Under a sky the color of bruised metal, Cain came to with the taste of dust and iron in his mouth.

For a long, stretched-thin second, he didn't move. He let the world settle into focus around him—the slow drift of ash through the air, the faint echo of something ancient withdrawing into silence, and the dull throb of pain threading every joint in his body. He was lying on stone that radiated heat like cooling magma, the aftermath of whatever force had torn the canyon open.

Only when he realized he was alone did he try to push himself upright.

A sharp bolt of agony shot down his spine, bright enough to blur his vision. He gritted his teeth and forced himself into a sitting position. His breath came shallow, but steady. Good. He was alive. Barely, but alive.

The seal's light had vanished. In its place was a raw wound in the earth—a chasm descending into shifting darkness. Even looking at it made his bones ache.

Footsteps skidded across the debris above him.

"Cain!" Eira's voice cracked from strain. She stumbled down the broken slope toward him, half sliding, half running, ignoring the unstable rock under her boots. She dropped beside him, palms on his shoulders, scanning him for injuries that went beyond the usual bruises and cuts.

"Talk to me. Are you conscious? Do you know where you are? Do you remember your name or do I need to smack it back into you?"

He blinked at her. "…You always sound disappointed at the idea of me being alive."

"That's because you're impossible," she snapped—but the relief in her face undercut the bite.

She hooked her arms under his and helped pull him to his feet. He swayed, and she tightened her grip. His balance was off, his center of gravity wrong, like his insides had been rearranged while he was unconscious.

"What happened?" she asked. "After the ground split—I lost sight of you."

Cain looked toward the chasm. "It tried to push through," he said. "The thing behind the seal. It used the connection it has to me—and I forced it back."

Eira stared at him. "You forced back a Fallen? A real one?"

He didn't answer. The truth was more complicated. It hadn't been strength. It had been resonance—an old echo inside him reacting to the creature's call. For one terrifying moment, it had felt like he and that thing were two tones of the same chord.

Eira followed his stare down into the abyss. "So… it isn't done, is it?"

"No."

A harsh wind screamed through the canyon, stirring the ash into spiraling columns. The world around them felt thinner, as if reality itself were stretched tight. The seal had held for centuries; now it was cracked open like a rotten shell, and the pressure from the other side pressed through constantly.

"We need to leave," Cain said.

"Leave?" Eira turned toward him sharply. "We can't just walk away from this. If that thing comes through—"

"It won't come through here," Cain interrupted. "The seal's anchor is broken. It'll shift."

"Shift where?"

He looked at her, eyes dark. "Somewhere inhabited."

She swore under her breath. "Perfect. Fantastic. Great. Should we just sit around and wait for a civilization to get swallowed whole?"

Cain didn't rise to her sarcasm. He was studying the fissures around them—the faint glow still clinging to the cracks, the tremor beneath the earth like something breathing.

"It's hunting me," he said. "Not the world. Me. That's why it manifested in the canyon instead of going through a populated area first. It wants the connection."

Eira grabbed his arm. "Then we cut the connection."

He gave her a look that made her regret the suggestion. "If it were that easy, I'd have done it years ago."

"Well then give me something to work with."

"Distance," he said. "I need to get far from wherever the next anchor point forms. Every time it tries to manifest near me, it erodes whatever barrier is left."

"And if you don't?" she pressed.

Cain paused. "Then the next time I won't be able to stop it."

A deep rumble rolled through the canyon floor as if agreeing with him. Eira flinched. Cain didn't.

He started walking, slow and stiff, heading toward the fractured ridge where the path had once been. Eira moved to follow, but something glinted in the rubble where he'd been lying. She knelt and brushed aside the dust.

A fragment of obsidian-black material, smooth as glass, pulsed faintly with the same gold hue the runes had carried.

"Cain," she said, picking it up carefully. "You dropped this."

He turned. The moment he saw the shard, something unreadable crossed his face—recognition, dread, something deeper layered beneath.

"That's not mine," he said quietly.

"It was under you."

"I know."

He didn't move to take it.

Eira extended it toward him anyway. "Then what is it?"

"A feather."

She laughed—short, strained. "From what, a giant pigeon?"

Cain stared at her until the humor died. "From the Fallen trying to push through."

Eira nearly dropped it. "Then why is it here?"

He didn't speak for a long moment.

"Because a part of it did get through," he said finally. "And I forced it out too fast. The fragment remained."

The shard pulsed. Once. Like a heartbeat.

Eira stepped back. "Is it dangerous?"

"Yes."

"You should've started with that."

Cain reached for the shard, and the moment his fingers brushed it, the pulse synced with his heartbeat again. A flash of heat shot up his arm. He gritted his teeth but didn't release it.

The fragment dissolved—flowing into his skin like molten ink—and vanished.

Eira shouted, grabbing him. "Cain! What was that?!"

He pressed a hand to his chest, breath shuddering. "A tether."

"What kind of tether?"

"The kind that means the Fallen won't stop now. It marked me."

Eira's grip tightened. "Then we run?"

He met her eyes. "We run."

Another tremor hit the canyon, more violent than the last, sending rocks tumbling around them. Beyond the ridges, thunder cracked in a sky with no storm clouds.

Eira pulled him forward, and together they sprinted toward the only path out of the ruin.

Behind them, deep in the chasm, something breathed.