Chapter 5: The Fractured Light The morning after the storm felt wrong. Not quiet—never quiet—but hollow, as if the world had exhaled and forgotten how to breathe back in. Lily stood at the edge of the broken bridge, staring at the river below. The water still carried fragments of last night’s magic: faint glowing threads drifting under the surface like memories refusing to sink. Behind her, the village was already rebuilding. Too fast. Too practiced. As if destruction was something they had learned to expect. “You shouldn’t be here.” The voice came from her left. Kael stepped out from the tree line, cloak damp, eyes sharper than before. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all. “I need answers,” Lily said without turning. “You always do.” That wasn’t an insult. It sounded like regret. A gust of wind passed between them, and for a moment, the river below shimmered brighter—responding to something unseen. Kael noticed it too. “So it’s starting again,” he murmured. Lily finally looked at him. “What is starting?” He hesitated. That hesitation mattered more than any answer. “The fracture,” he said at last. “The thing your mother tried to seal.” The name hit harder than she expected. Her mother had always been a story people avoided finishing. A protector, a traitor, a myth—depending on who was speaking. “I thought she died stopping the dragon war,” Lily said. Kael gave a faint, humorless smile. “That’s what they let you believe.” A distant roar rolled across the mountains. Not thunder. Something older. Lily’s hands tightened. “Then where is the dragon now?” Kael looked toward the horizon, where the sky was beginning to split with faint silver lines—like cracks in glass. “Waking up,” he said. “And it won’t wake alone.” The river beneath them pulsed once. And for the first time, Lily understood— this wasn’t the beginning of a new chapter. It was the moment everything old started breaking again.