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The glass beneath them no longer lay still. It started to shift in the way light moved across it. Reflections bent and stretched, as though the surface could not decide what it was meant to hold. The deeper violet glow ahead pulsed faintly, each beat syncing with the pressure in Maia’s chest.

She swallowed as she stared at it, refusing to reveal her fear.

“We keep moving,” she said, but her voice trembled too much to convey any certainty.

The path narrowed again as it curved upward, the cliff dropping sharply away to their left. Below, the sea had vanished into darkness, swallowed entirely by the strange light above. There was no horizon anymore. Only the Fracture.

The horse took another step, but then stopped completely. It let out a sharp, panicked sound, jerking its head back.

“Easy…” Maia began, but the animal reared slightly, hooves striking against the glass with a brittle, splintering crack.

The ground shifted again. The surface beneath them rippled, the glass softening for a single, impossible moment, like something half-liquid beneath their weight. Maia’s stomach dropped.

“Off,” she said quickly. “We need to get off the horse. Now.”

Julen didn’t argue. They slid from the saddle just as the horse stumbled sideways, nearly losing its footing. Maia grabbed the reins, trying to steady it, but the animal fought her grip, wild-eyed and shaking.

“It won’t go further,” Julen said.

He was right. The horse backed away, pulling against Maia’s hold until she let go. For a moment, it stood there, trembling, and then it turned and bolted down the path, vanishing into the curve they had just climbed.

Neither of them tried to stop it. An expectant silence quickly followed.

Julen let out a breath. “We should turn back, right? Maia?”

Maia didn’t answer. Her gaze had fixed on the ground ahead.

The glass was clearer here, less glittering. Smooth. It stretched forward in a wide, uneven plane, rising toward the source of the light, the purple glow even brighter.

And beneath it, something moved, slow and indistinct. Maia took a step forward before she realised she was doing it.

“Maia—”

“Wait. I see something.”

The movement below the surface shifted again, like something turning in its sleep. Light bent around it, distorting its shape, making it impossible to define. She looked behind her to make sure it wasn’t a reflection, but there was no one in the vast twilight but her and Julen.

The movement was beneath.

Julen moved closer to her. “We go around it.”

“There is no around, Julen. We have to go over it. We have to.”

The path didn’t branch anymore. It led straight ahead, across the glass. The pressure in her chest tightened again, sharper this time. Her breath caught. It felt… familiar.

“Maia,” Julen said, more urgently now. “Are you mad? We need to—”

The glass rose, as though drawn up from below. The shape within it rose too, elongating, resolving.

Until it stood.

Its form flickered between states, edges phasing in and out of existence. Limbs suggested themselves and then vanished. Its surface was part glass, part shadow, even part water - the light refracting through it in broken angles that hurt to follow.

They both went very still, pulses hammering.

The creature didn’t move towards them; it didn’t need to. The air around it bent. Their bodies warped inward towards it, then were spat back out again.

Maia felt the pull immediately. The ground beneath her feet shifted again, the glass thinning, stretching, as if something were drawing it inward.