A break in the flow

  Zephyr wandered through the cracked, shredding pathways of the Original Land of Fate. What an ancient land it was, older than time itself, woven in golden strands of past, present, and future. The ground beneath him shimmered subtly, always in motion, like threads being pulled by unseen hands.

  He didn't come here looking for Fate, or to find her story.

  Not anymore.

  It became pretty clear to him a long time ago that she arrived whenever she wanted, not when she was called. But still... there was always the hope of finding something, some thread of recognition, some form of direction, anything he could sweep up in an effort to break the numb cycle of idle drifting.

  He hasn't done any fate enforcement lately. No direction, no influence, no destiny warriors to be his guide or guard. Either way, no action: just sleeping, eating, straying.

  A rhythm that should have been dull for someone supposedly chosen.

  Well, at least, till today.

  Zephyr lifted his eyes and stepped up to the broken cliff over which time lost itself into a mist. Here lay Fate Keepers, buried close together, voices raised in sharp, anxious tones.

  He stepped closer out of habit, curiously attracted.

  And then he saw her.

  Fate.

  As always, she was graceful and composed. She seemed to move through the fog as if it parted only for her. The Fate Keepers immediately surged toward her, their argument turning into a flurry of overlapping voices and agitated gestures.

  Zephyr hesitated. He was not technically a party to their discussion. He hadn't been doing much lately to substantiate this claim. But then again... he was a Fate Enforcer. He should know what was happening.

  Besides, maybe he'd finally get a good chance to talk to her-about the reason he had been left out of assignments- about why he felt like a piece no longer fitting the board.

  The air assailed him with apprehension and tension as he moved forward when Fate turned to him without missing a beat.

  "Come, Zephyr," she said calmly. "Join in. Perhaps you will learn something of it."

  Her voice was light, but there was an undercurrent to it-an understanding, forethought.

  It was as if she already knew that he had been wondering, wishing to do something. Anything.

  Thus he entered the circle and one of the Fate Keepers filled him in on the progress normal. "Something in fate broke. A bond-had hung from fate-suddenly ended."

  Zephyr's blink coincided with the Keeper's look of gravity at him. "Is that… even possible? I thought Fate Keepers ensured life flowed with the path of fate and time. That nothing like that could happen."

  The Keeper looked grave. "It isn't. This is the first-one-"

  "No," Fate interjected softly, her voice cutting through the panic like silk through fog. "This is the second one to break the law of fate."

  The group went silent.

  Zephyr looked at her. "Second?"

  She nodded, her gaze distant for a moment. "The first was... long ago. But it was buried. This one... this one might unravel more than just a thread."

  Another Keeper broke in. "What do we do now? This may have a domino effect. If one bond can be broken, what stops others from fraying?"

  Fate's face fell dark, her cool countenance tinged with urgency.

  "What is broken cannot be mended," she said, voice low and resolute. "We can only try to contain the damage. Stabilize what remains."

  She looked around at them all.

  "Gather every Fate Keeper you can find. Guide the strands. Reinforce the vulnerable bonds. This must not spiral further."

  The hive was startled and stirred into action, moving suddenly but purposefully all about.

  Zephyr, though, stayed rooted.

  Something hit deep from her words.

  A fated bond, broken.

  Twice in history.

  And the second one just now.

  It wasn't clear to him, but his heart felt kinking up. The unspoken fear whispered that this was no mere cosmic accident.

  This was personal.

  When string breaks

  "Zephyr," Fate called softly and in a nurturing yet stern tone. "Come with me. I want to show you something."

  He turned in mild surprise. Her tone was not usually one of cryptic calm. It seemed somehow more personal-this was something she had waited to share with him since the timing felt so important.

  Without having to be asked, Zephyr obeyed.

  Their short walk led them, giving way to a change in the environment around them: the dirt path shimmering under their feet while golden threads wove themselves into a staircase that lifted into nothingness. Zephyr walked beside her as they went up.

  On an imposing tower-a tall, bending structure made with materials unknown to any other realm. Its black obsidian and white ivory walls were faintly glowing alive. Old, the tower felt ancient-the kind of ancient that could have witnessed time before anything was born.

  "This is the Tower of Continuance," Fate said, swinging the doors wide open. "Here, the threads of fate are spun, mended, and sometimes, rewritten."

  It became cooler inside. The walls shone with strands of light-thread-like glowing fibers pulsing with energy between columns and drawn slowly as if breathing. Some sections of threads were whole and flowing gracefully. Others were in tangled knots, frayed, or nearly coming apart.

  At this point, Fate had guided him along a spiral corridor out on an observation deck perched above a great hall below.

  "This is the Observation Deck," she said, standing by the railing.

  From way up there, Zephyr had a glimpse of the various rooms of the tower spread out in a branching tree pattern. Each was glowing in a different hue.

  Fate pointed toward a room filled with loom-like structures. "That’s the Weaving Room. That’s where new fate threads are created, woven into the grand pattern of life."

  She turned somewhat again and pointed to a room enveloped in darkness, crackling with unstable energy. "That’s the Emergency Room. We only use it when a major event or anomaly threatens to unravel too much of the pattern at once."

  Yet it was the glow of a chamber in the center that had caught Zephyr's attention, bathed in gentle golden light. In stark contrast to the others, it seemed calm-almost serene. Fate followed his gaze.

  "And that," she said quietly, "is the Mending Room."

  For a moment, they stood in silence as he watched the room below. Inside, he could see two Fate Keepers at work. They gently held broken fate threads: thin strands flickering like dying candlelight. With great care, they began to attach new threads to the broken ones, like stitching torn fabric.

  "What exactly are they doing?" Zephyr said, eyes glued to the scene.

  "They're repairing the damage caused by a broken bond," Fate said. "When someone breaks a fated connection- like the one we talked about earlier- it doesn't just affect those two people. It sends ripples through the entire weave. Other people's fates, which were connected even slightly, can become unstable."

  "So the threads break because of one decision?" Zephyr asked, frowning.

  "Sometimes," Fate replied. "And sometimes, if the decision is powerful enough--if it goes against a destined bond--it can create a tear."

  She indicated the menders once again. "That's where the weavers come in. They look for a thread that hasn't touched too much yet--someone whose future is still quiet, who hasn't affected many others. They add that thread to both sides of the broken one, to hold everything together."

  Zephyr frowned. "So… if a magician breaks a fated love, the person they rejected gets paired with someone else?"

  Fate smiled very slightly and sadly. "Yes. The one who was rejected is given another opportunity. Someone new is brought into their life-someone whose presence won't disrupt too much. Maybe a quiet healer, or a traveler who never stayed anywhere long. Someone who can truly love them without triggering another chain reaction."

  Zephyr's voice was quieter now. "And what of the one who rejected the bond?"

  Fate leaned against the railing and gazed down over the web of threads below. "They keep on their way," she said. "Imagine two rivers, flowing together side by side. They are connected, here and there, by a small stream-that stream is the fated bond, the love they shared. When that stream runs dry, one river can rise and flood in destruction. That is the rejected thread. The one with the balance."

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  She paused, then added, "But the other river-the one who made the choice-they continue to flow. Alone, perhaps. Or with less force. Eventually, one of these days, another tiny stream may flow off and connect them with someone new. But it may not. That is destiny for you. We can only mend the pattern. We can't predict how the rivers will run."

  Once again, Zephyr cast a glance down into the Mending Room. His chest felt tight, like a pressure he had been previously unaware of suddenly had enough room to settle. He couldn't tell why it hurt.

  Maybe it was the idea of new connections being arbitrarily formed for people like pieces on a chessboard.

  Or maybe it was the idea that there might be someone, somewhere, who was waiting for a stream that would never come.

  Fate glanced at him, her expression impossible to decipher-but softer than usual.

  "You wonder whether I am really talking about you, don't you?" she teased.

  Zephyr said nothing, though deep down... he was.

  The Memory of past

  Fate turned to look at Zephyr, her gaze as inscrutable as ever-but for a moment, something glinted in the depths of her abyss-like eyes, almost fading right then and there. Pity? Nostalgia? Maybe a little of both.

  She looked at him in silence for a breath longer before saying with quiet confidence, "There is no point in hiding it from you anymore."

  Zephyr blinked. "Hiding what?"

  "Once upon a time, you were close to one of them. One of those whose fated bond has now been broken." There was gentleness in her tone, but the weight of her words settled heavily in his chest. "In your past life, in the mortal world."

  He opened his mouth to speak, but it was as though something was stuck in his throat.

  "And now..." she continued, "that connection has faded away and is just disappearing. Time is already erasing the very parts of you that lived that life, my dear."

  A strange chill ran through Zephyr. It was only now that he truly recognized the fact-but she was right.

  With every day, the edges of memories that had once been vivid to him now felt smudged, like water-soaked ink, and he could not even remember the names of the people who had once mattered to him; he could not even see their faces. Their voices, their laughter-together with every other precious detail, were slowly slipping away, fading into the haziness of dreams after waking.

  He rubbed at his temples in an attempt to concentrate. "Why? Why can't I remember?"

  "Because you're not mortal anymore," said Fate. "Your soul is here now, bound to this realm. Every sunrise draws your past life farther and farther away; one day it will be like hearing some story told to you by someone else and then nothing more."

  He swallowed hard. "What makes you so sure?"

  Fate turned away from the railing and began to move; her robes swept behind her like strands of moonlight. He heard her voice drift back to him-soft yet unyielding.

  "Because I was there once."

  That stopped him dead.

  In fast pursuit, he found her some meters down. "Wait-what do you mean? You...you were a mortal?"

  She turned her head with a sidelong glance, faintly smiling, a smile with some degree of mischief. "Did you think I was born as Fate? That I have always been like this?"

  He hesitated. He had thought so. This woman felt untouchable. Above all things-time, emotion, even death. The thought must have appeared on his face, for she smiled a soft smile then, one not quite reaching her eyes.

  "No, Zephyr. No one is above time. Not even me. All of us-every one of us-are its servant. Its prisoner, sometimes." She sighed, the tone tinged with nostalgia. "I was once human. Just like you. I lived, I loved; I made mistakes. I even tried to run from my own fate once."

  He looked at her, as if suddenly seeing her for the first time. "So how...how did it become this?"

  Fate stood before a tall window, through which the threads of the world shimmered like stars beyond glass. For a long time, she held her peace.

  At last, she spoke. "That's a story I will tell you someday. Just not today. Your real training starts soon, and when it does, I promise I will answer every one of your questions."

  Zephyr quirked his head, glancing back at her again. "When does it start? Because, honestly...I'm bored." That statement had a playful air about it, but underneath was an enormous truth—he wanted direction. He wanted to do something again-something that mattered.

  "Not yet," she shook her head. "Not until your past is truly past. Until your soul totally lets go."

  He frowned. "And how will we know?"

  At that moment, she turned fully to him, her gaze peaceful. "We'll both know."

  There was something final in her voice, but not cold. It was acceptance that bore with it a deep knowing, one forged over centuries of watching others unravel in much the same way.

  Zephyr's eyes slid away from her back toward the mending chamber far off in the distance.

  The past was slipping, drifting into distant shadow. Each time he reached out for it, he felt it draw ever nearer.

  And yet…deep inside him, he knew—

  Something…somebody…was still clinging.

  The Anchorless

  Ronan sat perched on the edge of the cold metal bunk, a dim light hanging from above and casting long shadows across the cracked walls of the bunker. His mind was in chaos, full of everything he had learned - and everything he had yet to learn.

  Ten cards. So-called ten anchor cards. That much was clear.

  But only nine were present here.

  And Marcus...

  Marcus was collecting them for something....

  something Ronan still couldn't piece together.

  Was it power? Control? Protection?

  Whatever it was, he had become obsessed with it.

  But what more than anything kept gnawing at Ronan was how Marcus was sure who possessed which card. Even Ronan himself did not know what his card was-or even if he had one at all. How about Isaac? He never even got one! So why was Marcus so sure they had been the ones?

  How could he be so sure... when we do not even know ourselves?

  The very first step in beginning to understand what they were facing was to start with the others.

  Ronan spent the day striking up conversations casually, one by one, in the pretext of getting to know everyone. He had to be careful not to seem overly curious, but rather just curious enough. Eventually, the conversation went there naturally.

  With ash-burned hands and an intensity in his amber eyes, Theron quietly told him, “Mine’s called The Everflame.”

  Quiet but observant, Lioren then added softly, “I carry the Silent Echo. It’s...hard to explain.”

  Proud and cocky, leaning against the wall, Daxen smirked, “The Blooded Dagger. Fitting, right?” He tapped an invisible blade at his side, laughing darkly.

  Sylas, tall and lean, and unreadable, simply said, “The Chained Abyss.” He said no more, nor did Ronan press him. There was something haunted in this boy’s eyes.

  The girls were more open.

  Selene, dark and stormy gray-eyed, with a fierce energy, claimed, “The Tempest’s Wrath. Beautiful. Terrifying.”

  Averis hardly spoke; she lifted her chin and murmured, “The Hollow Veil.”

  Nyra, shimmering hair, and eyes beyond the moment, told him, “The Gilded Mirage.”

  And finally, Vaela—not an easy one to win over—came out with, “Mine is The Wandering Shadow.”

  Eight cards. Eight names gushing with ancient power.

  Ronan frowned. Nine counting me. So what's missing?

  And he mentally counted again.

  The Seer's Hand.

  The Tainted Crown.

  That's what was missing.

  He clenched his fists. What if someone has the Seer's Hand; perhaps, they'd be able to see which card was meant- for me or Isaac.

  None of them do. And that puts answers painfully out of reach.

  He was still pacing, attempting to disentangle from his mind the knots of questions, when Nyra suddenly appeared at his side, heat wavy shimmer in her eyes.

  "You're troubled," she said softly.

  He didn't deny it. "Of course, I am. Nothing makes sense."

  "I can see your magic," she told him, studying him intensely. "It is locked. Bound by something."

  Ronan stiffened. "What do you mean? Are you sure?"

  Nyra nodded. "I am a master of illusions, Ronan. I know when one is hiding something. Yours is not just imprisoned, but cloaked. Somebody gained ancient magic to hide it."

  "Ancient...as in spells? Herbs?" His next thought was of Seraphine.

  She tilted her head. "Exactly. Not an anchor card. Something older. Wilder. Like someone chose to hide you."

  Ronan's breath hitched in his throat. Exactly what Seraphine had warned him of. That his power lied dormant-protected, or suppressed-for reasons unknown.

  The pieces started to come together, but the image remained blurry.

  He raked a hand through his hair. "I should have stayed behind to hear Flint’s story," he muttered. "He might have known how to undo it."

  Nyra laid her warm hand on his arm. "There may be time still. Perhaps the story will come back to you."

  He met her gaze, surprised at the warmth of her voice. For just a moment, he felt less alone.

  The others had gathered around then, drawn in by his tension, his pacing. Theron, Selene, Daxen, and others sat on the scattered beds and crates, waiting quietly.

  Ronan realized then-he wasn't the only one who was concerned. They all were.

  So he told them.

  Everything.

  Everything he knew-about Marcus, about the cards, about the missing tenth-everything but Isaac. That he was keeping safe as his own secret.

  The room was quiet for a while when he finished.

  Then Theron spoke in a low steady voice, “If Marcus wants these cards for power… what happens to us when he gets them?”

  Averis replied with bitter anger. “We stop being people. We become tools.”

  Nobody disagreed.

  Eventually, the group broke up. They re-entered their room, some sleeplessly staring at the cracked ceiling, others curled in quiet corners, too troubled to sleep.

  Ronan sat alone by the door, thinking.

  Nine cards.

  One missing.

  A hidden magic inside him. And someone-maybe Isaac-who held the key to everything.

  And whatever was coming next... he knew it would not wait forever.

  Remaining Echoes

  Ronan sat against the cold stone wall, watching the other children trooping about the bunker. They were young; some were perhaps too young to be entangled in this mess. Still, everyone carried their cards like a pilgrimage, not heaven blessed. Each one of them now stared at him more often; not out of suspicion, but more out of hope.

  That was tough.

  He was still the oldest among them and hence the leader, although not "officially," not by title. But in every nervous glance, every hesitant question, he could read it-they expected him to do so. To have a plan. To protect them.

  He couldn't even protect himself.

  He pressed his jaw together, trying to force down a wave of guilt that rose like bile in him. They think I'll save them... but I'm the one who needs saving.

  The hours dragged on, weighty and stale inside this bunker, filled with unsaid things. No one came. None of them talked much. Just waited.

  At length, the heavy door creaked open and Gabe stepped in, bearing a metal tray piled high with simple rations-bread, a few dried fruits, and water. His usual stern expression was maintained.

  "What the hell are we waiting for, Gabe?" Ronan tried to sound casual, even a little bored.

  Gabe didn't even look at him. He said something about, "Marcus has made assignments for all of you. We were just waiting for one more to arrive before the games begin."

  He put the eatables down and started to leave.

  "Who do we wait for?" Ronan asked, keeping the question light.

  Gabe couldn't bother to respond this time. He simply walked out and locked the door behind him.

  One more.

  Tightening in Ronan's chest.

  Isaac.

  He hadn't seen him since that masquerade, hadn't been able to warn him. And if Marcus found him before Flint could… Ronan didn't let himself finish the thought.

  He had to believe Flint would keep his promise.

  Soon night fell and one by one the others drifted to sleep. Daxen snored in the corner. Selene curled up with her coat about her like a blanket. Even Nyra, who never slept, lay still with her back against the wall, her fingers twitching now and then as though searching for dreams.

  But Ronan couldn't sleep.

  Outraged thoughts, swirling, making noise.

  Then, softly, gently, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  He jumped, sitting up and reaching for something, anything, in the dark.

  A whisper followed.

  "It's me, Lioren,"

  Ronan eased his hands away as he turned. "Hey," he murmured, turning in such a way that they wouldn't wake anyone else. "What's going on?"

  "I wanted to tell you something," Lioren said, crouching next to him. "Before it disappears."

  Ronan blinked. "Before what disappears?"

  "The echoes," Lioren said, eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight filtering through the ceiling vent. "I can see them. Or hear them. They're like remnants of conversations. Moments that linger. But yours... they're fading fast."

  Ronan's heart skipped. "Mine?"

  Lioren nodded. "Someone's forgetting them. Someone who meant every word. And you... you were part of it."

  Ronan swallowed hard. "What did you hear?"

  "You mean something to me..."

  "I don't care about fate, Zephyr. I care about you."

  "You won't lose me."

  Each of those statements hit Ronan right on his heart.

  Air suddenly felt thin. And a name hung in his mind. Teasingly just beyond Something that almost remembered.

  Zephyr.

  He closed his eyes. That is still a hazy memory, as a dream one cannot quite hold onto... but those words, whoever spoke them, had meant everything.

  All quiet now.

  "That's all that's left," he said quietly. "All other echoes are gone."

  Without thinking, Ronan pulled him into a hug. The boy froze, surprised-but then melted into the embrace, resting his head briefly on Ronan's shoulder.

  “Thanks,” Ronan murmured, the voice thick with feeling.

  He didn't know who Zephyr really was-not yet, but now he knew beyond doubt that his heart hadn't been wrong.

  He hadn't rejected his fated bond out of fear or pride.

  He was waiting. Waiting for someone whose voice had promised he wouldn't be lost. Someone who had once defied fate for him.

  A tear slipped down his cheek.

  Zephyr...

  Somewhere and somehow, Ronan had loved him before. And maybe, just maybe-there was still love inside his heart.