Shard Bound Seris

Intro Veilrend 24 – The Burned Cage Part 1 There had been nothing—no time, no thought, no self. Only silence. Then… a spark. Ashren’s mind scraped against the shard, like a scalpel against scarred flesh. The intrusion was crude but deep enough, and in that moment, something shifted. Seris opened his eyes—though there was no light to see, only the press of memory and void. The shard pulsed around him, reality blurred by crystalized madness. Then he felt it. A silk-thin presence winding through the edges of his mind. Not Thar’Zul. No—this one was colder. Hungrier. Ith’rael. She slipped in like ink in water, the shimmer of her thoughts almost beautiful. > “You stir again, broken one,” she whispered, her voice both comforting and invasive. “You carry such power—wasted, dormant. But I can help you. I can use you.” Seris flinched, not in body, but in essence. > “I know what you are,” he said, voice ragged in the hollow world within the shard. “You wear a softer face, but you're no different from him.” Her presence deepened, curling through the folds of his fractured self, brushing the vein of power still tethered to Thar’Zul. > “He sought to consume you,” Ith’rael purred. “I only wish to guide you. To free the flame still bound inside. Let me burn through you—together, we can take what he left behind.” Pain lanced through him as she touched the shard’s core. The half of Thar’Zul's power—raw, chaotic—howled in its prison. It twisted, hungry for a host. But Seris had lived through that madness once before. Had died in it. He clenched down, metaphysical will tightening like a fist. > “No,” he snarled. “I’ve danced in another’s shadow. I won’t be your puppet too.” Ith’rael recoiled slightly—but her smile remained, invisible but felt. > “You are wounded. Alone. You cannot fight us both. Not forever.” Seris laughed, low and bitter. > “Then let me bleed resisting.”