family is dead. My home is gone. Because of you, because of this… this power you wield, this System that you worship. And you say it shouldn’t have happened?”
Kael cringed, the sting of her accusation hitting him harder than any physical blow. It was as if… she had read his thoughts. His own guilt, his own fear, echoed in her voice, in the flash of anger he’d glimpsed in her eyes, in the desperate thrashing of her tail.
Shame washed over him, a wave of nausea that threatened to drown him. “I didn’t mean to. It was… an accident.” But the lie tasted like ash in his mouth. “I’m sorry.” The words sounded hollow, meaningless. They couldn’t erase what he’d done.
“And your System?” Yareeth was relentless, a relentless hunter, her questions, her sharp claws, digging into his weaknesses, forcing him to face the truth of his choices, the devastation he'd wrought. "Can it bring them back? Can it undo this?"
The system prompt for the failed realm replayed in his mind’s eye, a stark reminder. He could feel the warmth of the Shard within him, its energy a constant thrum. It could make him stronger, could give him the power to destroy, to conquer, but it couldn't fix this, couldn’t resurrect the dead. There were limitations, boundaries. And he was starting to understand that the real power was not in wielding the Shard, but in understanding the game it was forcing him to play. It felt like another betrayal. The System had offered him nothing but pain, loss, and now it had swallowed her world.
Kael’s shoulders slumped as he shook his head, a fresh wave of grief washing over him. It was all true. The world he was dragging her into. This was it. There was no going back. She was here now. Alone, her whole world destroyed, her family, her friends, the very landscape she knew erased, consumed by the void. By him.
His gaze fell to the table, to the intricate pattern of the wood grain, to the faint scuff marks left by careless hands, by generations of despairing souls seeking solace in a tankard of ale, in a bowl of greasy stew, in the fleeting company of those who’d known similar pain, similar loss.
“No. It can’t. None of it can fix this.”
Silence descended, broken only by the crackling of the fire in the hearth, the murmur of other voices, the laughter of those oblivious to the despair that threatened to swallow them. The scent of roasted meat, of spices, and spilled ale was thick, cloying now, a mockery of the comfort he'd hoped to find here, in this place he'd known since childhood.
He looked up at her. The flickering candlelight cast strange shadows, her scales, now a dull gray, reflecting the despair in her eyes. She stared down at her clawed hands, and the rough, scarred skin, the broken nails of his own.
“But you said… You are alive. You survived. I… I’m here." He heard the disbelief, the pain that echoed in her words, mirroring his own hollow understanding of their shared situation. They had stumbled through a nightmare together. But it wasn’t her fight.
“So…” her voice trailed off, a soft, raspy echo against the backdrop of the inn’s noise, the candle flame dancing wildly, then settling.
"We’re stuck here? With you? With all these humans? With your friends who betrayed you?” It wasn’t an accusation, not anymore. Just a terrible truth settling upon them.
He thought of those encounters, the monsters he'd fought, the power that pulsed within him. The hunger of the void. It had awakened within him a darkness he was struggling to control, a hunger that was more than just the need to eat, to survive. The memory of the Mud Rats, the whispers in the Market, a wave of nausea hit him. It wasn’t an answer. Not to her question.
“It’s not safe, not really,” he’d told her about Mudtown, his words a harsh counterpoint to the inn’s deceptive warmth, the laughter and chatter masking the city’s relentless hunger. He’d warned her about the gangs, the Mud Rats, the constant threat of violence that lurked in the shadows. About the greed, the desperation, the way humans preyed on each other, their smiles as sharp as the blades hidden beneath their cloaks.
“They call this place the Market of Shadows. But the real shadows, the real monsters, they're not the creatures I fought in the realms,” he'd said, his gaze flickering to the faces of the other patrons, their expressions hardening as if they’d heard him, their laughter dying in their throats, “they're the ones who smile while they take everything you have, who’ll turn on you in a heartbeat if it means surviving another day. It's a game, Yareeth. One I'm still trying to figure out." His words a bitter confession.
Her tail thrashed, the movement a rhythmic counterpoint to the tightness in his chest. He couldn’t explain the System’s nuances— its cruel logic, the way it reduced their lives to numbers, to statistics. He didn't fully understand it himself.
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He didn't have a choice, couldn't erase what had happened. Couldn't give her back what he'd taken from her. All he could offer was a path forward, a treacherous path through the shadows, a path littered with the shards of a world they both were struggling to make sense of. It was a journey he wasn't prepared for. He wanted to tell her it would be ok, but the lie wouldn’t leave his throat. There was no escaping what was to come. He'd started down this path, blind, arrogant.
He closed his eyes, her scaled hand a cool, comforting presence against his skin. He could hear the fear in her voice now. It was raw, unmasked, an echo of his own terror. “I don’t know anything about your world. I don’t know how to survive here. I’m… lost.” The words, whispered, broke him.
I didn’t think…” Yareeth’s voice, the words formed in his language, still hesitant, as if each syllable was a risk. She pushed the bowl away, the food forgotten. “I didn’t… expect this.” Her gaze drifted around the room, the firelight painting her scales in flickering hues of amber and gold, but the shimmer was gone, replaced by the dull gray of exhaustion, of despair. "It's all so… different. My people, we lived in harmony with the marsh, with the creatures. They were a part of our world, something to respect, to be wary of, but not something to… to destroy.”
“They respected us, too. We weren't… prey. I don’t know how to live in this place. These people, their eyes are so empty, their movements... sharp, awkward.” Her voice faltered, the image of her ruined village, of the Blightmaw's fury, flickering across her features. She looked down at her clawed hands.
“I don’t even know how to hold this spoon, how to… eat this food. It tastes… strange.”
Kael watched, his heart twisting. He could almost taste her words, feel the weight of them. He was responsible for this, for her displacement, her isolation. Her tribe. Her way of life. And now, thrust into this world, she was like a fledgling pushed from the nest before she was ready to fly.
“And you’re all I have.” Her hand tightened on his, a jolt of guilt and desperation running through him.
And then the final plea, spoken with a fear he knew all too well, “What if… what if something happens to you?” It wasn't the words, really, that struck him with such force. It was the understanding behind them, the raw vulnerability she'd allowed to seep through the cracks of her grief, the realization of their shared fragility. It was the truth echoing in his soul.
Kael felt his own heart clench, her words a punch to the gut, a painful reminder of his own frailty. He was all she had, and he was barely holding on himself. “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he lied, the words hollow echoes, promises he couldn’t keep, a desperation he couldn’t hide.
They were in this together now.
“We’ll figure it out, Yareeth, I promise." He could feel the tremor in his voice, could hear his own heart hammering in his chest. It was a fragile reassurance, built on a hope as fleeting as the dancing firelight, yet for that moment, as their gazes met, as a strange, primal understanding seemed to flicker between them, he felt the darkness recede, replaced by a fragile flicker of determination. It wasn’t much, a single, wavering ember against the weight of their situation. But it was something. He couldn’t promise her safety, couldn't offer a return to the world that was lost, but maybe... just maybe... he could offer her something else, a different kind of survival.
"We’ll find a way to make this work.” But how?
It was a question he didn’t want to answer.
How could he promise her safety? A world where they’d both already witnessed, experienced the brutal, unrelenting nature of the realms, of the System, a world that seemed determined to chew them up and spit them out, discard them? Mudtown wasn't any better. The creatures there wore human faces and dealt in a currency even more unforgiving than the fangs of the beasts that stalked the realms. He was still learning, adapting. He hadn’t been prepared for this. And how could he possibly prepare her?
He’d always figured it out, hadn't he? Scavenged his way to survival, his world narrowed to a single, simple goal: Live. Now there were two.
He felt the panic rising within him, a tidal wave that threatened to pull him under, to drown him. He was a boy from the slums. An orphan. He’d spent his life dodging shadows, picking up scraps, scraping his way to survival.
How could he possibly protect anyone?
He could feel her gaze on him, the unspoken question echoing in the space between them. The fire’s warmth was a mocking contrast to the hollow chill that settled in his bones. His heart hammered against his ribs, the rapid pulse a constant reminder of how fragile it all was—their lives, their sanity, this flimsy pact they'd made.
He had to do something, had to act, before the desperation pulled them under, dragged them down into the abyss. He could see the fear in her eyes. So much fear. He’d never intended to… She’d trusted him. Followed him. And now…?
He took a deep, shaky breath. He reached out, across the table, ignoring the ache in his shoulders, and found her hand.
Her scales were cool. The textures unfamiliar but… strangely comforting. A link.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said, his voice stronger now, forcing the words past the fear. It wasn't a lie, not really. But more of a promise to himself. “I promise. I’ll find a way to keep us both safe.”
He met her gaze. "I promise, Yareeth. I won't let anything happen to you."
The world, for a moment, seemed to stop spinning.
"Do you think we can survive here?” She asked. The raw desperation in her voice, a crack in the facade she’d held up since the awakening. “In this… place?”
He didn't know.
He looked into her eyes. “We have to." It was the truth. The only truth that mattered.
Her scales gleamed, an ember against the warm firelight. It wasn't much. A tiny ember, a whisper, a shard of hope against the overwhelming darkness. It was… something. Enough, maybe. To get them through the night.
He wanted to believe. For her sake, if not for his own. She sat beside him, a silent, unyielding presence. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her too.
He watched her.
She took a shuddering breath and the tears she had been holding back spilled onto her scales, shimmering like shattered diamonds in the flickering candlelight. The sight of her tears, the raw emotion so evident in her reptilian face, tore through him. It was an ache in his chest he didn't want to feel, a weakness.
He pushed the emotion away. They couldn’t afford this. Not now.
“This is my fault,” he admitted, each word carefully enunciated, a weight lifted. "I brought you to this place. I'll figure it out, Yareeth. We’ll make it through this. Together.” It wasn’t a promise. It was a prayer. A plea. A desperate act of faith in the face of the relentless darkness that surrounded them. It felt good, to speak the truth, to not hide it, even if it felt like a betrayal of his own survival instincts.
But then, she’d responded in a way he hadn’t expected. “Together?”
“Together.” The word emerged. It was his only answer, a quiet, spoken covenant.
They would figure it out. They had to.
----------------------------------------
Silence descended, broken only by the crackling of the fire in the hearth, the murmur of other voices, the laughter of those oblivious to the despair that threatened to swallow them. The scent of roasted meat, of spices, and spilled ale was thick, cloying now, a mockery of the comfort he'd hoped to find here, in this place he'd known since childhood.
Footsteps approached, heavy and deliberate. He glanced up, bracing for confrontation, his body automatically going tense as a shadow fell across their table.
Garrick, the innkeeper, stood beside them. His expression wasn’t unkind, the harsh lines of his weathered face softened with an understanding that surprised Kael. “Here.” He said, setting a steaming bowl of soup in front of each of them.
The savory aroma, the rich broth wafting tendrils of steam, cut through the miasma of grief. “Thank you,” Kael managed.
His stomach churned, but there was no bile, no fear, only an emptiness that echoed the void within him. He couldn’t ignore the growl, a deep, primal rumble, that escaped before he could stop it. He could see Yareeth's gaze flicker toward the bowl.
Garrick nodded, his gaze lingering on Yareeth for a moment. “Take your time, lad,” He said, his voice rough but kind. “Looks like you both need it.” It wasn't a command, not an intrusion. It was a quiet, unspoken acknowledgment that went beyond words. He’d seen this before, recognized it for what it was. Loss, despair, a shared burden carried on young shoulders.
He grabbed their empty — and mostly empty first bowls — and then turned away, disappearing back into the bustle of the inn, leaving them in a fragile circle of warmth and silence, a temporary haven in a world that seemed determined to crush them.
Kael dipped his spoon into the broth, the steam warming his face. The hunger was a physical sensation now, a gnawing emptiness that he knew he couldn’t ignore. “Eat,” he urged, gesturing to her bowl. He saw her hesitancy, her eyes wide, filled with a mixture of fear, fascination. It was as if… as if she was seeing everything for the first time, the room around them, the other patrons, the clinking tankards, the way the firelight danced on the scarred wooden tables.
And then he understood.
It was the familiarity, the ritual of the meal. He wasn't just offering her food; he was offering her a connection, a way to ground herself in the midst of this chaos, in this world where even the smallest acts of kindness could feel like miracles. He wasn’t sure if she'd eat. But he offered her what he could, a reprieve, a chance to breathe.
The rich, savory aroma filled his senses, a balm against the lingering stench of the realms. The weight of his failures was still there, but he felt… lighter, a burden shared, a bond forming in the midst of the shared sorrow. For now, there was just this, a quiet moment, a space of shared comfort, a spark flickering in the ashes of their shattered worlds.
And as he looked at her, at the way her scales shimmered in the firelight, at the faint, hopeful glint in her eyes as she took her first tentative sip of the second bowl of stew, a sense of purpose settled within him, a vow taking root.
He wasn't going to let her down again.
This time… he would be stronger. He had to be.
He would find a way. Together.