Chapter 27: Untitled Chapter [0]

  The storm descended without warning, as if the sky itself had turned against the world. Rain slashed through the darkness in silver sheets, cold as ice from the Old Peaks. The wind howled unnaturally like an ancient thing roused from centuries of dreamless sleep. Lightning split the heavens, casting fractured shadows across the land—shadows that moved when they should not.

  Egwene Navaris ran beneath it all, breath tearing from her chest in ragged bursts, her son cradled tight against her breast. His warmth—fragile and fading—felt more precious than her pain, more than the blood spilling freely from the crystal-embedded gash in her side. The black shard jutted from her flesh, its jagged edges burning with chilling fire at every movement.

  The sodden earth clung to her boots with each desperate step, betraying her need for haste. But she would not fall. Not this time. Not while she still drew breath. Not while her son's life ebbed away in her arms. Not when Death had yet to hunt them.

  Branches lashed her face—unknown splinters in the dark—as though the forest itself sought to halt her flight. Yet Egwene pressed on, teeth clenched, eyes fixed on what lay ahead, willing it to be a path. She told herself it was. She needed to believe the world still held order, that space itself had not begun to fold with the coming of the storm.

  No light reached the deep woods of Fanring. Only Silhouettes—trees stacked like prison bars—guided her forward. Her foot struck something solid—bone jarring to sensation but ignored it. Two steps later, she heard the branches she had crushed snap in belated protest.

  'Blasted rain,' she cursed inwardly, blinking against the water streaming down her face.

  "Mother?" Leos whispered against her neck, tiny fingers gripping her soaked robe. The fear in that single word nearly broke her.

  Her focus faltered, but her legs kept moving—leaping between two massive trees under the false belief that the ground remained level. Instead, her body dropped sharply. Instinct took over. Her feet shifted midair, bracing for impact. She landed hard on rough stone with a jarring thud. Egwene let out a strained gasp, biting her lip against the numbing pain that shot through her legs, to her open wounds, and left them trembling. The child in her arms clung to her, gripping tighter.

  'Grath! ' Egwene cursed as she shot up straight. Shifting her eyes left to right, only to find darkness and the more outlined silhouettes. 'Had we fallen into folding?'

  Lightning split the sky again, thunder rolling through the space as if it was hollow and echoing in repeat, drowning neither rain nor forest that seemed to duplicate their sounds. At the instant of flash of light around area, she found herself remained in the forest—but the ground was ladened with many black stones—where dark bark of trees and leaves seemed to have colonized every surface of it—dirt of mud sickly pasted protrusion across the flooring. It was a familiar place—making her turn her head over her shoulder and the lightning struck as if helping her see the dark silhouette of the massive tree just behind her.

  'The space folded again!' She recognized, gritting her teeth. Turning to the front, she began sprinting forward, kicking the dirt off the hard floor. She clicked her tongue, cursing through the gust, "Tharn!"

  The deep woods of the Fanring forest never felt so foriegn to Egwene—she wished it maintained the same spaces that she knew and had grown up with over the years. Clutching tightly her child, her heart racing loudly into her ears. Praying inwardly to the winds they were flowing to the right path—praying to the sleeping gods to guide to the correct path. Somewhere in this godforsaken wilderness was salvation. Hope. There had to be. She had promised to Leos they would find it, and she would die before breaking that promise.

  "Leos, my dearest child— fret not. We are but moments from our destination," she uttered through clenched teeth.

  Empty words, and she knew it well. The shroud of darkness obscured too much of the world around them to offer true comforting hope. Her body cried out in anguish—nerves frozen, yet inflamed by the searing pain that coursed through her blood and set her very core afire. A frigid gust knifed through the air, leaving the skin stinging. Her ears throbbed—and then, muffled, distorted—she heard it: her own ragged breath, the dry swallow of her throat, and the thunderous pounding of her heart. It rang louder than ever before, unnervingly so, as though her body no longer obeyed the quiet order of its function.

  Her steps faltered, slowing in desperate pursuit of a moment's respite—just long enough to quell the thin, insistent, relentless whine, to still the maddening hammering of her heart. Yet before she could steady herself, a strange noise met her from the right: echoing unnaturally loud through the veil of rain, its timbre too sharp, too unnatural—like some mechanical contrivance torn from the tapestry of a world long since passed into dust.

  "Beep-boop."

  The sound emanated hollow yet electric, followed by a voice that no mortal throat could replicate—metallic and artificial, like the chiming of an old artifact activating. "I have discovered traces of the Matriarch—Let us proceed forthwith with our endeavor…"

  Five steps after.

  "Bebep—bop-beep-beep…"

  The same mechanical cadence echoed from above, then, with a breath's delay, from her left.

  "I discovered... discovered…. Matriach… Beep-boop… traces… Discovered Matriarch—Let us... Let us… Bop-beep… continue..."

  The words fractured, overlapped —repeating from all directions at once. Some voices sounded as if they flowed from afar, others whispered far too near.

  'By Tharn! A fold lies near. If they are displaced, they shall cross paths with us!'

  Egwene's eyes widened, panic flooding her limbs as she broke into a desperate sprint. She heeded not her body's cries of agony—this was no place for rest, not with the hunter's voice still echoing through the trees.

  Yet even as the voices rang out once more, they faltered—cut off midway, and every sound vanished into sudden silence. The rain stuttered—halting for the span of a heartbeat before resuming its rhythm, as though the world itself had caught its breath. Then it was quiet. The air shifted—wrapped her skin differently. Her breath stuck to her cheeks, hot humid against the cold dampness of her flesh.

  Something had changed. She felt it in her bones. Egwene slowed, her heavy feet sinking beneath the mushy earth, the wetness seeping through her dirtied leather boot. Lightning split the heavens above her, casting the land in a harsh and ghostly white—but no thunder followed. Not a single roar.

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  'We have returned to our first path… Praise be to the gods—'

  And then she saw it.

  Only for a heartbeat, yet that was enough—the image etched into her sight. A shadowed mouth in the cliffside, half-concealed by the veil of rain and the clutching grasp of thick foliage. Moss and vine had claimed the old stone, spilling from the earth above and threading through ancient cracks in the jagged, natural wall.

  Egwene’s heart surged. Her legs halted, taking their first moment of respite. Her lungs heaved, pressing against her ribs as she gasped, trembling, the cold burning through her chest.

  'It is here—truly here,' she thought. 'Even after millenia… it is still present.'

  "Mother?" Leo's voice startled her back to the present, his small fingers tugging at her collar.

  A strained smile crossed Egwene’s face. She shifted him gently, drawing him nearer—closer to her true arm, the one of flesh and warmth. The soaked fabric clung to her skin, heavy and cold, while dirt gripped their garments like a second skin. The darkness devoured all sight, yet she spoke, her voice low and soothing—each word wrapped in promise, soft as a lullaby.

  "Leos, my dearest child."

  Though the flash of lightning had vanished and left them blind once more, Egwene lowered her lips to his brow and kissed him—softly, tenderly. A moment of joy. A reason. Of hope.

  She whispered, "just a little farther—a little more endurance. We've made it—we are here now."

  She saw little more than shifting silhouettes—shadows dancing in the dark—except when lightning cracked the sky at irregular intervals, painting the world in brief, pallid light.

  As her lips left the child's brow, Egwene reached forward with her arm. She could not feel it—not truly. A weight pulled from her shoulder down, as though the entire limb were made of stone, and icy cold had fastened its fingers around her bicep. The sodden sleeve of her black robe clung to her skin, burdensome and constricting. With a sharp jerk, she attempted to free her ahnd from the soaked frabric that still swallowed most of her fingers.

  At last, with a shudder caused by the sickly sensation of fabric sliding from her wound, her hand emerged. She stretched it forward, trembling slightly, while thoughts tumbled through her mind consciously. 'If not now, then when shall I ever use it? I must no longer treat these matters lightly. One missteps may bring us closer to death for both of us.'

  She bit the corner of her lips, the motion pulling her skin taut beneath the damp cloth. Before her gaze did fleeting visages appear: of the one to whom she had pledged her enduring counsel, their Majesties the King and Queen, her departed lord, the esteemed councilors, her companions, and… above all, the child in her arms.

  A sucession of lightning flashes fractured the sky above—streaking across the expanse like the veins of a fractured world, glimpsed through a shattered looking-glass. Yet no echoing peals did ensue, nor even the soft patter of rain upon the forest's sodden earth. The forceful breath of the wind, the sharp kiss of water against her countenance, each sensation was frigid.

  In the brief span of light, her eyes fell upon an outstretched limb—her own—reaching forward as if attempting to grasp something in the air. Where once flesh had been, now a mechanical arm of metal extended from her frame, gleaming in the harsh light from above.

  Five glack fingers unfurled before her, each joint reflecting with overlapping plates of midnight-colored alloy—curved and crafted with aesthetic in mind. The articulated seams and joints shimmered with a serpentine glow, veins of green light pusling with narrow crevices—like liquid emerald coursing through artificial flesh. Raindrops struck the surface, refracting the glow and twisting the light into fleeting shapes.

  Then the light vanished. The storm reclaimed its darkness. Yet the image lingered, burned into her vision like an afterimage.

  Egwene swallowed, steadying her breath—her lungs tight, her heart a furios drum within her chest. But she did not hesitate. She could not—not here, not with the hunters stalking the veil stalking the veil between spaces and folds. Her lips cracked and parched, parted to utter words long buried in her memories. Words of a language not known to many, not in this time.

  "Command: Establish protocol—connect to GRATA AC-6232."

  Something stirred.

  A subtle vibration thrummed through the mechanical arm, crawling from alloy into flesh. At first, it was warmth—gentle, almost soothing—then it deepened, rolling beneath her skin like a tide rising from the depths of her bones. Her muscles spasmed, twitching from her shoulder to neck, her nerves alight as if strings of flesh were being plucked with internal force.

  It was not merely a sensation—it was communion.

  Her thoughts faltered, overtaken. An alien awareness pressed its presence against her own, not in words nor images, but in sensations—it felt vivid and distinct. She felt the machine: the chill rain striking metal, the tremor of contact, the weight of the existence within the alloy and circuits; it was as though her mind had been drawn into the limb, her consciousness diffused into its mechanism, and speaking back unto her own intellect.

  Then came the voice.

  [Limb of Grata AC-6232 connected to nearby AOB facility. Connection of Temporary Pattern Established.]

  The words echoed in her mind, spoken in her own voice yet wrong—modulated and robotic, distorted as though drowning beneath shallow water. Bubbles of sound rouds, syllables struggling to surface in a coherent way.

  Abruptly, the limb shuddered. The mechanical bones vibrated with unnatural intensity, and the serpentine green glow flared—casting warped, shifting patterns beneath her thick black robe. The light reached through cloth and skin, tracing her veins, illuminating the silhouette of her body from within.

  Her heart seized.

  It pounded once—twice—then shuddered violently, as though something had grasped it from inside, squeezing it with cold grasp. Her chest convulsed. Muscles writhed of their own accord, reacting to signals not born of her will. It was not pain she felt, but the scream of something once dormant now waking—her flesh rebelling, or perhaps adapting, as if becoming something other.

  Her eyes widened. She had expected this—had hoped for it—but centuries had passed since she last uttered those words, since she had heard that voice again. Familiar, yet far too long forgotten. Her throat tightened. She swallowed hard once more, then slowly closed her mechanical hand.

  Despite how foreign the limb felt—how it pulsed like a parasite feeding on her blood and energy—Egwene bit her lip, pressing through the discomfort. This pain, this sacrifice… it was necessary. She spoke again:

  "COMMAND. Established Foundation Light Array for Spatial fractures of the surroundings. I want the shortest navigation to the nearby Vessel AOB Facility."

  The mechanical arm buzzed in response.

  Then, lightning split the sky once more—an explosion of light and pressure that echoed through her body, not her ears. She flinched as the sound reverberated through the limb, translated into tactile memory, felt rather than heard. It shook her to her core—too close. Far too close.

  The flash faded. Darkness returned.

  But the arm responded.

  Green light bled through the crevices of her robe, leaking out like veins of raw energy, until thin beams shot outward. They pierced the rain, carved through the dark, scanning the world. Countless rays extended, fanning out across her surroundings.

  Then, as if reaching the limit of their perception, they halted—suspended mid-air in a vast, invisible perimeter. Dozens of beams formed a wall of emerald light in the distance, a lattice of radiant lines fencing the world like a barrier.

  Egwene turned, eyes tracing the walls of emerald light. To her left and behind, the lattice fractured—splintered like panes of shattered glass suspended midair. And then she noticed it: a single golden thread, thin as hair and gleaming like firelight, coiled gently around her wrist.

  Her breathing hitched as she watched it pulsed once—warm against her skin—and tugged, guiding her gaze forward. A flash of lightning split the sky again, revealing the golden thread unraveling into the dark, weaving toward the cliffside crevice she had seen earlier. It ran straight—through the wall of green light.

  She swallowed. 'So it’s safe—'

  The realization hit her like a blow to the chest. Her breath caught. Her eyes widened. 'They'll come soon—' the thought screamed through her mind like a siren. She clenched her jaw, then slammed her foot against the earth, launching herself forward. Following the golden thread of light.