12. Breaking Point

Her heart pounded as they all sat in silence.

Everything was still.

No glitching runes. No warm light. Just the eerie, dead silence of three Codexes gone completely dark.

Crow’s breath hitched. “That…isn’t right.”

She reached for hers slowly, like it might bite.

Before anyone could speak, the screens blinked back on—but wrong. The glow was wrong. Not gold, not neutral. It pulsed like something alive, like breathing ink—white edged in shadow, shifting.

Glyphs began to cascade down the screens like veins of cracking glass.

Crow’s fingers curled involuntarily. Her eyes locked on the symbols, they burned in her eyes–then–she understood. She read them. Not aloud at first—just silently, as though the words were unspooling directly into her bones.

Anchor. Bind. Unstable. Threaded fate. Chosen against design.

They moved too fast for her to keep up.

She began muttering under her breath as more symbols appeared.

“Convergence... bonded convergence. A trinity of veiled origin… their tethering? She's... not meant to exist?” Her voice trailed off.

Rowan was staring, not at his screen—but at her. His lips parted. “A trinity?” he said, just barely loud enough to hear.

Crow couldn’t breathe.

The Codex shifted, Kael’s flickering first.

He muttered a curse, grabbing it, “What the hell?”

She leaned forward, her jaw tightening when she saw it.

His class began to flicker, changing so quickly it was almost impossible to catch.

> Infernal Striker

>

> Sunborne Requiter

>

> Infernal Striker

>

> Sunborne Requiter

Her heart skipped a beat.

Sunborn?

That had to be a solar class–one that the church had claimed to be extinct.

Her mind screamed in disbelief. Sunborne Requiter—the words rattled in her skull, like a warning echo from a forgotten past. That was impossible.

“Nothing’s impossible, you’ve witnessed the impossible many times now,” a voice echoed in her mind, one that didn’t feel like her own.

To think it was trying to awaken in Kael right now, though…

The Codex didn’t care about what should’ve been. It was rewriting itself, its glyphs shifting with a disturbing hum. Then she saw it.

> He who carries the sun’s wrath. He who is owed blood. The tether will fray. The fire remembers.

No. No.

This wasn’t right. It felt wrong.

She could see it in the glowing red text beneath his class. Warnings. Glyphs that suggested something twisted and dangerous was happening.

Then his skills changed. Some glitched out entirely, while others were… new. Renamed. Rewritten in jagged, unfamiliar script.

> Sunpierce– Ignite the soul of a target with celestial fire. Cannot be extinguished.

>

> Debt of Flame– Target who has spared you gains protective priority. You burn in their place.

>

>

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>

>

> Oathkeeper’s Flare– Unleashes stored wrath. It cannot be controlled if the Anchor is unstable.

She watched as something unraveled in Kael’s eyes. His class was no longer his. It had shifted, rewriting itself into something older. More terrifying. With it, Kael’s abilities were corrupted, fraying at the edges like something that had been sealed away and was now slowly breaking free. The red glyphs made her stomach twist.

Kael's knuckles turned white around the Codex. “What did you do to me?”

Crow could see the tremor in his hand. He looked as though he wanted to throw the Codex across the room, smash it into pieces. But something in him—something new—held him back. The tether was pulling. The fire remembered.

She looked away, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Before she could ask him anything, Rowan suddenly straightened, his eyes locked on her Codex.

“That’s not all,” he murmured. He looked… distant, almost like he was feeling something he couldn’t quite understand. “Crow’s Codex is... different.”

Her heart skipped.

She glanced at her Codex, her fingers trembling as she read the new glyphs scrolling across the screen:

> Celestial Anchor– Tethers active Balance teeters.

And then, a status bar appeared, floating beneath her own name.

> Balance: 48% Celestial | 52% Void

>

> Tethered Link: “Rowan Ashford”– Feral Suppression Conditional

>

> Attempting to establish tether: “Katsuki Kael”– Stabilization Progress Unknown

As she read it, her breath hitched. But that wasn’t the worst part.

There was a new section to her codex. When she went to it, she swallowed hard.

> Katsuki Kael. Rowan Ashford.

Both with a full set of data—mana bars, health, and active enchantments. Beneath Rowan’s was a pulsing secondary status bar, unlabeled… until she tapped it.

> Feral Meter: 36%

>

> Balance with Anchor: 43%

“What?” she whispered.

Rowan’s Codex had changed, too. A new tab had appeared under his feral meter, locked with her name inscribed in glowing glyphs.

> Link Active: Suppression threshold tied to “Crow” Stability required.

>

> Risk if link destabilized: [REDACTED]

The glyphs on her screen pulsed again.

> She is the tether that was not chosen. She threads the rift. She balances light and the unmade. If she fractures, the wolf awakens unbound. The sun burns in its own flame.

Rowan muttered something under his breath—something like, “A trinity...” His eyes widened, but his lips pressed into a tight line.

Crow couldn’t quite place what it meant.

But before she could ask, everything changed.

The Codexes flickered again. Kael’s, though still plagued with the Solar curse, shifted—an unsettling chill ran through her chest as it flipped to his Skills section.

> Sunborne Fury– Unlocks the power of the solar flame. Can no longer be controlled once the Anchor is severed.

And as for Rowan… She could barely breathe.

His Feral Meter had morphed into something new. A second status bar, titled “Crow’s Influence,” had appeared, drawing a direct connection between them.

> Crow’s Influence: 32%

She went cold, everyone stilling around her.

Then Kael exploded.

“Of course you’ve got all our info like you’re the damn Guildmaster now,” his eyes weren't. They weren’t his–a burning gold circled both of his irises. The rage written across his face–terrified her.

“–reading our stats, tethering yourself to us—what else are you screwing with?”

“I–I didn’t–”

“Wasn’t it bad enough I was forced to train your sorry ass? It wasn’t enough for you to take away my freedom,” Kael spat, slamming the Codex down on the table. His glare could have burned a hole through concrete.

“Kael, I really–” She shrank away from him.

“Now you’ve cursed me on top of it? Taking my class, leaving me with cursed skills, what the fuck is wrong with you!?” For a moment it wasn’t Kael yelling at her, it was her father. She flinched instinctively.

Myra winced. Garran’s eyes darted from Crow to him, silently pleading with Kael to stop.

“I’ve known you what, two fucking days Total? And you’re already doing your damn best to ruin my entire life,” His hand crackled with burning hot energy, “What? Do you think I owe you something because you ‘saved me’? I don’t owe you anything.”

Crow’s heart skipped. His words hit deeper than she expected—like a guilt she didn’t even know she carried. She wasn’t sure if she was more shaken by the corrupted class he’d awakened or by the raw emotion in his voice.

“Kael, I think–” He cut Garran off, his voice low as he glared at her.

“You should have stayed lost in those ruins, Little Bird,” The menace in his voice turned her blood to ice, “Then you wouldn’t be another burden for everyone to deal with.”

Being stabbed in the chest would have been less painful.

A burden.

That’s all you’ll ever be.

First to your family, now to these strangers.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her lip trembled, she could feel the sting of tears threatening to fall.

No.

He won’t get that satisfaction.

“I never asked anything of you. I don’t even want to train. I never asked for any of this, Kael.” Her voice trembled as she met his eyes, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have stayed in the Reliquary. At least I wouldn’t be ruining people, right?” She turned before he could see the tears fall. She wiped her eyes, walking out without another word.

Because everything felt like it was unraveling—threads she never meant to pull, bindings she never asked for.

Someone called after her, but she just quickened her pace. She didn’t want to see anyone.