The deeper they went, the worse the city looked.
Liora had thought she understood what "ruined" meant when she first saw Valecor from the outside. Cracked towers. Burned streets. Ash drifting through the air.
She'd been wrong.
This part of the city the Old District was something else entirely.
Nothing here had been rebuilt.
Glass towers lay collapsed like fallen giants, their shattered remains scattered across entire streets. Buildings leaned into each other at impossible angles, half-melted and frozen that way, as if the fire that destroyed them had burned too hot… and then stopped too suddenly.
Even the air felt heavier.
Thicker.
Like it hadn't fully recovered.
"Welcome to the part of Valecor everyone pretends doesn't exist," Ren said quietly.
Mira walked ahead, her steps careful but steady. "Watch where you step. The ground's not always stable."
Liora nodded, though her attention was elsewhere.
The shard.
It was reacting again.
Not glowing brightly this time but pulsing. Slow. Rhythmic. Like it recognized this place.
Or remembered it.
"…This is where it happened, isn't it?" she asked.
Mira didn't look back. "The second fire? Yeah."
Ren kicked a loose piece of glass aside. "No one really knows what started it. Just that it spread fast. Too fast."
"And the Wardens didn't stop it?" Liora asked.
"They didn't exist yet," Mira said.
Liora frowned. "But you said..."
"I said your brother trained them," Mira replied. "After the fires."
That again.
That same knot tightening in Liora's chest.
She didn't respond.
They moved in silence for a while.
The city here didn't make noise the same way. No distant voices. No footsteps echoing from other streets. Just the occasional shift of broken structures and the faint crunch beneath their feet.
And something else.
A sound Liora couldn't quite place.
Like… glass brushing against glass.
Soft.
Constant.
"You hear that?" she asked.
Ren glanced around. "Hear what?"
"That," she said. "Like… something moving."
Mira slowed slightly. "Yeah," she said after a moment. "I hear it."
Ren stiffened. "That's not good."
Liora's grip tightened on the shard. "You're going to explain that, right?"
Mira stopped.
So did Ren.
Neither of them spoke right away.
That was enough of an answer.
"…Right?" Liora pressed.
Mira exhaled slowly. "This district isn't empty," she said.
Liora's stomach dropped. "You said no one comes here."
"I said people avoid it," Mira corrected. "That doesn't mean nothing's here."
Ren glanced at the surrounding ruins. "Things changed after the fire," he said. "Some people say the glass… didn't just break."
Liora blinked. "What does that mean?"
"It means," he said carefully, "sometimes it moves on its own."
Silence.
Then...
"That's not possible," Liora said.
Mira gave her a look. "Neither is what you did back there. And yet."
Fair point.
Didn't make it better.
The sound came again.
Closer this time.
A soft, shifting scrape like something dragging itself across broken ground.
Liora turned slowly.
"Okay," she said. "I officially don't like this place."
"Noted," Ren muttered.
Mira raised a hand, signaling them to stop.
They froze.
The sound stopped too.
For a moment, everything went still.
Then...
A shard of glass lifted from the ground.
Not fast.
Not violently.
Just… rose.
Liora's breath caught.
"That's new," Ren whispered.
The shard hovered in the air, trembling slightly.
Then another one lifted.
And another.
Dozens now.
Small fragments at first, then larger pieces some as long as Liora's arm rising slowly from the rubble.
Not like the Wardens.
This was different.
Less controlled.
More… instinctive.
"They're not being controlled," Liora whispered.
"No," Mira said. "They're reacting."
"To what?"
Mira didn't answer.
Instead, she looked at Liora.
At the shard in her hand.
Liora felt it then.
The pull.
Stronger than before.
Like the glass around her was reaching for her...or maybe calling to her.
You're home, the voice murmured.
Her breath caught. "What?"
This is where it began.
The ground shifted.
A low crack echoed through the ruins.
And then....
Something moved.
Not a shard.
Not a fragment.
Something bigger.
A section of collapsed glass larger than any of the others twitched, then lifted slowly from the ground. It turned, jagged edges catching faint light, revealing something dark within it.
A shape.
A silhouette.
Liora took a step back. "That's not just glass."
"No," Ren said, his voice tight. "It's not."
The thing moved again.
And this time...
It stood.
It wasn't human.
Not anymore.
Its body was made of fused glass and shadow, pieces of broken structures forming something that almost resembled a person, but twisted, incomplete. Cracks ran through it like veins, faint light pulsing deep within.
It turned its head.
And looked straight at Liora.
She couldn't see eyes.
But she felt it.
Seeing her.
"Tell me that's not looking at us," Ren said.
"It's looking at her," Mira replied quietly.
"Why is it always me?" Liora muttered.
The shard in her hand flared slightly.
It remembers, the voice said.
"Remembers what?"
Everything.
The creature took a step forward.
The ground cracked beneath it.
Glass shards shifted, drawn toward it, snapping into place along its form like armor.
Ren stepped in front of Liora. "Okay. New plan."
"I liked the old plan better," she said.
"The old plan didn't include this!"
Mira moved to Liora's other side, her voice low and steady. "Can you control it?"
Liora stared at the creature.
At the glass.
At the way everything seemed connected.
"…I don't know," she admitted.
"Then figure it out," Ren said. "Fast."
The creature tilted its head.
Then....
It spoke.
Not with a voice.
But with a sound.
A deep, grinding echo, like glass shifting under pressure, like something trying to remember how to be human and failing.
Liora's chest tightened.
Because somehow...
She understood it.
Not the words.
But the feeling.
Loneliness.
Pain.
And something else.
Recognition.
"It knows you," Mira said softly.
Liora swallowed.
"I think…" she whispered, "I think I know it too."
The creature took another step forward.
Not fast.
Not attacking.
Just… approaching.
The shard in Liora's hand burned.
Don't be afraid, the voice said.
"Easy for you to say," she muttered.
But still..
She didn't run...
END OF CHAPTER 6.
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