The Shard-Bearer

Chapter 6 - The Shard’s Claim

The shard pulsed, crimson deepening as my hand rose. I tried to stop it, truly, I did, but my body was no longer mine. My fingers stretched, trembling, reaching.

Corin’s shout tore across the chamber. “Malrik, don’t!”

But it was too late.

My palm struck the shard.

The world exploded.

Heat slammed through me, fire that wasn’t fire, light that was blood. My chest seized as though a forge had been lit inside my ribs. My scream rattled the skull-walls until dust rained like ash.

Corin and Fennric were hurled backward, crashing into bone and stone. Fennric’s lamp shattered, plunging the vault into crimson darkness, the shard’s glow was the only light.

Visions ripped through me, not memories, not dreams, but centuries of slaughter. Cities burning, towers of glass shattering, rivers running red. Faces twisted in agony, their eyes glowing the same crimson that now poured into my veins.

I am hunger. I am fire. I am yours.

I staggered, clutching the shard, though it felt weightless now, as though it had slipped beneath my skin. I looked down at my hand.

A jagged brand seared into my palm, glowing faintly, pulsing with each beat of my heart. And beneath the skin of my arm, veins lit faintly red, threads of fire crawling up toward my shoulder before dimming to an ember.

Corin’s voice came ragged from the shadows. “Gods. Malrik… what have you done?”

Fennric laughed wild, feeling ecstatic. “The shard chose him! The thief of Drakemire! It is written!”

But I couldn’t answer either of them. Because the shard was no longer whispering.

It was inside me.

And it wasn’t leaving.

The heat in my veins didn’t fade. It thickened, spreading, every nerve lit like a wire drawn too tight. My knees buckled.

And then came the voices.

Not one. Not the velvet tone that had lured me down here. A hundred, a thousand layered, snarling, whispering and screaming. Men, women, some in languages I’d never heard. All fighting to be heard, all spilling into me at once.

Burn them.

Rule them.

Bleed them.

We are you. You are us.

I clutched my head, nails digging into my scalp, but it didn’t shut them out. The shard burned in my palm, light flaring through the jagged mark seared there. My veins glowed again, a red web crawling up my arm like fire under skin.

Corin staggered toward me, sword still in his hand but his face pale, eyes wide. “Malrik, stop. Drop it. Whatever it is, let it go.”

“I can’t…” My voice broke. My throat felt full of ash. “It’s in me!”

Fennric was on his knees, hands raised, eyes wild with awe. “Yes! Yes, the shard binds itself to you! The dead sing through your blood, you’re their vessel now! Do you understand what this means?”

Corin snapped at him, rage boiling through his fear. “It means it’s killing him, you lunatic!”

But even as Corin’s voice reached me, the shard’s power swelled again, hot and bright, and I felt it, not just the weight of the voices, but chains. Invisible and tightening around my bones and mind. Not shackles of iron, but of blood and will.

I wasn’t holding the shard anymore.

It was holding me.

The chorus clawed through my skull, it was relentless. Each voice a knife, each word a chain. My breath came in ragged bursts, the brand in my palm searing hot enough to smoke.

Fennric’s laughter echoed, high and sharp in the vault. He scrambled closer on his knees, lamp shards crunching beneath him, his hands trembling as though in prayer. “Do you see it? Do you feel it? The shard doesn’t choose lightly, you’re marked, Malrik! The vessel of power, the herald of fire!”

Corin lunged forward, grabbing Fennric by the collar and slamming him against the skull-wall. Bones cracked and tumbled, dust spilling down.

“Shut your mouth,” Corin snarled. His sword-tip pressed against Fennric’s throat, hard enough to draw a bead of blood. “He’s dying, and you’re drooling over it.”

Fennric only grinned wider, lips split bloody, eyes wild with devotion. “Dying? No. Becoming. You can’t stop it. None of us can.”

Corin’s arm trembled. His fury was real, but so was his fear.

And through it all, the shard hissed inside me, soft and insistent.

He doubts you. He fears you. Strike him down. Prove yourself mine.

My fingers twitched around the hilt of my knife. The urge was sudden, hot, to drive it into Corin’s back while he raged at Fennric. The shard pulsed in my veins, feeding the thought, making it sweet.

I staggered a step closer before I realized what I was doing. My knife was half-raised.

Corin turned, catching the movement. His eyes locked on mine, horror flashing across his face.

“Malrik,” he whispered. “Not you. Don’t let it be you.”

The knife shook in my hand. Sweat poured down my temples. And for one heartbeat, I didn’t know whose will guided my arm, mine, or the shard’s.

The knife still trembled in my hand when the ground shook.

A crack ripped through the vault floor, skulls spilling down in cascades. From the walls, bones began to clatter loose, not falling aimless but crawling, pulling and knitting themselves together with a sickening will.

Ribs fused into spines. Femurs locked into legs. Skulls rolled across the stone and snapped into place atop skeletal necks.

In moments, the chamber wasn’t silent anymore. It was full of the rattle of a dozen guardians rising from the dead.

Corin shoved Fennric aside, sword flashing into both hands. “Move!”

One of the constructs lurched forward, jaw clacking, claws of sharpened bone raking across the floor.

I should’ve run. My legs wanted to. But the shard’s fire surged again, filling me, burning me from within. And as the first guardian lunged, my palm flared crimson.

I raised my branded hand without thinking. The light burst outward, a whip of red energy screaming from my skin. It tore through the skeleton’s ribs, shattering it into ash and shards of bone.

The force blasted me back a step. My breath hitched, my body trembling from the surge and yet I felt alive and powerful.

The chorus roared inside me, triumphant.

Yes. Strike. Burn. Kill.

Corin froze mid-swing, eyes wide on me, not the enemy. His sword sagged for half a heartbeat. “Malrik… gods above…”

Fennric scrambled to his feet, laughing wild and breathless. “The shard has chosen its weapon! Look at him, Corin! Look!”

Another guardian screeched, lunging, claws outstretched.

And I raised my hand again.

The second guardian lunged. I thrust my palm out, and the shard’s fire tore through it. Bone exploded, dust choking the air, the vault ringing with the shriek of a hundred voices that weren’t human.

More of them came, dragging themselves free from the walls, claws scraping stone. A tide of bones, faceless and endless.

Corin was at my side now, sword hacking, every strike breaking skull and spine, though they kept rising and mending. He fought like a man drowning, desperate and furious.

“Too many!” he spat, sweat slick on his brow.

Fennric darted behind us, eyes wild, clutching at scraps of parchment he’d pulled from his coat. “Not too many! Just enough! The shard feeds on resistance!”

“Shut up and run!” Corin roared.

Another skeleton lunged for him. I didn’t think, the shard thought for me. Red fire whipped from my arm, slicing it in half. The power burned my veins, left my teeth rattling, but the rush was sweet and intoxicating.

The chorus shrieked with laughter.

More. More. Burn them all.

We fought our way back through the gate as the chamber shook. Skulls tumbled in avalanches, the floor splitting. The obsidian walls cracked, veins of crimson light webbing out, as though the shard’s pulse was too much for stone to hold.

Corin dragged me when I faltered, his grip iron on my shoulder. “Move, damn you!”

I staggered, smoke rising from my branded hand, the fire still whispering in my blood. Every step away from the vault felt like tearing off my own skin.

When we finally burst into the stairwell, the gate slammed shut behind us with a boom that rattled the bones of the catacombs.

The silence afterward was worse than the noise.

I leaned against the wall, chest heaving, my palm still glowing faintly red. The mark pulsed, alive, burning in rhythm with my heart.

Corin stared at me like he didn’t know me anymore. His sword was still in his hand, but the point sagged toward the floor.

“You’re not free of it,” he said hoarsely. “You’ll never be free.”

I opened my mouth, but the shard answered first, humming in my skull.

Never.