The vision snapped away like a blade severing a thread, and for one disorienting moment, I wasn’t sure if the world around me had stabilized or if I’d merely fallen into a quieter illusion. I tasted dust in the back of my throat, metallic and bitter. My breath came in sharp, controlled exhales, though the shapes crowding my peripheral vision still wavered, as if they couldn’t decide whether they were part of this reality or the next one over. The more I blinked, the more I realized the land itself wasn’t certain I belonged here. It reminded me, uncomfortably, of the Ashen Expanse—an environment that tested every step, every breath, every stray thought.
Asterion’s gaze cut through the shifting mist, sharp and watchful. He didn’t speak at first, but the tension in his posture betrayed all I needed to know: he’d seen me stumble, had witnessed the moment my senses dissolved under the Tapestry’s assault. The subtle shift of his stance—weight distributed on the balls of his feet, fingers hovering near his belt—wasn’t directed at me, precisely. But it wasn’t entirely confidence-inspiring, either.
"You’re still here," he said, his voice lacking any semblance of relief. It was almost an accusation.
I flexed my fingers, forcing a sense of solidity back into my limbs. "For now." My heart still pounded from the images that had flooded my mind. Kael’Thorne, devoured by swirling violet energies, a figure channeling obscene power. A place turned nightmarish. I tried to push the memory aside before it rooted itself into my psyche.
Asterion’s gaze flicked over me as though he expected me to start dissolving into illusions. I wouldn’t blame him for the suspicion. The Tapestry’s decay had progressed so far that no one, not even me, was fully safe from being unstitched. "That was…like you weren’t here," he said softly, tightening the strap on his worn leather bracer. "Like your mind slipped."
He wasn’t wrong. I still felt the residual sting behind my eyes, a sort of cosmic burn that came from glimpsing what might be a future event or a twisted possibility. But I forced my voice steady, forced the dryness in my throat to remain a mere inconvenience rather than a crutch. "We need to move," I repeated, bracing myself for the agony each footstep would bring.
Asterion gave a curt nod and stepped forward, but I caught the lingering wariness in his expression. He didn’t trust that I wouldn’t vanish or buckle. If it unsettled me, I gave no outward sign. Let him worry. If illusions decided to swallow me, it would hardly matter whether he believed in my stability or not.
We began walking. Or at least, we tried to. The ground beneath us pulsed in an uneven rhythm, as if a great, slumbering beast lay beneath the battered soil, exhaling in slow, deep cycles. Every third or fourth step, the earth seemed to ripple or sink. In a saner realm, it might have been a trick of the eyes. Here, illusions mingled with a dangerously real meltdown of physical law.
I kept my posture rigid, each movement controlled. I refused to let the land itself sense any weakness, refused to let the illusions sense my unease. Whenever the shadows at my peripheral vision threatened to take shape, I shut them out with deliberate focus. I’d learned in the Ashen Expanse how illusions gained their claws from a mind that yielded. I wouldn’t grant them that leverage.
Beside me, Asterion was no fool. His eyes constantly roved, scanning for anomalies, illusions, or some ambush left by the Cult. He’d told me enough about the robed fanatics to make it clear we needed caution. They fed on the Tapestry’s tears, contorting the land to their will. If we lingered in any one spot for too long, we risked becoming part of their elaborate illusions or stumbling into constructs meant to devour stragglers. And the more time we wasted, the more I felt the tug of what might be Belisarius’s encroaching presence.
"Kael’Thorne is worse than I expected," I said, low enough that it might not carry far if illusions eavesdropped. "If what I saw is true, the leyline isn’t just unstable. It’s open."
Asterion’s usual sardonic edge vanished. His frown deepened. "Open? As in—?"
"As in bleeding raw magic," I replied, aware how grim it must sound. "As in, the Tapestry is ripping itself apart there. If the Cult is feeding off it, shaping it, then we aren’t just dealing with fanatics. We’re dealing with a force that could rewrite reality."
He walked a few more steps without answering, probably gauging how much of this was exaggeration. The hush that followed felt eerie. The land’s pulse grew stronger, each tremor a subtle reminder that we were in a realm halfway undone. "You think Belisarius is behind this?" he asked at last.
I paused, recalling the figure I’d glimpsed in my vision—someone commanding the chaos in Kael’Thorne’s heart. It hadn’t been Belisarius, but the energy surrounding them had felt too similar to the warlord’s own cosmic significance. The Tapestry recognized that power, or that link. "He’s coming," I said softly. "If he’s not here yet, he will be soon. And if this leyline stays open when he arrives, there won’t be a world left for him to conquer."
I let those words settle into the ruinous silence around us. The finality of them might have daunted a lesser man. Asterion’s face paled slightly, but he didn’t falter. In that moment, I respected him more than I expected. A lesser companion might have turned and run, or begun demanding we return to whatever remains of safety existed behind us.
Instead, he squared his shoulders, meeting my gaze. "What exactly did you see? You froze up for a moment, then looked like you’d glimpsed the end of everything."
I couldn’t find it in me to share every excruciating detail. The flames devouring Kael’Thorne, the figure channeling unimaginable power, the city convulsing as illusions became real enough to destroy entire streets. Some truths carried too much weight, even for someone as capable as Asterion.
"Fragments," I said. "A place in flames. A figure harnessing the leyline. Enough to know we can’t afford to let them get any stronger."
The dryness in my throat worsened, the tang of metal and dust scraping at my tongue. I stepped around a patch of ground that seemed too smooth for this ravaged landscape, suspecting it might simply be a disguised hollow of illusions. Asterion mirrored my movements on the other side. We advanced in tandem, a practiced wariness forging a wordless alliance.
At times, the quiet unsettled me more than illusions might have. The hush weighed on the world, as if everything held its breath in anticipation of Belisarius’s final arrival. If I truly believed the visions, if that was the fate awaiting us, then this hush was no mere stillness—it was the calm before a cosmic storm.
When we crested another ragged knoll, the land dipped into a sprawl of decayed stone—a valley dotted with half-sunken pillars and half-melted statues. The sky overhead roiled in swirling patterns of purples and electric greens, flickering with arcs of stray lightning that never quite formed thunder. The entire atmosphere hummed with an unstable magic that made my skin prickle.
"Gods," Asterion muttered, though it carried no reverence, only a shaken awe.
Before us lay the final approach to Kael’Thorne, a panorama of illusions so thick that certain patches of terrain flickered in and out of existence. The remnants of an old road curved through the valley floor, half-swallowed by illusions that rippled like disturbed water. I spotted a weathered statue—once a figure of a knight or a scholar, now twisted into an unrecognizable swirl of features.
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The swirling lines of leftover illusions rolled across the valley, painting the air in faint bands of color. Each band shimmered, anchoring itself to the ground or to the broken columns that jutted from the earth like the ribs of a colossal skeleton. Some columns bore etchings or runes that flickered between states, giving me the impression that each pillar lived in multiple realities at once.
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Small shrines dotted our path—twisted lumps of fused metal, old bones, and runic carvings that glowed a dull red or blue. I recognized the patterns from our earlier confrontation. The Cult used these shrines to shape illusions, anchor them so they wouldn’t unravel in the face of normality.
Asterion walked toward one, his hand hovering an inch above a faintly pulsing glyph. "They’re set up as stabilizers, or… amplifiers."
I nodded. "They’re feeding illusions or harnessing the meltdown. Possibly both."