Chapter 2 The weight of the stone

The morning dawned shrouded in mist, as if the Broken Mountains were breathing silently, hiding secrets among the cliffs. Asha awoke with a start, still feeling as if she had dreamed of talking fire, of ashes weeping forgotten names.

Kael was not on his cot.

She sat up immediately, searching the shadows. The exiles were still asleep, and only a few silhouettes walked among the stone shelters that served as their refuge. The scent of damp earth and ash floated in the air. She stepped outside without fully putting on her shoes, feeling the sharp cold bite her feet.

She found him a few meters from the edge of the cliff, his back to the abyss. Kael's head was bowed, his petrified arm dangling like a dead branch. It was more than a crust of obsidian: it now reached his shoulder, with gray veins extending across his neck and collarbone. His skin seemed to crystallize, becoming part of the inert surroundings.

Asha approached quietly. She didn't want to frighten him, but she didn't want to pretend everything was okay either. The weight of her own breathing ached in her chest.

"I haven't slept," Kael murmured before she spoke.

Asha swallowed.

"Has it gotten worse?"

Kael raised his left hand-the still human one-and nodded. When he turned to her, Asha noticed a thin, stony line across his cheek, like a scar frozen in the midst of transformation.

"I couldn't move my fingers last night," he said, looking down at his right arm. "I felt like they didn't belong to me. Like... like they weren't part of me anymore!"

"Don't say that," Asha retorted immediately, too quickly, too broken.

"It's the truth."

Silence fell like a slab between them. Only the distant whisper of the wind and the occasional rumble of a loose stone broke the stillness. Asha felt a pang of helplessness. She had held life in her hands, revived dead memories, lit nodes with her fire... but she didn't know how to save it. She didn't know how to stop what Kael was losing.

"Lirien believes the ash heart you carry is linked to you," Kael said, as if reading her thoughts. "That as long as you keep it, my transformation will be slower. But it will not stop."

"We don't know that yet," Asha replied, her voice firmer than she felt.

Kael didn't answer. He just stared at her with those eyes that were still human, but growing more distant. Asha thought of the first time she had seen him, in the temple corridors, when he had been her jailer and she had been a prisoner with a hidden tongue. So much had happened since then, and yet there they were: the same, but no longer.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, barely a whisper.

Kael shook his head.

"It's not pain. It's absence."

That word chilled her blood.

He reached out with his left hand to her, and Asha took it immediately. His touch was still warm, still him. She clung to that humanity like someone holding a memory she doesn't want to let go.

"We won't let you get lost," she said decisively. "We'll find the fragments, we'll reactivate the nodes. Something in all this must make sense."

"Perhaps. But you must prepare yourself," he said gently. "In case that moment comes. In case I cease to be me."

Asha pressed her lips together, holding back the answer that burned in her throat. She didn't want promises of death. Not now. Not while they were still breathing the same air.

They returned together to the shelter, where Lirien was already awake, tracing lines on the rock with natural pigments. Seeing them, she stood, assessing Kael with a look that wasn't sympathetic, but practical.

"How far has he gone today?"

"Shoulder and neck," Asha said bluntly.

Lirien nodded. This wasn't a surprise. Just confirmation of the inevitable.

"We'll need the Children of Broken Fire. Their knowledge of mineral memories may be useful. There are ancient records of living obsidian. Perhaps it was once used by the Keepers as restraint... or punishment."

"You mean they did it on purpose?" Asha asked, feeling rage boiling inside her.

"I don't know yet. But if that shard is linked to you, and Kael is protecting it, he may be absorbing some of the fire. As if channeling what you can't fully hold."

Kael said nothing. He just sat near the fire, staring into space. Asha noticed that she wasn't touching anything with her petrified arm, as if afraid of breaking what was still fragile.

"There's a new rift near the Valley of Noise," Lirien said after a pause. "The old women say it may be the gateway to a sealed memory. Perhaps it holds more answers... or warnings."

"We'll go," Asha said before Kael could speak.

"Asha..." he murmured.

"No. We're not going to stay here waiting. If there's something in that rift, something that tells us how to help you, then we'll go."

Lirien nodded. The decision had been made.

That night, Kael finally fell asleep, his arm turned to stone resting in his lap. Asha watched him silently, the embers of the fire illuminating his face with a flickering light. The stone seemed to advance more at night, when the body yielded to stillness. As if waiting for carelessness to claim more territory.

Asha left the tent. Lirien was sitting on a rock, watching the stars, drawing with a piece of charcoal on a spread-out map.

"And if we don't get there in time?" Asha asked bluntly.

"Then you will do what you came to do," Lirien replied without looking at her. "And he will have fulfilled his purpose."

"And what is that purpose? To become a statue?"

"To become a vessel. A living relic. Something the Keepers feared so much they tried to bury. Kael is more than flesh. He is memory. And you are fire."

Asha clenched her fists. She wanted to scream at her, to shake her, but she knew Lirien wasn't speaking from cruelty, but from a broader, colder, and more ancient perspective.

"What if I don't want to be just fire?"

"Then you must decide when to burn... and when to resist."

The wind carried with it the murmur of a distant rumble. A crack opening, perhaps. Or a node awakening.

Asha looked up at the sky. The stars no longer seemed indifferent. They burned with the same promise she held in the palm of her hand: the shard of ash, still warm, still alive. Still waiting to be whole.

She knew Kael was changing. That time was running out. But she also knew that every step toward that crack was a step toward something deeper than stone. Something that could perhaps save him.

Or lose them both.