Page 144 of The First Scar
I looked at the scattered debris. Hundreds of fragments. Glinting edges catching the light.
Like the Veil, I thought.Broken into a thousand pieces, waiting for someone to stitch it back together.
I stepped into the center of the clearing and shut my eyes.
"Fifty," I whispered.
I drew both Marks up and in at once, letting them spiral together the way Dreadscale had taught me.
The first shard lifted. Then another. Then a dozen more. Every one of them sharp enough to gut me if I lost focus. Encouraging.
Ten.
The fragments hovered around me like a slow-motion explosion frozen in time. I felt their weight in my mind—each one a point of focus, a tether to the present. Wind cut through the gorge and the shards shivered with it. Behind me, a rebel coughed. A pack buckle clinked against stone.
Twenty.
More pieces rose. They drifted toward each other, edges kissing, beginning to fuse. The hum of power vibrated through my teeth.
Thirty.
I pushed harder—
The fusion wobbled. The Unravel and Griefweaver lurched apart, repelling each other, and the hovering debris trembled.
"Stop." Dreadscale's voice cut through the strain. "You're pushing outward. Directing. That's not how you become a master."
"Then what—"
"Reverse it." He moved closer, his presence an anchor at my back. "The old tales warn that shadow consumes. That you must fight it. Run from it. But one would fight their shadows for eternity. You mustdevourthem. Consume them."
I gritted my teeth. The shards were starting to fall.
"Don't feed the Marks," he said. "Feedonthem. Devour them. Transmute them into a new entity."
Devour.
I stopped pushing. Stopped trying to direct the flow outward.
Instead, I opened. I became the chasm.
I released the Light—bright, burning. And the Shadow, cold and hungry. I let them crash together inside me, felt them... dissolving. Peaceful. Folding into me.
Thirty-five.
The debris steadied. Rose higher. It was freeing, like falling back for eternity. It was obvious. Just let themin.
Forty.
The jagged pieces from the canyon were fusing faster now—seams melting together, fragments becoming whole. The dark pieces drifted inward, joining, building. A shape was forming. A curve. The ground under my boots had gone warm. Heat radiated up through the obsidian in slow waves, keeping time with the fusion—each piece that joined sent another pulse through the soles of my feet and into my shins.
Forty-five.
Don't stop. Don't stop.
Forty-eight.
The last shards slotted into place.
