Varkai: Arc I — Ashes of the Shatterworld
The wind had shifted.
It no longer carried the scent of charred marrow and old blood. Now it brought silence. The kind that made even the ruins hold their breath.
Vrakon stood at the edge of the burnt trail, cloaked in dusk. The shrine was far behind him, its broken pulse fading. He had slept for hours, maybe a day, the weight of memory fragments pressing behind his eyes. The dreams—no, glimpses—were not his, but he felt them. Swords clashing in shattered skies. A woman with black-fire hair whispering in a language he didn't know. An army of dying suns.
They vanished like smoke the moment he opened his eyes.
His body had changed. It didn't ache. The bruises, the gashes—they were gone. The Genesis Pulse inside him flowed clearer now, steadier. Like it had found the shape it was meant to move through. No wild flaring. No collapse. A rhythm. A resonance. He didn't understand it, but he accepted it.
He followed the path back to Venshade.
---
The village was quieter than he remembered.
Ash clung to the rooftops. Smoke stains marked the old well. The gate was half broken, tied together with rope and shame. And when he stepped through it, the first person who saw him dropped a basket.
Gasps followed. Then silence.
Then:
"It's him."
"He came back."
"Why would he come back?"
The crowd gathered fast. Faces he knew. Faces that once smiled at him. Now tightened. Drawn. Frightened.
Then a voice cut through them all.
"Vrakon."
Elder Jharel.
His robes were torn at the edge. His gray eyes burned with something worse than hatred: judgment. He stepped forward, slow but heavy, the wooden staff in his hand tapping like a death drum.
"You return wearing the Pulse, and yet the children are ash. Shayra is dead. And you walk."
Vrakon said nothing.
"Mirra." The elder's voice cracked. "Kaelen. We burned their bones yesterday."
A woman sobbed. One of the mothers. Others looked away.
Vrakon met their eyes. One by one. None could hold his gaze.
"You left with her. You were taken. Yet you returned alone."
He spoke, finally.
"She died to protect me."
Jharel's grip tightened.
"How convenient."
Another voice. From the crowd:
"Why did you survive?"
"What are you now?"
"He brought the Pulse down on us. That raid—he drew it."
The accusations stacked like stones.
Vrakon did not flinch.
"I didn't ask for this," he said, voice flat. "But I won't ask forgiveness either."
Jharel stepped closer.
"We gave you food. Shelter. Shayra gave you everything. And in the end, you bring ruin."
Vrakon looked past him, to the half-burnt shrine tree in the village square.
"In the end," he said, "no one survives Varkai without blood."
He turned. No one stopped him.
---
He walked alone again.
Beyond the outer fields, past the crater-lake and into the shadow trails. The Genesis Pulse in him buzzed, low and cold. Not rage. Not sorrow. Just weight.
He spoke aloud, but only the mist answered.
"I won't be weak again."
His hands closed around the broken spear he still carried.
"No more praying. No more waiting."
"If the world wants monsters…"
The path narrowed.
"Then I'll learn to become one they can't kill."
The Spiral inside him stirred.
He walked on.