The borderlands were dying.
Celia Ashorex felt it in the air—a static charge that made her teeth ache, a wrongness seeping into the soil. The sky above the canyon had turned a sickly violet, streaked with veins of black where the Third Heart's corruption bled into the atmosphere. Below her, Jax lay motionless on a slab of sun-warmed stone, his breath shallow, his Arc Core dim. The corrosion had reached his sternum, tendrils of blackened veins branching toward his throat.
She knelt beside him, the Reality Shard clutched in one hand and a stolen Lobenstein med-kit in the other. The kit's contents were foreign to her: vials of neon-blue coolant, syringes filled with nanite sludge, a handheld welder meant for emergency Core repairs. Holy magic won't save him now, she thought bitterly. But maybe heresy will.
---
Celia pried open Jax's coat, exposing the Arc Core embedded in his chest. The device was a nest of frayed wires and cracked plating, its glow reduced to a faint pulse. She hesitated, then pressed the Reality Shard against the Core. The Shard's light flared, projecting a holographic schematic of the device's inner workings. There—a failing regulator node.
Her hands shook as she loaded a syringe with nanites. "This is madness," she whispered.
Jax's eyes flickered open, glassy with pain. "Since when… do you care about sanity?"
She ignored him, injecting the nanites into the Core's access port. The device hissed, its light stuttering. Jax arched off the stone, a guttural scream tearing from his throat as the nanites seared through corrupted circuits.
"Stop—" he choked.
"I can't." Celia activated the welder, its blue flame merging with the Shard's glow. "The node's ruptured. If I don't seal it…"
If I don't, he dies.
The welder sparked against the Core. Jax's hand clamped around her wrist, his grip bruising. For a heartbeat, their eyes met—his wide with terror, hers steeled with desperation. Then his body went rigid, the scream dying in his throat as the nanites surged.
The Core flared, its light blinding.
When it faded, the corrosion had retreated to his collarbone. Jax lay unconscious, his breathing steadier.
Celia slumped back, her hands smeared with his blood and coolant. The Shard's light had dimmed, its surface now cracked. One use left, maybe two.
---
They found shelter in a Veythari caravan camped at the edge of the Wastes. The nomads' tents were patched with Ashorex silk and Lobenstein steel, their fires fueled by Voidwell crystals. A woman with scarred cheeks and a mechanical arm greeted them. Kira Veythar, her nameplate read.
"You carry the Shard," Kira said, her voice laced with static. "And the stink of the Council."
Celia tensed. "We need help. He's dying."
Kira's gaze lingered on Jax's exposed Core. "Follow."
The camp's heart was a makeshift forge, its anvil a slab of fused Luminar Code and Arc Core plating. Kira gestured to a cot beside it. "Lay him there. Your tools, too."
As Celia worked, resetting Jax's Core with borrowed implements, Kira watched. "You blend light and steel," she said. "Like Lira."
"Who?"
"Our ancestor. The First Betrayed." Kira tapped a mural on the tent wall—a woman with Celia's eyes and Jax's sharp features, holding the Third Heart aloft. "The families erased her, but we remember. We wait."
"For what?"
"The day the Heart is whole. The day the Lie dies."
Celia's fingers slipped, the welder scorching her palm. She bit back a curse. Focus.
---
Night fell. The camp hummed with low chants, the nomads circling a fire where Voidwell crystals crackled like dying stars. Jax woke briefly, drank a foul-smelling broth, and passed out again.
Celia wandered the camp, the Shard a cold weight in her pocket. She paused at a tent marked with Ashorex holy script—a relic, she realized, from the Sundered Forge. Inside, a figure knelt before a cracked Luminar Code tablet.
"You shouldn't be here," the figure said. Male, young, his face obscured by a hood.
Celia stepped closer. "You're Ashorex."
"Was." He turned, revealing a face she recognized—Talen, a novice priest from the Luminar Cathedral. His eyes were hollow, his skin threaded with faint circuitry. "They cast me out. My faith… faltered."
"Join the club," Celia said dryly.
Talen's gaze dropped to her Solaris Veil. "You still wear it. Why?"
"To remind me what not to trust."
He stood, clutching the tablet. "The Veil isn't the problem. It's the Code. The Light Dominion… it's not a god. It's a machine."
Celia froze. "What?"
"The Code—it's an algorithm. The Ashorex didn't create it. They found it. Buried, like the Heart." Talen's voice quickened. "The Vult Council tends it, feeds it prayer-energy. But it's dying. That's why your miracles failed. That's why—"
A shout cut him off. Outside, the camp erupted into chaos.
---
The Vult enforcer stood at the camp's edge, the corrupted Third Heart floating above their palm. Its light, once radiant, now oozed a tarry blackness that devoured the air.
"You harbor fugitives," the enforcer intoned. "Surrender them, or be erased."
Kira stepped forward, her mechanical arm crackling with Voidwell energy. "The Heart is not yours to wield."
"It is the Council's by right. The families' war has ended. All will be remade."
The Heart pulsed. A wave of darkness ripped through the camp, tents dissolving into ash. Nomads screamed as their hybrid bodies unraveled, flesh and steel parting like old sutures.
Celia sprinted to Jax's cot, hauling him upright. "Wake up! We need to go!"
He stirred, blinking dazedly. "Wha's happening…?"
"Armageddon." She slung his arm over her shoulder, grabbing the med-kit. "Move!"
They stumbled toward the canyon's edge, the enforcer's laughter echoing behind. Talen joined them, clutching the Luminar Code tablet. "This way! There's a path—"
A blast of corrupted light seared the ground beside them. Celia turned, raising the Shard defensively. Its light clashed with the Heart's, reality warping around them.
The enforcer faltered. "The Shard… You cannot wield it."
"Watch me," Celia snarled.
She channeled every shred of doubt, every ounce of rage, into the Shard. Its cracks spread, but its light flared brighter—a desperate, blinding radiance. The enforcer recoiled, the Heart's corruption retreating momentarily.
"Now!" Talen yelled, dragging them toward a crevice in the canyon wall.
---
The crevice led to a narrow tunnel, its walls slick with bioluminescent algae. They ran until the enforcer's roars faded, collapsing in a cavern strewn with Veythari artifacts.
Jax slumped against a wall, his Core flickering. "The kid's Ashorex?"
"Ex-Ashorex," Talen corrected. He set down the tablet, its Code glowing faintly. "They exiled me when I questioned the Light Dominion. The Veythari took me in."
Celia studied him. "Why help us?"
"Because you're the only ones who can fix this." He nodded at the Shard. "And because Kira told me to."
Jax stiffened. "Kira's the traitor."
Talen's face paled. "What?"
"Think. The enforcer found us too fast. Someone led them." Jax coughed, black fluid speckling his lips. "She wanted the Shard. Used you as bait."
"No—she saved you!"
"Did she?" Jax's gaze locked on the tablet. "Or did she need him?"
Celia followed his stare. The Luminar Code on the tablet wasn't holy script—it was a map. A map to the next Heart fragment.
Talen backed away. "I didn't know—I swear!"
The ground trembled. Distant explosions shook the tunnel.
"Doesn't matter now," Celia said quietly. "They're coming."
She lifted the Shard, its light merging with the tablet's Code. Coordinates flashed—a city buried beneath the Ashorex capital.
"Luminar," she breathed. "The next fragment's under the cathedral."
Jax laughed bitterly. "Of course it is."
---
End of Chapter 4