The city shifted beneath their boots as they moved, like the stirring of something vast and slumbering, disturbed from uneasy dreams.
Cassiel led, map burned into his mind, each hidden fracture in Ashreign's skin a stepping stone toward the next tear — the next chance to breach the Breach itself.
But the city fought back.
The streets rebelled, tilting like chessboards knocked over by careless gods. Bridges pulled apart in slow motion, stone unspooling into threads. Statues wept dark ink that pooled into whispering puddles.
They moved quickly, staying close, speaking only when necessary.
Elior scouted ahead, senses sharp and keen as knives.Mirae guarded the rear, blades in hand, eyes constantly scanning the rooftops and walls for things that shouldn't be there.Bastion flanked Cassiel, shield ever at the ready, a silent bulwark against the city's hunger.
Time stretched, folded, broke.
There were no clocks in Ashreign. Only the beat of the blood in their ears, the dry rasp of their breaths.
The first tear was hidden inside a church where the bells had long since rusted into silence.
The doors creaked as they pushed them open, and the smell of ash and forgotten prayers hit them like a wall.
Inside, rows of broken pews pointed toward an altar where a mirror sat — tall, cracked, its surface shimmering with a muted silver light.
Cassiel approached cautiously.
In the mirror, his reflection moved slower than she did.
Elior touched his shoulder. "It's one of the tears."
She nodded.
The question was how to use it.
Mirae circled the mirror, scowling. "If we step through, are we just walking into a trap?"
"Probably," Bastion said dryly. "But standing still will kill us slower."
Cassiel reached out.
His fingertips brushed the mirror.
It was colder than ice, and yet it pulled at her, a gravity that wrapped around bone and thought.
Images flickered across its surface — glimpses of the other tears, scattered across Ashreign like forbidden stars.
"I think..." he said slowly, "we can use this to map them. To navigate."
Elior frowned. "But not to cross?"
Cassiel shook his head. "Not yet. It's too unstable."
Mirae threw a pebble at the mirror. It sank into the surface with a sound like a swallowed scream.
Everyone flinched.
"Let's move," Bastion muttered.
They didn't look back as they left the church.
The bells swung silently above them, and somewhere deep within Ashreign, a new tolling began.
The second tear lay beneath the ruins of a collapsed marketplace.
Stalls rotted where they fell. Bright scraps of fabric hung from skeletons of wood and rusted nails.
Cassiel stepped carefully, eyes scanning the broken ground for the pattern he'd memorized.
There.
A manhole, covered in rust and old blood.
He hesitated.
Mirae crouched beside it, tapping the edges with a dagger. "Too quiet," she said.
Bastion knelt, brushing away dust to reveal symbols etched into the metal — ancient sigils of warding, twisted now into mockeries.
"It's sealed," he said. "But not completely."
Elior drew a short blade, slicing a thin line across his palm. He let the blood drip onto the cover.
The runes hissed, steaming.
The manhole creaked open, and a rank wind rushed out — the breath of the tunnels below.
"Lovely," Mirae muttered, nose wrinkling.
They descended one by one.
Darkness swallowed them.
The tunnels writhed.
No other word fit.
Walls pulsed, slick with moisture and something thicker. The air buzzed with unseen voices.
Cassiel gritted his teeth and pressed on, following the weak beacon of the next tear.
They passed murals carved into the stone — scenes of Ashreign as it once was: proud, shining, untouched.
And then scenes of its fall: wings burning, towers collapsing, people twisting into things not meant to walk the earth.
The last mural showed the Breach, opening like an eye.
Cassiel didn't linger.
Neither did the others.
Some truths were better glimpsed than understood.
The tear lay at the center of a small cavern, pulsing weakly — a wound half-healed, half-rotting.
Cassiel knelt before it.
In the glow, he could see it was fraying — threads of reality coming undone.
"Can we use it?" Mirae asked.
Cassiel studied it.
"Maybe. If we find the other points."
"And if we don't?" Bastion asked.
Cassiel stood.
"Then we die here."
Simple.
Final.
They emerged from the tunnels into the remains of a plaza where the buildings had melted together, forming grotesque sculptures of brick and bone.
There, waiting for them, was the first guardian.
It wasn't a man.
It wasn't a beast.
It was both — and neither — a thing woven from Ashreign's memories of kings and executioners.
It raised its massive, rusted sword as they approached, eyes burning with blue fire.
Cassiel drew his weapon without hesitation.
"Formations," he barked.
They fell into place.
Bastion to the front, shield raised.
Mirae flanking left, knives flashing.
Elior ghosting right, searching for an opening.
Cassiel drove straight down the center.
The clash was brutal.
The guardian moved like a nightmare — heavy, relentless, but slow to adapt.
They wore it down piece by piece, carving away its strength until finally, with a shout, Cassiel drove her blade through its heart.
It collapsed in on itself, leaving behind only a faint, bitter smell.
They didn't celebrate.
There was no time.
Ashreign stirred anew, the ground trembling, the walls whispering.
Another guardian would come.
They moved.
Faster now.
Driven not just by purpose, but by the sense that the city itself had noticed them — and would not allow them to reach the heart.
That night, camped beneath the ribcage of a fallen tower, Cassiel watched the map.
The tears pulsed faintly.
He traced the path with one finger.
Almost there.
Almost.
He closed his eyes, letting exhaustion drag at his bones.
In the darkness, he heard a voice — soft, familiar, impossible.
"You're close, Cassiel. Don't stop now."
He snapped awake.
No one else stirred.
He looked up at the broken sky.
And he knew, deep in her gut:
Ilyan was waiting.
Not just at the Breach.
But at the core of Ashreign's heart.
Where everything had begun.
And where everything would end.