Chapter 11: The First Fracture
The Arcfield near Derin's Bough had stood for over three centuries. One of the first to be raised in Nethra after the Root Accord, it hummed like a permanent storm above the moss-shrouded city. Its purpose was simple: stabilize card interactions and suppress ambient Arcflow that might corrupt lesser users. Every district had one. Most citizens passed it daily without a second thought.
But this morning, the Arcfield hummed differently.
Aleister didn't notice at first. He had slept poorly, haunted by the image of the hooded woman and her words: "Every card is a muzzle. Every glove is a gate." His card still vibrated faintly, resonating with the echo of that forgotten message. He tried to ignore it. Tried to be normal, to slip unnoticed through the lower canopy markets.
But nothing about him was normal anymore.
He had wandered close to the Arcfield without meaning to. It pulled him like gravity, like a tide. He stood beneath it, head tilted up to the crackling dome of light. Lines of glowing runes spiraled around its center node, pulsating in steady rhythm. Stabilizing pulses.
And then they faltered.
It started with a flicker. A minor hiccup in the glow. Unusual, but not alarming.
Then a second pulse misfired.
Then a third.
Around him, people began to look up. Vendors paused mid-transaction. Children on vine-swings froze. A silence crept through the street like a slow knife.
Aleister took a step back. His card was no longer just humming. It was pulling.
The dome above cracked, not physically, but arcane fractures split the air like lightning veins. One of the rune spirals blinked out entirely. Another turned black.
And then the screaming started.
Dozens of people's cards began malfunctioning. A merchant's fire card ignited his stall unintentionally. An elemental child lost control of her wind construct, sending debris flying into nearby stalls. A summoner's creature blinked into existence half-formed, shrieking and lashing out in panic.
Aleister backed away, but the Arcfield pulsed again and this time it answered him.
Not the people.
Not the runes.
Just him.
The dome crackled violently, then collapsed inward in a thunderous flash. Arclight sprayed across the square like a broken wave. Everyone dropped to the ground, clutching their heads or screaming in confusion. Everyone but Aleister.
He stood in the center of it all, untouched.
His card hovered before him, spinning slowly.
When it stopped, a symbol glowed at its center. A rune no one had seen in recorded history.
A ripple of dark, pulsing energy washed through the ruins of the Arcfield.
And then silence.
The field was dead.
One of Nethra's ancient anchors had just failed in public, in broad daylight.
Aleister ran.
He didn't know where his legs were taking him. Through alleyways and ruined transport lines, past moss-choked tunnels and broken signposts. But his mind was spinning. Not just from fear. From understanding.
The Arcfield had responded to him.
It hadn't rejected his card. It had redirected itself around it, like a mountain stream around a stone.
The system wasn't failing because of him.
It was recognizing him as something older. Something immune to its rules.
Something outside it.
By the time he stopped running, he had reached a forgotten chapel near the edge of the Hanging Basin, a place used only by the oldest rootspeakers and whisper-clerics.
Inside, light filtered down through broken glass and hanging vines. He sank to his knees in front of a dust-covered altar.
The card hovered again. It spun once. Then stopped.
The rune glowed.
A pulse hit his chest like a hammer.
He wasn't alone.
A presence entered the space behind him. Slow steps. Deliberate. Not hostile.
Aleister didn't turn around.
"You felt it too," he said.
The voice behind him was calm. Male. Familiar.
"Everyone felt it. All across Nethra. The Fracture."
Aleister turned slowly.
A man stood there in grey robes. Maskless. Silver eyes. The one from the Grove.
"You said I would hear what the runes fear."
The man nodded. "And now you have."
Aleister stood. "What was that?"
"Not a failure," the man said. "A reversion. You reverted the Arcfield back to before the Accord."
Aleister's throat was dry. "Why me?"
The grey figure studied him. "Because you carry what they buried. Because your rune doesn't belong to the Five. Because even before you were born, the card you carry was not meant to obey."
Aleister took a breath. "Who was the woman in the memory?"
The man hesitated. Just a moment.
"A mistake they never corrected. She helped build the Glove. She warned them not to bind Irikrit."
Aleister blinked. "So she was real."
"Real enough that they tried to erase her name from every archive. But not real enough to stop what was coming."
Aleister stepped toward him. "Tell me her name."
The man's voice lowered. "Not yet."
Aleister clenched his fists. "Why are you helping me?"
The man looked up at the dead light filtering through the roof.
"Because this isn't about your card anymore. It's about the Vein."
"What vein?"
The man turned to leave. "You'll know when it speaks. But next time, you won't be the only one listening."
Then he was gone.
Aleister stood alone in the ruined chapel, hands shaking.
Not with fear.
With certainty.
The cards weren't the future.
They were the cage.
And it had just cracked for the first time.