The bridge was fading. Not a metaphor, but a tangible reality, a thin layer of cracked cobblestones dissolving into nothingness, particle by particle, like sugar in water. Below, where the river should have been, stretched the Void, an infinite expanse of pulsating darkness, speckled with dead stars and echoes of worlds that no longer existed. Lior, seventeen years old, clung to the last fragment of solid stone, the wind of non-being whistling in his ear.
He was a world cartographer, though his map was now a canvas of disintegration. As The Eye of the Real, Lior could see the cracks, the scars the Void left as it bit into reality. And this one, this was an open wound, one that threatened to swallow the Realm of Aethel, a fragment of existence barely holding on.
He pulled the Memory Quill from his belt, a burnished silver stylograph whose inkwell contained iridescent ink: pure ether. The feel of the cold metal in his hand was an anchor in the chaos. With a deep breath, Lior raised the quill. He wasn't drawing on paper, but on the very fabric of the air, on the reality that was unraveling. He traced an arc, a luminous line that stretched from his position to the fragment of land on the other side, a rocky promontory that still resisted the onslaught of nothingness.
The ether ink glowed, and the arc gained a temporary consistency, a solid light bridge that defied dissolution. Lior took the first step, his boots resonating on the ephemeral surface. Each step was a battle against the inertia of the Void, an affirmation of existence. He crossed the abyss, feeling the vibration of the ether beneath his feet, the power of the Void licking at his heels.
Upon reaching solid ground, the arc of light dissolved behind him, and Lior stopped, exhausted. The scar on his palm, a dark, deep spiral, throbbed with a familiar pain. It was the mark of his power, the stigma of his abandonment. A forbidden experiment by the Arcons – the mage-engineers who wove and controlled reality – had fractured the veil between planes. Lior, a child prodigy with a strange affinity for the spaces between worlds, had been marked to "seal" these fractures. But in the process, he became trapped outside, disconnected from the normal flow of mortals, a ghost on the edges of the real.
He bent over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. The air of Aethel, though dense with the proximity of the Void, was real. He looked up at a puddle of stagnant water, a temporary mirror of his face. His reflection was clear, but as he watched it, he saw something. An image. The face of his younger sister, smiling, her eyes bright. A memory. A memory that, as he watched it, dissolved like ink in water, blurring, losing itself into nothingness.
A sharp pain, not physical, but in his soul, pierced his chest. The Memory Quill. Each use of it, each trace that allowed him to navigate the cracks, stole a fragment of his own life: a memory, a dream, a connection. It was the price. A price that hurt him more than nothingness itself. He had been abandoned by his family, and now, the Void was stealing the last vestiges of what he once was.
Suddenly, the air turned cold. From the Void, from the cracks still opening in the sky, figures emerged. Ethereal Guardians. They were not creatures of flesh and blood, but entities of shadow and distorted light, their forms shifting, their eyes empty. They were the sentinels of nothingness, drawn by the intrusion of the real.
The Guardians moved with unnatural speed, their ghostly claws extending. Lior lunged forward, his Memory Quill already in hand. He couldn't fight them directly; they were incorporeal, manifestations of the Void. But as The Eye of the Real, he could see the fissures in their very essence, the points where their reality blurred.
He traced a quick line in the air, not an arc to cross, but a series of curves and angles that deflected a Guardian's trajectory. The creature disintegrated for an instant, reforming a few meters away, confused. Lior repeated the movement, dodging another attack, his body moving with forced grace, each trace a pang in his memory.
The immediate conflict was clear: survive. But his main objective was even more pressing. He had to find the Wandering Tower, the Arcons' flying fortress, which peregrinated over the fractured realms. Only there would he find the Heart of the Real, a living crystal that anchored the worlds. If he failed, if the fracture grew, Aethel and all other fragments of reality would collapse upon each other, plunging into the Void.
The Ethereal Guardians regrouped, their forms distorted by fury. Lior felt the hum of the Void intensify, the Song of the Void whispering in his ear, offering him surrender. But the fading image of his sister's face, the pain of that loss, ignited a spark of resistance within him.
He couldn't lose himself. He couldn't let nothingness consume him. He had to find the Wandering Tower. He had to steal the Heart of the Real. And he had to do it before the fracture grew and left a realm submerged in oblivion. His journey, that of the last guardian of the real, had just begun.