LOGIN“It won’t stop screaming.”Ash met them at the eastern border. The grey-silver Source looked thinner. Stretched. Like holding something together that wanted to break apart.“How long?” Lena asked.“Three days. Constant. No breaks. Just terror vocalized.” Ash’s form flickered. “The sound is infecting everything. Animals fled. Plants are wilting. Even the ground feels wrong. Like fear soaked into the soil.”“Where is it?”“Follow the screaming. You’ll find it.”They did. The sound started a mile out. High-pitched. Inhuman. The kind of noise that made your teeth ache and your stomach turn.Finn pressed his hands over his ears. “That’s not just sound. That’s pain made audible.”The fallen thing moved ahead of them. Its form solid now. Purpose-driven. “I know this sound. Above makes it when something breaks the eternal order. This is the sound of existence shattering.”They crested a hill and saw it. The fifth Source.Small. So much smaller than the others. Maybe the size of a large dog. C
“Why do you build things that break?”The fallen thing’s voice cracked like glass grinding against stone. It sat in the grey garden surrounded by trembling flowers, staring at a child’s wooden toy that had split down the middle.Lena picked up the pieces. “Because building teaches us. Breaking teaches us differently.”“That is inefficient. Above, things are built to last eternally. No breaking. No rebuilding. Just permanence.”“Sounds boring.”The thing’s blank face shifted. Features appeared, disappeared, reformed wrong. Two mouths. Three eyes. Then back to smooth nothing. “Boring is not a concept I understand.”“Then you’re learning already.” Lena sat across from it. Three weeks since it fell. Three weeks of questions that made her head hurt. “Boredom is what happens when permanence becomes prison.”The third Source wandered over. Its grey form was lighter now, almost silver in places. Teaching children had changed it. “The fallen one asks good questions. Uncomfortable questions. I
The impact site was three days north. They found it by following the trail of destruction. Trees snapped like twigs. Ground scorched black. A crater half a mile wide punched into earth.At the center, something moved.Not a Source. Not human. Not anything Lena recognized.It looked almost like a person from a distance. Two arms. Two legs. Head. But wrong proportions. Too tall. Too thin. Limbs that bent at odd angles. Skin that shifted between visible and not. Like reality couldn’t decide if it was solid or light.“What is that?” Finn breathed.“I don’t know,” Lena replied. “The silver Source. Do you recognize it?”The silver Source had come with them. Along with Thea and three other silver ones. It stared at the fallen thing.“It is very old,” the silver Source said slowly. “Older than me. Older than the earth maybe. It fell from somewhere beyond. Somewhere Sources do not reach.”“Is it dangerous?”“Everything that falls is dangerous. The question is whether it is hostile or simply br
Lena returned to find the valley changed.The grey garden had doubled in size. Dark flowers covered ground that had been empty. Sculptures of honest struggle dotted the landscape. And at the center, the third Source sat teaching a group of children.Actual children. Maybe ten of them. Sitting around the Source listening to it explain creation.“That’s new,” Finn said when he met Lena at the valley’s edge. “Started three days ago. Parents were terrified at first. Then they saw the Source was gentler with children than adults. More patient.”“Why children?”“It says children ask better questions. Don’t have preconceptions about what Sources should be. Just accept what is and want to understand it.”Lena watched the third Source create a small grey bird for one child to examine. The bird trembled like everything the Source made. But it was beautiful in its honesty. Fear made visible but flying anyway.“It’s evolved past needing constant supervision,” Finn said. “Creates independently now
Word arrived three weeks into teaching the third Source. A runner from the eastern territories, covered in grey dust and fear.“Ash needs help,” the runner gasped. He collapsed the moment he reached Serra’s office. “The fourth Source. It won’t listen. Won’t observe. It’s fighting everything Ash tries.”Serra sent for Lena immediately. She was in the grey garden with the third Source, watching it create a sculpture of struggle made visible. Dark stone twisted like agony but growing upward anyway.“How bad?” Lena asked when Serra explained.“Ash hasn’t sent details. Just a request for backup. Someone who understands teaching better than it does.”“Ash has been gone two months. If it’s asking for help now, things are worse than bad.”“Can you leave? The third Source still needs guidance.”Lena looked back at the garden. The third Source was focused on its creation. Completely absorbed. It had progressed further than expected. Creating without prompting now. Choosing beauty in darkness in
Teaching the third Source nearly broke the silver one.Where Ash had been frustrated but curious, the third Source was simply hungry. It tried to listen. Tried to observe. But every created thing the silver Source made, the third Source wanted to consume. Had to consciously restrain itself from reaching out and absorbing.The effort of that restraint was visible. Its grey form constantly flickering. Reaching toward the garden. Pulling back. Reaching again.“You are struggling,” Lena observed.“Yes,” the third Source admitted. “Hunger is constant. Consumption requires no effort. Restraint requires everything I have.”“That’s what makes it valuable. Easy things don’t build strength. Only hard things do.”“This philosophy is illogical. Efficient paths are superior. Consumption is efficient.”“Efficient and meaningful aren’t the same.”“You repeat this. Yet I do not understand why meaningfulness matters if efficiency achieves the goal.”“What is your goal?” Lena sat across from it. Direct
“What kind of cost?” Kaden asked. His jaw was tight, his hands balled into fists at his sides.Mother Elara didn’t answer right away. She turned back to Kael, her gnarled fingers tracing the black veins that spread across his chest. Where she touched, the veins pulsed brighter, like they were respo
Kaden didn’t think. He charged.His sword cut through the air, aimed straight for the lead witch’s throat. But the blade passed through her like she was made of fog, and suddenly he was stumbling forward, off balance, his boots slipping on the ash-covered ground.The witch laughed. The sound was we
The stallion was dying beneath him.Kaden felt it in the way the animal’s gait had gone uneven, the way foam mixed with blood dripped from its mouth. He’d pushed it too hard, ridden it past exhaustion, but he couldn’t stop. Not yet.Alina was slumped against his chest, her body cold and limp. Every
The light coming from Alina’s palm pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. Gold. Black. Gold. Black.Kaden stared at it, his mouth dry. “What does that mean? Is the baby hurt?”“I don’t know.” Alina’s voice shook. She pressed both hands against her stomach now, and the glow spread, seeping through the







