All Chapters of Shards of the Gods: Chapter 1
- Chapter 6
6 chapters
Chapter 1: The Unburned Scavenger
The Carcass Wastes were never truly silent.When night fell, the wind whistled through the hollows of giant bones protruding from the earth, sounding like distant weeping. Children in Crust Hamlet were taught that it was the voice of gods unwilling to die. Reksa had stopped listening to it when he was ten. Crying didn't fill an empty stomach.He crouched on the slope of a rib as large as a bridge, scraping at its cracks with a rusted crowbar. Slung over his back was a halfempty burlap sack containing his night's haul: gray bone fragments, scales the size of a palm, and a handful of petrified blood dust. It was enough for a plate of rice and a cup of clean water—and even then, only if the merchants at the Scrap Market didn't haggle with a look of feigned charity.A thousand years ago, this place was the battlefield of the Divine War. In a single night now known as the Night of No Sky, all the gods fell, their bodies shattering into shards scattered to the ends of the horizon. Since the
Chapter 2: The Bell in Crust Village
Reksa didn't move for nearly half an hour.He just sat at the bottom of the narrow crevice, his back pressed against the cold bone, listening to the hooves of the Sweepers' horses fading away to the north. The voice's final words still hung in his head, refusing to leave.The last time I saw that face, you were killing us all."You've got the wrong person," he finally whispered. His voice was hoarse. "I'm twentytwo. I'm a scavenger. In my whole life, the only thing I've ever killed is rats."Perhaps, the voice said. Its tone was no longer accusatory, more like someone trying to recall a rapidly evaporating dream. My memory is full of holes. I am only a small shard of something that used to be much larger. I remember your face, but I don't remember your neck, or your voice, or what you were holding. Perhaps I am wrong."See?"But if I'm wrong, the voice continued, why didn't you burn?Reksa opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had no answer.My name is Wiratma, the voice said aft
Chapter 3: The Keeper's Secret
The Scrap Market was already bustling when Reksa arrived.He slipped in through the western side, merging with the flow of scavengers carrying sacks filled with their overnight haul. He had wrapped the black cloth from Bagas around his neck and shoulders, concealing half his face. All around him, merchants shouted, hawking bones, scales, and blood powder. Children ran between the stalls, and the smell of salted fish mingled with sulfur made his stomach churn.At the market's eastern gate, two Sweeper soldiers stood inspecting everyone who passed. Reksa lowered his head and walked deeper inside.Don't rush, Wiratma said. A man walking fast in a crowd is a guilty man."I am guilty."Exactly. So walk like you aren't.Reksa took a breath and slowed his pace. He threaded his way through lane after lane, passing amulet sellers' tents and potmenders' carts, until he finally found a small shop at the end of the narrowest alley, with a weathered wooden sign that read Kemuning Fabrics.Inside,
Chapter 4: The Valley of the Gate
The journey east took three days.Nyai Kemuning had packed him a waterskin, dried bread, a handdrawn map, and a tattered cloak lined with lead thread to muffle the tracking bells. "Do not take off that cloak, even when you sleep," she warned him. "And do not stop in the open for more than an hour."Reksa obeyed. He walked all day among giant bones, hiding in the crevices of rib cages at night, learning something new with every step. First: how to steady his hands. Whenever the golden veins began to glow, he would picture still water, just as Wiratma had taught him, and the heat would slowly die down. Second: how to tune out Sarnika."You walk like someone about to fall," the cold voice whispered on the second day."You weren't invited to speak.""I live in your head. Everything in here is an invitation." A brief pause. "Besides, you really do walk like you're about to fall.""Sarnika," Wiratma chided."I'm only helping."Reksa decided that having two voices in his head was just as exh
Chapter 5: Officer Dharsa
Reksa did not answer right away.He stood at the foot of the colossal gate, his palm still pressed against the cold stone, as Wiratma’s words swirled in his head like a whirlpool. I was the one who opened the gate for you."So you let a killer in," he said at last. His voice was flatter than he intended. "And that killer wore the exact same cloth that I was once wrapped in."I did not know if he was a killer. Wiratma sounded weary. I only remember a figure in black cloth, the gate I opened, and after that... darkness. I don’t remember what happened next.Because you died, Sarnika interjected.Because many of us died, Wiratma shot back sharply. But I don’t remember who stabbed us, Sarnika. Neither do you. You only remember his face.That face is enough."My face," Reksa said softly. "The exact same face as mine."No one disputed it. That was what hurt the most.He pulled his hand back from the stone and stared at the three points of light on the gate doors, now extinguished, empty as g
Chapter 6: The Corridor of Doors
How do I ask?" Reksa asked.Politely, Wiratma replied. And honestly. The Gate does not like being lied to.Reksa pressed his palm against the cold stone surface, closed his eyes, and spoke softly, as if to a sleeping elder."I need to get to Rakta. Bagas only has three days left. I don't have time."The stone pulsed. Then, silently, the two giant doors parted a hand's breadth, and a golden light that was not sunlight poured from the narrow opening. It swirled around him, and before Reksa could even draw a breath, the dirt floor vanished from beneath his feet.He wasn't falling. He was floating.Around him stretched an endless corridor, its walls made of pale light, with countless giant doors lining both sides. Eight of them were larger than the rest, each glowing with a different light: gold, silver, blue, red. The others were small, pitchblack, and tightly shut.Don't look at the black ones, Wiratma whispered urgently. Those are doors that were never meant to be opened.Why are they