Crimson light sears my vision as the stone chamber fractures around me. The crystal shard pulses against my fingertips, hot as a star yet somehow not burning. I lunge forward, wrapping my fingers around it as gravity shifts and fails. The chamber is no longer collapsing—it's imploding, the walls rushing inward with impossible speed.
Hold tight. Don't let go.
The voice in my head—if it is a voice—seems calmer now, despite the chaos. My body feels weightless, suspended in the center of the disintegrating sphere as the floating symbols around me spiral inward, their blue light merging with the crimson glow of the shard in my hand.
A deafening crack echoes through my helmet as the chamber walls meet the floating symbols. Instead of a crushing impact, there's a sudden flash—like reality itself is hiccuping—and then I'm tumbling through open space, debris from the colossal hand scattering in all directions around me.
My suit's emergency thrusters kick in automatically, stabilizing my spin. Through the clearing dust and fragments, I see the Drifter's Folly still nestled in what remains of the wrist section of the giant hand. That part of the structure has somehow remained intact, though everything beyond it has been reduced to rubble.
Warning lights flash across my helmet display. Oxygen levels dropping. Suit integrity compromised. External temperature fluctuating wildly.
"Computer, remote activation," I gasp, the words catching in my throat as pain radiates from my right hand—the one clutching the crystal. "Prep for emergency departure."
The acknowledgment light blinks in my HUD, and I see the Folly's running lights illuminate in the distance. I fire my suit thrusters again, pushing toward the ship as the debris field continues to expand around me.
Something else is happening to the debris—the fragments aren't just drifting apart but changing. Pieces of luminous stone shift and flow like liquid, their blue glow intensifying before abruptly winking out, leaving nothing but ordinary rock tumbling through the void.
Whatever power animated this place is dying.
I reach the Folly just as my suit's oxygen alert moves from yellow to red. The airlock cycles agonizingly slowly, and by the time I stumble into the main cabin, spots dance at the edges of my vision.
With trembling fingers, I release the seal on my helmet and gulp in the stale but breathable air of the ship. The crystal shard is still clutched in my right hand, its crimson light pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat.
"Computer, get us out of here," I command, collapsing into the pilot's chair. "Maximum safe thrust."
"Warning: Radiation levels outside hull exceed safety parameters," the computer responds. "Recommend—"
"Override! Just go!"
The engines roar to life, and the Folly shudders as it pulls away from the rapidly dispersing debris field. Through the viewscreen, I can see the last remnants of the giant stone hand crumbling into ordinary debris. Within minutes, there will be nothing to suggest it was ever anything but rock.
Nothing except what I'm holding.
Once we're at a safe distance, I engage the autopilot and finally allow myself to examine the crystal shard properly. My hand aches from gripping it so tightly, but when I try to set it down on the console, my fingers refuse to release it.
Not paralysis—something else. As if the crystal doesn't want to be let go.
"Fine," I mutter. "I'll look at you like this."
The shard is roughly the length of my forearm, its shape irregular but somehow deliberate, like a fragment broken along predetermined lines. The material is unlike any crystal I've encountered before—translucent but dense, its deep crimson color seeming to swirl and shift beneath the surface.
And there are symbols within it—similar to those that orbited in the chamber, but these move inside the crystal itself, flowing like scripts written in liquid light. They pulse and change as I watch, forming patterns that almost seem familiar before dissolving into new configurations.
I run a scanner over it, but the readout is nonsensical—energy signatures that contradict each other, material compositions that should be physically impossible, and radiation readings that fluctuate between harmless and lethal from one second to the next.
"What are you?" I whisper.
Core fragment. Essence. Memory.
The voice in my head is clearer now, less like an impression and more like actual words. Not spoken aloud, but forming directly in my mind.
"Memory of what?"
Divinity. Death. Direction.
Each word comes with a flash of... something. Not quite images, not quite emotions, but concepts too vast to fully comprehend. With "Divinity" comes an overwhelming sense of power and purpose; with "Death," a crushing sorrow and sense of absence; with "Direction," a pull toward something distant but crucial.
"Are you... alive?"
Not as you understand it. But not dead. Not yet.
A shudder runs through me. I've scavenged plenty of strange things from the void—ancient technology, religious artifacts, even things that defied classification—but I've never encountered anything that spoke to me. The implications are terrifying.
If this is truly a fragment of divinity, then I'm holding something that could get me killed a hundred different ways. The major powers all have strict laws about divine artifacts—the Celestial Consortium would execute me just for touching it, the Free Systems would dissect it (and probably me along with it), and the Guild would claim it as their property since I found it in their registered territory.
"I should get rid of you," I say, though I make no move to do so. "Drop you into the nearest star and forget I ever found you."
The crystal pulses, its light briefly intensifying.
You won't. You can't.
There's no malice in the words—just certainty. And the worst part is, I know it's right. Whatever this thing is, whatever consequences come with it, I'm already committed. If not out of curiosity or greed, then out of the simple fact that my hand refuses to let it go.
An alarm blares, jolting me from my thoughts. The navigation console is flashing red warnings.
"Computer, status report," I call, turning toward the viewscreen.
"Navigation system malfunction," the computer responds in its flat voice. "Unable to verify current position. Stellar cartography database returning multiple conflicting results."
I frown, checking the readouts. According to the primary navigation system, we're nowhere near the temple debris field. In fact, if these coordinates are correct, we're over three sectors away—an impossible distance to have traveled in the short time since we left.
The secondary systems are even more confusing. One shows us near the outer rim of the Nexus sector, another places us deep in uncharted space, and a third insists we're in the heart of the Celestial Consortium's territory—a place no independent salvager would dare venture.
"Run diagnostics," I order, but even as the command leaves my lips, another alarm sounds.
This one I recognize immediately: proximity alert.
My blood runs cold as I look up at the viewscreen. The void before us is no longer empty. A massive vessel has appeared—seemingly out of nowhere—its sleek hull gleaming with a pearlescent sheen that marks it as Consortium construction. No emissions, no engine signature, no warning. It's just... there, as if it had always been.
And emblazoned across its bow, unmistakable even at this distance, is the emblem of the Celestial Consortium: a golden star encircled by twelve smaller stars, symbolizing the Twelve Divine Houses that rule the largest sector of known space.
"Computer, silent running," I choke out. "Kill all non-essential systems."
"Acknowledged," the computer responds, and the cabin lights dim as the Folly powers down everything except life support and minimal propulsion.
It's a futile gesture. A vessel that size will have detection systems that could spot a mote of dust at a thousand kilometers. They know exactly where I am. The only question is why they haven't already locked on with their weapons or deployed their hunters.
The crystal in my hand pulses more rapidly now, its crimson light casting eerie shadows across the darkened cabin.
Hide. Must hide.
"I'm trying," I hiss through clenched teeth. "But there's nowhere to go."
Not you. Me.
Before I can process what that means, the crystal's light flares blindingly bright. Pain lances up my arm—not like a burn or a cut, but like something forcing its way into my flesh at the molecular level. I try to scream, but my throat constricts as the agony intensifies.
I look down in horror to see the crystal melting, its solid form liquefying and flowing across my palm like mercury. But instead of dripping onto the floor, it seeps into my skin, the crimson light tracing the paths of veins and arteries up my wrist and forearm.
I fall from the pilot's chair, convulsing as the pain spreads. Through tear-blurred eyes, I watch the last of the crystal disappear into my palm, leaving no mark on the surface—but beneath the skin, my veins glow with that same crimson light, pulsing in rhythm with my racing heart.
"What... have you... done?" I gasp, my voice barely audible over the roaring in my ears.
Protected us both. Temporary. Sorry for pain.
The apology does nothing to diminish the agony coursing through me. The crimson light travels up my arm, spreads across my chest, and begins extending toward my neck and head. Where it passes, my skin feels both burning hot and freezing cold, stretched too tight across my bones yet somehow insubstantial as mist.
A new sensation begins—like thousands of tiny needles pricking along the pathways of light. I manage to roll up my sleeve with my left hand and watch in mingled fascination and horror as symbols begin to etch themselves across my skin. Not scars or burns, but glowing marks that shift and change even as they form, similar to the symbols I saw in the chamber and within the crystal itself.
The proximity alarm wails again, more urgent this time. The Consortium vessel is moving closer. Through the haze of pain, I realize that I'm out of time.
I try to stand, to reach the controls, to do something—but my body no longer responds to my commands. The room spins around me as I collapse to the deck, the crimson light now spreading across my face and into my eyes, filling my vision with swirling patterns of ancient script.
The last thing I see before consciousness fades is the massive silhouette of the Consortium vessel filling the viewscreen, its docking bay opening like the maw of some celestial predator.
The last thing I feel is the symbols completing their circuit across my body, connecting into patterns that pulse with power and purpose.
The last thing I hear is not the computer's warning or the proximity alarm, but the voice in my head—clearer now, almost compassionate:
Rest. When you wake, we begin.