Nexus, Twisted Iron District

  Moments after Chapter 1

  The girl didn't scream.

  That was what surprised Kaelen more than anything else. She trembled violently, body going into shock, but didn't scream. Maybe she was too shocked. Maybe she'd passed out. Maybe she was stronger than she looked.

  The severed arm hit the ground with a wet sound. The black veins covering it immediately began spreading faster, devouring the dead flesh in seconds. In less than thirty heartbeats, there was no more arm — just a pool of stinking black liquid that steamed against the Nexus's crystallized ground.

  "Shit, shit, shit," Kaelen muttered, dropping the Tear and pressing his hands against the bleeding stump. Blood spurted between his fingers, hot and slippery. Too much blood. Elves had efficient circulatory systems — which meant they bled fast when cut.

  She had maybe two minutes before dying from blood loss.

  Cauterize, his brain screamed. Burn the wound, seal the vessels!

  But he didn't have fire. Not this time. This life, he'd focused on sword skills and support magic, not destructive evocation. Stupid. Whenever he specialized, he always lacked exactly what he needed.

  "Okay, think, Voss," he hissed to himself. "800 years of experience. There has to be—"

  And then he felt it.

  That tingling again. Stronger now. More present. As if something was watching. Waiting. Judging.

  Kaelen looked up from the girl's body and froze.

  The Portal had changed.

  It was no longer pulsing randomly. It was... focused. The turbulent surface of impossible colors had calmed, turned black as obsidian glass. And reflected in that black surface...

  He saw himself.

  But not himself now. It was himself from 847 years ago. Twenty-eight years old, face not yet marked by centuries of trauma, eyes still capable of hope. Young Kaelen stared back through the Portal, expression of absolute terror as the Great Awakening's light engulfed him.

  "No," Kaelen whispered. "No, this isn't—"

  The image changed.

  Now it showed Life 67. He was older, maybe forty, fighting against a horde of demons while a city burned around him. He watched himself get pierced by a dozen spears, fall to his knees, and—

  It changed again.

  Life 156. Life 203. Life 389. Life 512. Each death played like a macabre slideshow. Stabbed. Burned. Drowned. Crushed. Dismembered. Poisoned. Crucified. Hanged. Beheaded.

  All of them. He was seeing all his deaths.

  "STOP!" Kaelen roared, squeezing his eyes shut. "Stop it! STOP!"

  The Portal laughed.

  Not metaphorically. It actually laughed — a sound that wasn't sound, that resonated directly in Kaelen's skull like nails scratching the inside of his mind. Laughter that contained ancient malice, insatiable hunger, and something that might have been recognition.

  Fragment, a voice echoed from the Portal. Not human. Not demonic. Something older. More fundamental. Imperfect Fragment. Rejected Fragment. Fragment... lonely.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Kaelen lied.

  Liar. The laughter came again. You know exactly what you are. What we were. What we became when They shattered us.

  Kaelen gritted his teeth, maintaining pressure on the girl's bleeding stump. She was getting pale. Too pale. Shallow breathing. Dying.

  "Look, this is all very fascinating," he said, voice tense. "But I'm kind of busy trying to keep an innocent child from dying. So if you could—"

  Let her die.

  "What?"

  The child is irrelevant. Let her die and cross over. Come to me. Let us reunite.

  "Hard pass," Kaelen spat. "I'm not going to—"

  You don't understand. The voice changed tone, becoming almost... pleading? We are shattered. Incomplete. Alone in vessels that cannot contain us. You feel it, don't you? The emptiness. The loneliness that no company fills. The pain of existing fragmented.

  And Kaelen... felt it.

  For a moment — just a moment — he felt what the Portal was showing. The sensation of being incomplete. Of being a piece of something greater that was torn and forgotten. Of existing with a hole in the center of the soul that nothing — no person, no purpose, no experience in 847 years — could fill.

  Fundamental loneliness.

  No, he thought, pushing the sensation away. No. I'm not that. I'm Kaelen Voss. I am—

  You are ours. And you always have been.

  The Portal began to pull.

  Not physically, but on a deeper level. Kaelen felt his soul being dragged toward the black surface. His feet began to slide across the ground despite kneeling. The girl began to be pulled too, light body dragging.

  "NO!" Kaelen pressed one hand against the ground, the other still holding the child's wound. He resisted. Pushed back. But it was like trying to push back the tide with bare hands.

  Don't resist. It's futile. You are a fragment. I am a fragment. Together, we become more. Together, we become—

  "WHOLE?" a new voice cut through the air like a blade. "Please. You really think that poetic rhetoric works on someone who's lived 800 years?"

  Kaelen turned his head so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash and saw—

  Her.

  Of course, he thought, between relief and exasperation. Of course it's her.

  ---

  Lyra Dawnwhisper stood at the edge of the plaza, dressed as always in Victorian gothic elegance that made no sense for the situation but somehow looked perfectly appropriate on her. Black dress that went to the floor, tight bodice with crimson lace, silk gloves that went up to her elbows. Raven-black hair cascaded to her waist, framing a porcelain face that hadn't aged a single day in 342 years.

  Crimson red eyes — a necromancer's mark — glowed with irritation.

  "Lyra," Kaelen said, voice coming out more relieved than intended. "What an incredible coincidence that you're—"

  "It's not a coincidence, idiot," she cut him off, walking toward him with measured steps. The dress didn't drag on the ground despite its length — it floated a few centimeters above, sustained by passive magic. "I've had trackers on you for 50 years."

  "You have what?"

  "Trackers. Small. Subtle. In your coat. In your boots. In the Tear's sheath." She got close enough to look down — she had about five centimeters on him, which always irritated him. "You honestly think I'd let you wander the multiverse unsupervised? After all the times you've tried death-by-stupidity?"

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "That's invasion of privacy!"

  "That's caring about your suicidal ass!" She knelt on the other side of the girl, examining the wound with a clinical eye. "Clean amputation. Good technique. Did you cauterize?"

  "Didn't have time. She's—"

  "Dying, yes, I see." Lyra extended her hands over the bleeding stump. Red runes exploded around her palms, forming complex concentric circles. "Hold her steady."

  Kaelen obeyed, pressing the girl's shoulders against the ground. Lyra began to chant in a language he recognized — Ancient Necrotongue, a dialect used by high-ranking necromancers to command death itself.

  But she wasn't invoking death.

  She was reversing it.

  The runes changed from red to pale green — the color of stolen life. They plunged into the wound, and Kaelen saw — actually saw — the blood vessels sealing. Not cauterizing. Regenerating. New tissue growing at accelerated speed, skin closing over newly formed muscle.

  In thirty seconds, the bleeding had stopped completely.

  "She'll survive," Lyra said, voice strained from effort. Sweat formed on her forehead — something rare. Regeneration wasn't her specialty. "But the arm... that I can't restore. Not here. Not now. I'd need a proper ritual, rare materials—"

  "It's fine," Kaelen interrupted. "You saved her life. The rest..." He looked at the unconscious girl. "The rest she'll have to deal with."

  Just as he had dealt with his own scars. His own losses.

  Lyra studied him with those penetrating red eyes. "You're drunk."

  "Was. Adrenaline kind of burned off the intoxication."

  "Elemental Fire Wine?"

  "Five bottles."

  She sighed — long, suffering, familiar. The sigh of someone who had spent 200 years trying to keep a self-destructive man alive. "Kaelen..."

  "Don't," he cut her off. "Don't start. Not today."

  "When, then? When you finally manage to kill yourself? When you wake up in another body and have forgotten why you're fighting?"

  "I'm not fighting!" The words came out louder than intended. Rawer. "That's the point, Lyra. I stopped fighting. Stopped caring. Stopped trying to save worlds or people or—"

  Liar, the Portal whispered, still pulsing behind them.

  Both turned toward it.

  The black surface had changed again. Now it showed not Kaelen's memories, but something different. A place. A vast hall made of bone and black stone, pillars engraved with runes that hurt the eyes. And in the center...

  A throne.

  Empty.

  Come, the voice invited. Come and see what you were. What you can be again. Fragment calls to Fragment. Loneliness calls to loneliness. Come, and be whole.

  "Close it," Lyra said, voice hard.

  "What?"

  "The Portal. You know how. I know you know." She stood, hands beginning to glow with necrotic magic. "Or I do it my way, which will be significantly more destructive."

  Kaelen looked at the Portal. At the empty throne. At the promise of wholeness.

  And then looked at the unconscious girl. At Lyra. At his own hands, still covered in blood.

  800 years, he thought. 800 years of being incomplete. Of feeling empty. Of knowing there's something missing in me that will never be filled.

  But at least...

  At least I choose to be incomplete.

  That makes me mine.

  He picked up the Tear from the ground where he'd dropped it. The sword sang at his touch, recognizing intent. Kaelen stood, facing the black Portal.

  "You want to reunite?" he said, voice low but firm. "You want wholeness? Then you'll have to catch me. Because I won't willingly be devoured by something I don't even know what it is."

  Fool. You cannot resist forever. None of us can.

  "Maybe not." Kaelen raised the Tear, blade pointed at the Portal's center. "But I can resist for today."

  And drove the sword in.

  ---

  The Tear of the Last Dragon was not an ordinary sword.

  Forged from the last true dragon — a creature so ancient it had existed before the Great Awakening, before the Primordial Gods, perhaps before reality itself — it had a unique property: it could cut concepts.

  Not just flesh. Not just steel or stone or magic.

  Concepts.

  Connection. Bond. Existence. Reality.

  And portals were just... holes in reality. Concepts of "passage" made manifest.

  The blade sank into the Portal's black surface with resistance — like cutting through thick oil — and then tore.

  The Portal screamed.

  Not with voice, but with sensation. Pain reverberated through the plaza, making windows explode, making the ground crack. Lyra staggered backward, hands over ears despite there being no real sound. The unconscious girl trembled violently.

  Kaelen kept the blade steady, twisting it, tearing deeper.

  NO! the voice roared. NO! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! WITHOUT ME, YOU WILL BE ALONE! ALWAYS ALONE! LONELY FRAGMENT WITHOUT PURPOSE WITHOUT WHOLENESS WITHOUT—

  "I KNOW!" Kaelen roared back. "I KNOW, damn it! But I'd rather chosen loneliness than complete slavery!"

  And ripped the blade upward.

  The Portal shattered.

  Didn't implode. Didn't explode. Simply... unmade itself. Like broken glass turning to dust, the black surface fragmented into a thousand pieces. Each fragment showed a different image — worlds, lives, possibilities — before evaporating into dark mist.

  The voice screamed one last time:

  YOU WILL REGRET THIS, REJECTED FRAGMENT! WHEN THEY COME! WHEN ALL OF THEM COME! YOU WILL WISH YOU HAD ACCEPTED MY OFFER!

  And then silence.

  The Portal had completely disappeared. Where it had been, now there was only cracked crystallized ground and corpses of those who had been corrupted. The oppressive atmosphere evaporated, replaced by the Nexus's normal air — which was still weird, but at least wasn't trying to eat his soul.

  Kaelen staggered backward, leaning on the Tear like a cane. The sword still smoked slightly, residues of Abyssal energy evaporating from its surface. He felt... drained. As if he'd run a marathon after five bottles of something that could kill horses.

  "That," Lyra said, voice trembling slightly, "was incredibly stupid."

  "It worked, didn't it?"

  "You drove a legendary sword into an Abyssal Portal without knowing if it would work or if it would explode taking you and half the block with it!"

  "Like I said." Kaelen smiled weakly. "It worked."

  Lyra glared at him, but then sighed and walked over to him. Without warning, she hugged him — quick, firm, and then pulled away before he could process it.

  "Idiot," she murmured. "Self-destructive, martyring, stubborn idiot—"

  "I know."

  "—impossible, frustrating—"

  "I know."

  "—but apparently incapable of ignoring a child in danger despite all your protests of not caring."

  Kaelen had no answer for that.

  Lyra studied him, expression softening. "You're still you, Kaelen. Underneath all the cynicism, all the exhaustion, all the trauma... you're still the person who can't walk past a dying child."

  "That doesn't make me good," he said, voice low. "It just makes me... conditioned."

  "No. It makes you human." She touched his face — a rare, intimate gesture. "Even after 800 years. Even after everything. Still human.

  He wanted to argue. Wanted to say that humanity was weakness, that caring was the path to pain, that he'd learned that lesson 1,247 times.

  But the words wouldn't come.

  ---

  Sirens began to sound in the distance — Nexus authorities finally responding to the dimensional disturbance. Kaelen looked at the unconscious girl, at the corpses, at the cracked ground.

  "We need to get out of here," he said. "Before the Nexus Guard arrives and starts asking inconvenient questions."

  "Your place?"

  "Warehouse. I don't have a place. I have places to sleep."

  "Of course you do." Lyra crouched down, picking up the girl gently. For someone who worked with death, she was surprisingly careful with life. "You carry her. I'll cover our exit."

  Kaelen took the child in his arms — light, so light — and began to walk. Lyra followed, hands making subtle gestures. Behind them, necrotic mist rose, obscuring the scene. Anyone who arrived would see only mist and bodies. No witnesses. No evidence.

  They turned into a dimensional alley that led to a quieter part of the Twisted Iron District. Kaelen knew the way by memory — he'd lived in this area in three different lives.

  "So," Lyra said casually. Dangerously casually. "Abyssal Portal. Talking about Fragments. Calling you 'incomplete'."

  "No."

  "No what?"

  "We're not having this conversation."

  "Kaelen—"

  "I said no, Lyra." He stopped, turning to face her. "Whatever that Portal was, whatever it was trying to do... doesn't matter. I closed it. It's over."

  She studied him with those red eyes that saw too much. Far too much.

  "You really think it's a coincidence?" she asked softly. "Portals collapsing throughout the Nexus. Abyssal Portal appearing out of nowhere. Calling you specifically." Pause. "They're awakening, Kaelen. The other Fragments. And when they all awaken..."

  "I know." His voice came out more tired than intended. "I know. But not today. Today I just... need to make sure this girl survives. Need to sleep. Need to forget I just got tempted with wholeness I'll never have."

  Lyra said nothing for a long moment. Then nodded.

  "Okay. Not today." She touched his shoulder. "But soon we'll have to talk about this. Because if they're awakening... if they're looking for you..."

  "I know," he repeated. "Shit's going to happen. Like always."

  "Like always," she echoed.

  And they continued walking in silence, through the impossible streets of the city at the center of the multiverse, carrying a child who had lost an arm but gained her life, while in distant places — in dimensions they couldn't see — other Fragments began to awaken.

  And to feel the emptiness.

  And to search for wholeness.

  The hunt had begun.

  Kaelen just didn't know yet if he was hunter or prey.

  ---

  In the poorly lit warehouse Kaelen called "temporary home" — fourth floor of an abandoned building that technically existed in three dimensions at once — he laid the girl on a worn mattress in the corner.

  Lyra conjured cold fire (flames that warmed without burning) to keep the child warm. Kaelen sat against the opposite wall, Tear resting in his lap, watching.

  "Will she be okay?" he asked.

  "Physically? Yes. Mentally..." Lyra hesitated. "She lost an arm. Saw things no child should see. Almost died from Abyssal corruption. So no, she probably won't 'be okay' for a while."

  "Personal experience speaking?"

  "Always." She sat beside him — close enough to touch, but not touching. Respecting his space. "Are you going to keep her?"

  "Until she wakes up. After... I'll find an orphanage. School. Some shit like that."

  "You know you could just—"

  "Keep her? Adopt her? Become a father figure?" Kaelen laughed bitterly. "Lyra, I can barely take care of myself. Everyone who gets close to me eventually dies, betrays me, or learns to hate me. I'm not doing that to a child."

  "I didn't die. Didn't betray you. Don't hate you."

  "You're a statistical anomaly."

  "Or maybe," she said softly, "you consistently underestimate yourself."

  They sat in comfortable silence. Outside, the Nexus continued its chaotic existence. Inside, for a brief moment, there was peace.

  Until Kaelen spoke:

  "Lyra."

  "Yes?"

  "Thanks. For coming. For... caring."

  She smiled — rare, genuine. "Always, idiot."

  And in that warehouse, surrounded by the impossibility of the multiverse, two immortal beings and a sleeping child existed together.

  Imperfect.

  Incomplete.

  But not alone.

  At least not today.

  ---

  [TO BE CONTINUED...]

  In the shadows between dimensions, something watched. Waited. And smiled with a mouth it didn't have.

  The Convergence had begun.

  And Kaelen Voss — Rejected Fragment, Eternal Wanderer — had just painted an enormous target on his back.

  NEXT CHAPTER: "Echoes of the Abyss"