CHAPTER 1228: AFFECTION’S AFFLICTION (1).

Kade followed her gaze. The tower still twisted subtly, vertebrae grinding, the light at its peak pulsing irregularly like a damaged heart.

"What exactly is that thing?"

"A remnant," she said. "A spine torn from a Watcher during the first war. It was cast into the space-between before the Fallen learned how to corrupt remnants into weapons."

"That’s... rough."

"It has been bleeding power for millennia. Power the Interstice channels. But its resonance is fractured. To leave, you must retrieve the shard trapped at its summit."

"Retrieve," Kade repeated. "As in climb it?"

Seren’s neutral expression barely shifted. "Yes."

He exhaled through his teeth. "Fine. Then let’s get this over with."

The porcelain fox chirped and darted ahead, as if impatient. Kade followed, still flexing his fingers and letting small sparks pulse between them. The light came easier now—dangerously easy. It made his nerves hum.

Halfway to the tower, Seren spoke again. "The third anchor will be the most difficult."

"Let me guess. A fight? Some terrifying cosmic monster? More Voidsent?"

"None of those."

"So what then?"

"You must face the imprint itself."

Kade shot her a sideways look. "I don’t even know what that imprint is."

"You will."

"Fantastic," he muttered.

They reached the tower’s base. Up close, its size was ridiculous—each vertebra the length of a courtyard, stacked in a twisted helix that didn’t obey physics. The surface wasn’t smooth bone. It was etched with shifting glyphs, lines sliding beneath each other like tiny living diagrams.

"How exactly do I climb something that hates geometry?" Kade asked.

Seren lifted her hand. A gold sigil pulsed once on the tower before fading. "Touch where I marked. It will allow you passage."

He stepped toward the faintly glowing point. As soon as his hand touched the bone, the glyphs around it reshaped, forming a ladder-like pattern that extended upward.

The fox pawed at the first rung and looked back at him expectantly.

"Yeah, yeah, I’m coming." He gripped the rung. It was warm. Too warm.

He started climbing.

The climb was brutal. Each rung vibrated faintly, sending a tremor up his arm. The light at the tower’s peak blinked rapidly, like an impatient beacon. His muscles burned. Sweat formed even though the air felt cold.

Halfway up, the tower jolted.

Kade froze with his stomach dropping. "Hey—Seren? Is it supposed to do that?"

"Keep climbing," her voice echoed from below.

"That’s not comforting!"

Another jolt.

The glyphs beneath his hands rippled, rearranging like ink dropped in water. For a split second the rungs softened, almost melting.

Kade swore, gripping harder.

"You said it would allow me passage!"

"It is allowing passage," Seren called back. "It simply does not like doing so."

"Great. Wonderful. Love that."

The fox clung to his shoulder now, claws lightly digging into his jacket for balance.

By the time he reached the final curve of the tower, his arms shook with the effort. The plateau at the top was small—a circular platform surrounded by spines that angled inward like a cage.

At its center hovered the shard.

He stepped toward it, breathing hard. The shard was a crystalline fragment suspended in the air, rotating slowly, emitting faint chimes like distant wind bells. Light refracted through it in spiraling patterns.

It was beautiful.

It was wrong.

It radiated so much pressure that Kade felt his bones ache. His blood throbbed. The light inside him flared in response.

The fox growled softly.

Seren’s voice drifted up. "Touch it."

Kade stared at the shard. "This is definitely going to feel terrible."

"It will."

He reached out.

The instant his fingers brushed the surface, the world slammed sideways.

The Interstice dissolved into raw light.

The tower vanished.

The sky cracked open.

He staggered, no longer standing on solid stone but suspended in a white field, weightless.

Then a voice—not audible, not verbal—pressed into him.

Kade.

He spun. A figure coalesced from the surrounding light. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Wings spread wide—not feathered, but constructed from overlapping plates of shimmering energy.

A Watcher, but not like Seren.

Not like any he had ever seen.

It stared at him with eyes like molten silver.

You carry my mark.

Kade’s throat tightened. "Who are you?"

The one who chose you before you were born. The one the Fallen could not erase. The one the Council pretended no longer existed.

The light behind the figure rippled.

I am the First Light. The origin. The exile before exiles. And you are my echo.

Kade felt the words hammer through him, heavy as gravity.

The figure extended its hand.

Take the shard. Anchor your existence. Then return. The world is not done with you.

The weight, the power, the truth pressing into him was too much. But he didn’t back away. He reached out, fingers wrapping around the shard—and the light swallowed him whole.

The light snapped shut like a fist.

Kade crashed back into himself—lungs, gravity, heartbeat, pain, all slamming into place at once. He hit the tower’s platform hard enough to rattle bone, the shard clutched against his chest. The porcelain fox tumbled beside him with an undignified squeak.

Seren was already ascending the final stretch of the tower. When she reached him, she grabbed his wrist and hauled him up with surprising strength.

"You anchored," she said.

Kade wiped his mouth. His hand came away shaking. "Barely."

She eyed the shard in his grip. "It didn’t reject you?"

"It screamed at me," he said. "Then it told me I was chosen by... something very old, very dramatic, and very shiny."

Seren’s brow furrowed. "Describe it."

"Wings like folded stars. Spoke inside my head. Called itself the First Light."

Seren froze.

Kade blinked. "I’m guessing that name means something."

"It is not a name," she said slowly. "It is a designation. And it is impossible."

He laughed once—harsh, tired. "You keep saying that about a lot of things lately."

"Because you keep doing impossible things."

"Then maybe stop being surprised."

She didn’t answer. She simply turned. "We must descend. Your presence has triggered a shift."

As they climbed down, Kade glanced at the shard. It pulsed with faint light, syncing with his heartbeat. Every thrum sent a flicker of heat down his arm and into his ribs.

"Seren," he said, "who exactly is the First Light?"