prior | toc | next
|| last time ||
Thane sits through a brutal conversation with his mother and doctor, who confirm his illness is worsening. After lashing out and leaving his mother in tears, he retreats to his room and escapes back into Arbelon through his VR headset.
Chapter 3 - All Good Things…
Darkness.
The lingering hum of the VR headset faded into silence, leaving Thane suspended in the void. But the stillness wasn’t empty—it was oppressive, an inescapable weight pressing down on every corner of his life. His breathing felt distant, shallow, his pulse an uneven rhythm echoing in his ears.
Then, in a flash, the darkness began to dissipate, faint sparks of light darting in and out of his peripheral vision. Cracks split the void, jagged and unrelenting—dragging him forward whether he wanted it or not.
And suddenly, there he was.
The hum of Arbelon’s magic struck him like a live wire—melodic, but too sharp, too alive after the oppressive silence of the void. It thrummed deep in his chest, an alien pulse that refused to sync with his own.
His vision sharpened quickly, the Sanctuary coming into focus. The glow of the runes burned brighter after the void, the air heavy with the scent of incense and an almost palpable energy that seemed to pulse from the stone walls themselves.
He stood exactly where he had left, the vines tracing across the walls with a soft glow. For a moment, the serenity of the place seemed to envelop him like a blanket.
But something felt off.
The ground beneath him seemed to hum faintly, a subtle vibration just at the edge of perception, alive and restless. The light from the walls flickered—imperceptibly at first, then enough to make the room feel like it was holding its breath, waiting.
His stomach churned, his balance faltering as though the ground beneath him had shifted. The disorientation settled in deep, feeding the unease already curling in his chest. He shook his head, trying to clear the feeling, but it clung tight. The silence wasn’t silent, and the calm felt like a lie. He raised a hand to his temple, gritting his teeth as the storm inside him swelled, threatening to break free.
“Chosen One.”
The voice broke through his haze, calm and even.
Thane turned, blinking to refocus. Chosen One? Fuck that. He was only chosen for one thing—dying. Dr. Hughes had just made that crystal clear. So if he was going to burn out, he’d make damn sure he wasn’t the only one taken to ashes. He’d give them a prophecy to remember.
The priest who had healed him was already watching, rising slowly from where he had been kneeling. His movements were careful, measured. His face was lined with wisdom—or maybe just time—but his gaze held the weight of expectation.
“You carry a heavy burden,” the priest said, his voice reverent but measured. “Peace comes when you stop fighting the inevitable.”
Thane’s breath slowed, his body going rigid. The words slammed into him, ringing with the same quiet, practiced finality of Dr. Hughes—of his mother’s exhausted smile—of every empty reassurance that he was supposed to accept his fate like a good little patient. Even here, his disease was inevitable. It was inescapable, written in the way people looked at him, spoke to him. It clung to his ribs like a sickness, poisoning his every thought before he could shake it loose.
“Right. I’ll make sure they put that on my gravestone,” Thane muttered, his voice thick with sarcasm. Like he hadn’t heard the same empty bullshit a thousand times before. He refused to look at the priest. He hated the way people in Arbelon spoke, like their words could change anything.
Fine. If this world wanted their Chosen One, he’d make sure he was one they’d never forget.
The thought settled in his chest like a stone. Heavy and final. A slow breath pulled through his teeth, but it didn’t cool the heat crawling up his spine. He could still feel the priest’s gaze, waiting, expecting. It made his skin crawl.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement—Lirien. Studying him intently.
He set his jaw, forcing himself not to react, but the weight of her gaze pressed against him, unwelcome and unrelenting. He didn’t need another set of eyes crawling over him, another reminder that he was always under a microscope. The tension from their last exchange lingered, and he made a point not to look at her for long.
Instead, his gaze was pulled to the low altar behind him, where the priest had prayed over him. He wasn’t sure why—he just knew he couldn’t look away. Something about it drew him in, like it had been waiting for him to notice it. As he stepped closer, the faint carving on the flat surface came into focus. At first, it seemed abstract—just an ornamental design. But as he tilted his head, the shape became clearer, more deliberate.
It wasn’t possible.
His breath caught, his pulse spiking. That symbol. It was carved into the altar, right in front of him—the Broken Circle. The same one from his VR system. The same damn one. He took an unsteady step back, heart hammering.
His first instinct was denial—coincidence, a trick of the light. A mistake. It had to be. But the longer he stared, the less possible that became. The carving was deliberate. Precise. This wasn’t random. His stomach twisted, unease curling into something sharper as his hand hovered over the carving, his fingers trembling as they traced the edges of the symbol. Even here, the world he left behind clung to him, tightening its grip. Waiting. Watching. Laughing at him from the dark.
A voice came from nowhere, unbidden, slipped into his mind like a shadow. Its words sharp and insistent.
“Do you see it? They’ve marked you. You’re nothing but a piece in their game.”
A cold shudder rippled down his spine—eyes darting, searching for the voice that wasn’t there. They’d come to him in stealth, but they weren’t just words. They were certainty—a truth he’d been avoiding since the moment he arrived.
The moment stretched, the symbol beneath his fingertips pulsing with recognition. Then, pain. A sharp, phantom sting shot through his fingertips, and he jerked his hand back as if the carving had come alive beneath his touch.
“What the hell is this?” Thane snapped, his voice raw with disbelief. His hands clenched into fists. “Why is this here? Who put it here?”
The priest’s expression didn’t change. “It has always been there. It’s your symbol. The symbol of the Chosen One.”
The words only made Thane’s stomach twist further. ‘Your symbol’—what a joke. He turned sharply, his fists clenching harder, his frustration boiling over. The tension in the room thickened, pressing against him—the faint hum of his Wild Magic stirred in the air around him, subtle but growing.
That voice unfurled again.
“They heal you to use you. They bow to you to bind you. And when they are done, they will break you. Unless you break them first.”
Then it was gone, slipping into the silence, but the words remained, lodged in his mind like a splinter.
The priest, noticing the tension radiating from Thane, dropped to his knees in prayer. “The path is set, and only you can walk it. It demands sacrifice, but the prophecy speaks of your strength. Your endurance. No one else can bear this weight.” His words were soft, pleading, yet edged with conviction.
“You owe them nothing.” The whispering voice in his head retorted sharply.
Lirien, however, stepped forward, closing the distance between them with a cautionary resolve. She stopped before Thane, her gaze sharp but not hostile. She hesitated, her gaze flicking to the tension in his shoulders, noticing the way his hands trembled.
And then she made her choice.
With slow, deliberate steps, she sat him on the raised pedestal and reached into a small satchel, pulling out a cloth. Gently, she wiped the dirt from his brow.
Her actions were quiet, almost reverent, and for a moment, they felt like an anchor in the chaos. But that anchor came with a weight he didn’t want to carry. The tenderness in her touch was too much—it mirrored something he couldn’t bear to see. It broke him.
In Lirien’s hands, in her eyes—he saw his mother. Desperate. Trembling. Clinging to hope that wasn’t real. Trying so hard to fix what couldn’t be fixed. He felt her quiet heartbreak, her exhaustion, and the weight of her forced smile as she pretended everything would be okay while knowing deep down that he was slipping away. It all came rushing back, crashing over him like a wave.
The pain, the helplessness, the sheer injustice of it all. He wasn’t her son anymore; he was her burden. And here, in this place, it was no different. He would never let anyone get that close enough to be a burden again. He was done watching other people break for him. Whatever time was left, he was in it for himself from now on.
“No one will suffer for you again,” the voice said, feeding the thought, twisting it into certainty.
Thane staggered back, his breath quickening as the Wild Magic surged, the symbol of the Broken Circle seared in his mind. It wasn’t just a mark—it was a chain. The air grew heavy, thrumming with an unnatural pulse, the very walls seeming to vibrate with the pressure of it. His vision blurred at the edges, light distorting, as if reality itself couldn’t decide whether to hold together or shatter around him. But it wasn’t just magic. It was everything he’d swallowed, everything he’d lost—roaring to be set free.
The voice returned, insidious and undeniable.
“Show them what power really is.”
The voice was no longer a whisper—it was a force, wrapping around his thoughts like a noose. The anger was already there, already burning. It just needed to be set free.
“Burn it. Let them feel what you feel. Destroy it all.”
Those words echoed his truth. He’d known it the second he set foot back in this world. The second he saw them. This was always how it had to end. There was no stopping it, no turning away from what had already begun. His rage had sunk too deep, fusing with the magic. With a final, violent twist, something inside him broke—shattered beyond repair.
He let it all go.
For a moment, the world held its breath.
And then—everything ignited.
A surge of raw energy ripped loose, fractures spiderwebbing outward in an unstoppable chain reaction. The vines lining the walls curled inward before disintegrating, their glow extinguished in a heartbeat. Light and shadow folded and bent, twisting in impossible directions as the magic scarred everything in its path.
With a sudden intensification, a raw, searing pulse detonated through the Sanctuary, rupturing stone, air, and bone in a fraction of time. The walls reduced to rubble, the stained-glass windows shattered outward, shards spinning through the air like razors. The Sanctuary unraveled as if it had never existed.
And then—the screams began.
But they only lasted a heartbeat. The screams, the heat, the ruin—gone.
Blurred into nothing.
The villagers never stood a chance. The force of the explosion tore through flesh, shattered bone, deleted them from existence in an instant. Stolen from life by something beyond their comprehension. The priest’s voice—once so full of hope—was silenced by the roar of destruction, consumed by an unrelenting storm of Wild Magic.
Thane didn’t move. Didn’t react. He stood at the center of the chaos, breath ragged, hands still outstretched as if he had literally torn reality apart with his bare fingers. His pulse thundered in his ears, the sound of his heartbeat drowning out the utter destruction surrounding him. Everything burned—not with fire, but with raw energy, smoldering as if the magic itself had sunk too deep to ever be undone.
And then—stillness.
The tempest of power collapsed in on itself, like a black hole. Reality reasserted itself, uncaring, untouched by the ruin left behind. But now, the Sanctuary was gone.
No walls, no glowing pool. Just ruin, smoldering where it had once stood.
And the village? Not destroyed—erased. Buildings reduced to splinters, the cobbled streets now a scar of molten stone still hissing from the magic’s heat. The air was thick with the stench of charred earth. But beneath it, something lingered. Something foul and corrupt.
Thane staggered, the adrenaline draining as the full weight of what had happened settled onto him. He exhaled, a trembling, unsteady sound. His hands were shaking. The realization crawled through him, slow and insidious.
This wasn’t just an outburst.
This wasn’t just rage.
This was annihilation.
He had wiped out this place.
All of it.
Every stone, every street—every heartbeat.
Gone.
He pulled in a breath, trying to shake himself from the numbness of it all.
And then his eyes landed on the one thing left standing.
Lirien.
Turning sharply, his vision was swimming. She was still standing next to him. Her clothes were singed, her skin marked with streaks of soot, but she was alive. She was the only one. She hadn’t moved. She hadn’t run.
And now she just stared at him, face unreadable, mouth parted as if to speak—but nothing came. Her fingers trembled, curling into fists at her sides. Her whole body shuddered, as if it couldn’t decide whether to fight or collapse.
Thane’s stomach twisted violently, but he shoved it down, the way he had learned to. The way he had to.
Somehow, she had survived. But the others? There were no others.
A strangled sound caught in her throat, but she didn’t cry. Her lips parted slightly.
No words came.
She staggered, knees buckling, her breath coming too short, too fast—then, something inside her caved, collapsed under the weight of it all. Not in pain. Not in fear. But in realization—the kind that rewrites a person. The kind that carves something out of you, leaving only emptiness behind.
“Gods,” she whispered. But it wasn’t a prayer or a plea to a greater power. It was now just a single, broken word.
Thane swayed on his feet, widening his stance in response. His fingers twitched at his sides, still tingling, but the sensation felt distant—like it belonged to someone else. His pulse reverberating in his skull, his vision too blurred to anchor him. He wasn’t here. Not really. Just a shadow caught between two worlds.
Something warm traced the curve of his lip. His fingers found it absently, pressing into the wetness. Thick and slick—his mind caught up a second later—and red.
Not—no. Not now.
The dizziness hit. Hard. There was no fighting it. His senses flickered in and out. The scent of scorched air. The whisper of wind through the ruins. The hum of something deep inside him—fading. His limbs felt untethered, like he might blow away if he let go.
The world pitched sideways, the ruins twisting into a smear of color and shadow. Lirien was still there—still kneeling, still staring—but she was drifting, receding, like something was pulling him away from her.
He tried to hold her in his gaze, but he couldn’t.
The ground lurched beneath him. His body jerked, convulsing into violent spasms. His vision fractured—light and shadow splitting at the seams.
Lirien didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. She just watched as he fell, her face carved from stone, her fists clenched at her sides, nails pressing into her palms. She didn’t just look at him. She judged him. Silent. Unforgiving.
Thane had already slipped away. His mind blanked. His body dropped.
And then—nothing.
prior | toc | next
Stay in the party
Subscribe (free) for new chapters.
Prefer to binge like a loot goblin?
This is book 1 of a completed duology, so if you’d rather grab the whole book and vanish into Arbelon right now:
Book 1: no extra lives → Amazon | My Author Site
Book 2: the final save → Amazon | My Author Site