CHAPTER 1227: AFFECTION (3).

Someone inside the tear had saved him.

Or something.

A shape flickered at the corner of his vision. Kade spun around.

A woman stood a few meters away, her form shimmering at the edges like heat haze. Her hair drifted upward as if underwater, long white strands weightless. Her face was carved sharp, too symmetrical to be mortal. Her eyes glowed faint gold.

He recognized her instantly.

The Watcher who had pleaded with the Fallen to spare the mortals at the Siege of Aurelon. The one who vanished after being struck down. The one the Council declared erased.

"Seren," Kade said. His voice cracked, not from emotion but confusion.

"You were expected," she said quietly. Her words rippled the air.

He stared at her. "Expected by who?"

"By the Tearborn."

Great. Another thing to add to the list of problems.

Seren took one step forward. The ground under her feet brightened. "You stand in the Interstice. A fragment between places. A wound. A prison. A shelter. It depends on who enters."

Kade rubbed his face. "And I’m here because something pushed me out of the tear. Was that you?"

"Not I." Her expression didn’t change. "Something else. A will older than my kind."

"That doesn’t narrow it down," he muttered.

There was movement to their left—small, skittering. Kade tensed automatically, reaching for his blade before realizing it wasn’t on him. Still, his stance shifted. Combat lived in his spine.

A creature emerged from beneath a cracked slab. It resembled a fox if someone carved it from fractured porcelain and filled the cracks with dim light. Its eyes were two small lantern-flames.

It sniffed the air, gave a small chittering sound, then trotted toward him without fear. It nudged his leg once, then looked up expectantly.

"Is it... friendly?" Kade asked.

Seren tilted her head. "Everything here responds to intent. It senses that you have no desire to harm."

Kade raised an eyebrow. "That’s debatable."

"It senses what you are beneath the noise," she corrected.

The porcelain fox circled him twice before sitting, tail curling neatly around its paws. It watched him attentively.

Kade exhaled. "Alright. This is surreal, but fine. Since I’m here—what’s the point? I don’t get thrown across realms just for ambience."

Seren’s eyes flickered. "You are here because the tear spat you out rather than consume you. It is rejecting the Fallen’s design. Something in you is... incompatible with erasure."

Kade frowned. "Meaning?"

"You carry an imprint," she said. "Not of any Watcher. Not of any Fallen. Something older."

Older than Fallen was a short list, and none on it were comforting.

He crossed his arms. "So how do I get back? I have people in danger. My team is probably assuming I’ve been shredded. I need to return."

"The path back requires anchoring," Seren said. "You must stabilize your identity. The tear attempts to dissolve what enters. To leave, you need to assert what you are."

"Which is what?" he shot back.

"That is what you must decide."

The fox let out a sharp sound—like breaking glass—and sprang to its feet. Its tail bristled, cracks glowing brighter. Kade immediately dropped into a defensive angle.

"What now?" he asked.

Seren raised a hand. "Something else has entered the Interstice."

A tremor rippled across the ground. The bone tower groaned and twisted. A new tear split the air thirty paces ahead—a vertical wound peeling open slowly, threads of white energy snapping like frayed nerves.

From it spilled shapes.

Three figures.

Humanoid, tall, wrapped in shrouds of shadow that bled upward into the clouds. Their faces were smooth masks, featureless except for the burning rings where eyes should be.

Kade felt his pulse spike. "Let me guess. Not friendly."

"They are Voidsent," Seren said. "Fragments of the Fallen’s hunger shaped into form. They follow the scent of surviving identity."

"Meaning mine."

He didn’t have a weapon. No blade. Nothing.

But as the Voidsent stepped forward, something shifted behind his ribs—a heat, sharp and sudden, rising like a spark catching fire. His fingertips tingled.

Seren looked at him, eyes widening faintly for the first time. "Ah. So that is the imprint you carry."

Kade didn’t have time to decode that.

The first Voidsent lunged.

Kade moved on instinct, raising his hand. Light burst from his palm—raw, bright, uncontrolled. It slammed into the creature, hurling it backward. The ground cracked under the impact.

He stared at his own hand in disbelief.

Seren’s voice was steady. "You see now? Return is possible. But first, survive."

Kade exhaled once.

"Fine. Then let’s finish this."

The remaining two Voidsent lowered their heads and charged.

He charged back.

The Voidsent rushed him in a skittering blur, all jagged limbs and shadow-wrapped torsos twisting with impossible angles. Kade didn’t think—he let the new heat in his chest surge outward. Light flared along his forearm, searing white, and when the nearest creature leapt, he slammed his forearm across its face.

The impact was like punching a collapsing star.

The Voidsent disintegrated into streams of ash-dark vapor that whipped upward into the dead sky.

Kade stumbled from the recoil, breath ragged. "Still not used to that."

The last creature halted its charge, head tilting in an almost curious manner. It circled him once, silent except for the faint scrape of its talons across the cracked ground. Kade pivoted with it, keeping the glowing fox at his back and Seren in sight.

The Voidsent lunged.

Kade ducked under its arm, felt its claws rake sparks off the stone where his head had been, then drove his fist upward in a rising arc. Light burst from his knuckles, clean and sharp—too sharp. The creature was cut in half in a single flash.

The halves evaporated before hitting the ground.

Then silence.

Silence thick enough to hear his own pulse thudding in his ears.

Seren approached slowly, her feet leaving faint ripples of gold where they touched the bone-white floor. "Your power is unstable, but unmistakable."

Kade shook out his hand. "Feels like it’s trying to tear me apart from the inside."

"It will, if you force it without understanding it." She stepped closer. "But you’ve proven something. The Interstice has judged you coherent enough to defend yourself. That is the first anchor."

He frowned. "And how many anchors do I need?"

"Three."

Kade groaned. "Of course it’s three. It’s always three."

"Because it is the minimum for stability. A triangle does not collapse." Seren turned, looking toward the bone tower. "The second anchor lies with the tower’s core."