The Shard-Bearer

Chapter 8- Ashes in the streets

This The stink of ash clung to my skin. No matter how many alleys I ducked into, no matter how many buckets of gutter-water I splashed across my hands, I could still feel the heat of that soldier’s scream echoing in my palm.

Drakemire was not silent.

Voices followed me in the dark, carried on the rising smoke.

“They say he burned a man to dust.”

“His hand glowed like molten iron.”

“The rat-king of the alleys has a devil’s brand.”

Every whisper was a knife turned my way. People shut doors as I passed. A drunk stumbled into the street and, seeing my face, shrieked as though I carried plague. He ran, tripping, leaving me staring at my reflection in a black puddle, veins faintly red, eyes rimmed with fire.

The shard pulsed inside me, a heartbeat too strong for my chest. They fear you because you are more. They are meat, you are flame. Burn them. Claim them.

I pressed my hand hard against the wall, forcing a ragged breath. The stone hissed under my touch, a scorch mark spreading in the shape of my fingers.

“Malrik.”

Corin’s voice behind me. He hadn’t drawn his sword. He hadn’t shouted. Just said my name like he always did when he wanted to drag me back from the edge.

I turned. He looked tired. Not angry, not yet. Just… tired. His armor was scuffed, his hair damp with sewer-grime, and his eyes searched my face like he was looking for someone who wasn’t there anymore.

“You hear them, don’t you?” he asked. “The city’s not blind. Word’s spreading faster than fire in straw. And I’m standing here wondering if they’re wrong or if I’m the blind one.”

I swallowed, but the shard burned in my chest, whispering over his words.

Corin stepped closer, boots crunching over bits of broken glass. He didn’t flinch from me, though the scorch-mark still smoked on the wall at my side.

“I’ve followed you through gutters, through blood, through things no sane man would crawl through,” he said, voice steady but tight. “I told myself it was loyalty. Told myself you’d come out the other side still you.”

He pointed at my hand, the hand that had reduced a man to ash. “But now I look at you, and I don’t know who the hell I’m standing with. My friend? Or something that belongs in the Emperor’s menagerie.”

The shard’s voice laughed inside me, hungry, eager. He fears you. Strike him before he strikes you.

My throat went dry. I clenched my fist until my nails cut my skin. “Corin… it’s still me.”

He stared at me for a long time, jaw clenched. Then he shook his head.

“No, Malrik. It’s not. Not anymore. You’ve got something inside you that’s burning you hollow. And if I stay, it’ll burn me too.”

His words hit harder than any blade.

I took a step forward. “Don’t. Don’t say that. You don’t walk away, not now. You’re all I’ve got…”

Corin’s hand went to his sword, not to draw it, but to hold it like an oath. “You’ll always be my brother. Always. But I can’t watch this happen. Not up close. Not when every night I close my eyes and see ash where men used to be.”

He turned. The sound of his boots retreating into the smoke was louder than the whispers of the shard.

I didn’t call him back. I couldn’t.

When the shadows swallowed him, the shard purred in my chest, warm and triumphant. One by one they fall away. Until only we remain.

For the first time, I wondered if it was right.

“Poetic, isn’t it?”

Fennric’s voice slid from the shadows before Corin’s footsteps had even faded. He emerged from an alley mouth, robes soot-stained, grin sharp as a knife. His eyes gleamed like oil catching fire.

“One man fears you. Another worships you.” He gestured at himself with a flourish. “And only one of us will still be at your side when the world comes to collect its debts.”

I wanted to tell him to shut his mouth. But the words stuck. The shard hummed in my chest, beating to his rhythm.

Fennric leaned close, his tone like a conspirator’s whisper. “Do you feel it? The hunger? That soldier’s life pouring into you, raw and sweet. That was a taste, Malrik. A drop in the sea of what you could command. The shard isn’t a curse. It’s a gift. One, men kill and die for.”

“I don’t want it,” I muttered.

His grin widened. “Then why haven’t you thrown it away?”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

Fennric’s hand clamped down on my shoulder, fingers digging in like claws. “You can’t deny it, and I won’t let you. You’ll master it. You’ll carve your name into this rotting empire’s bones with it. And I will guide you every step of the way.”

The shard pulsed hot under my skin. Yes. Yes. This one sees. Listen to him. Obey.

My chest tightened. My ears rang. The urge to feed, to burn crept down my arm, curling into my fingers.

Fennric watched with rapture, as though he could see the fire crawling beneath my veins. “Soon,” he whispered. “Soon you’ll stop fearing it… and you’ll crave it.”

The sound came first, the rattle of boots in formation. Not the scattered tramp of city guards, but the hard, disciplined rhythm of trained killers.

Fennric’s grin sharpened. “Ah. Right on cue.”

I spun toward the street mouth. Lanterns flared, catching on polished helms. A line of soldiers fanned out, shields braced, spears leveled. Another line closed from the other side, boxing us in.

The shard throbbed like it had been waiting for this. My pulse raced to match.

“Malrik of Drakemire!” the captain bellowed, voice echoing down the stones. “By order of Emperor Ithros, you are commanded to surrender the artifact you carry.”

Fennric laughed, low and delighted. “Oh, they know your name already.”

I raised my hands, palms trembling. The shard’s heat licked up my arm, begging release. “Stay back.”

The soldiers advanced a step.

The shard’s voice rose, silky and cruel. They are meat. They are vessels. Split them. Drink them.

“Stay BACK!” I roared and the fire leapt.

Crimson light blasted from my hand, slamming into the front line. Shields crumpled. Men screamed as they were hurled aside like dolls, armor bending, bones snapping. One burst into flame before he hit the ground.

I staggered, choking, my vision edged in red.

But the shard wasn’t done. The air around me warped, pulling at the soldiers like a tide. My skin burned. I couldn’t feel where I ended and the shard began.

Fennric’s voice cut through the chaos, fever-bright. “Yes! Feed, Malrik! Tear them open!”

Another surge wracked me. I saw their terror, smelled it, tasted it. The shard pressed down harder, forcing the fire through my veins. My hand twitched to unleash another wave.

And that’s when the street fell silent.

Not because the soldiers had stopped, but because something heavier had entered the air. The kind of silence that comes when prey feels the predator arrive.

The soldiers parted, not by choice, but because something moved among them. A ripple of unease swept through their ranks, men stumbling back, shields lowering, eyes wide.

Through the drifting smoke he came.

A figure tall and lean, clad in armor black as charred bone, every plate edged in glass that caught the firelight and bent it into cruel shapes. His helm was featureless save for a slit where two pale, glacial eyes burned. A long blade hung at his side, its surface fractured like a broken mirror, bleeding light with every step.

The shard inside me went still. Not quiet but still, as if holding its breath.

The man stopped only a few paces away. The soldiers dared not move, dared not speak. Even Fennric, for all his rabid hunger, edged back with something that might have been fear.

The figure’s gaze locked on me.

“Malrik,” he said, voice calm, iron-flat. “You burn too brightly to hide.”

My breath hitched. The shard throbbed once, as if in recognition.

He tilted his head slightly, as though studying a long-awaited prize. “The Emperor has been waiting for you.”

And then he drew his blade, a hiss like breaking glass and the world seemed to shrink to the space between us.