🔁 Recap: Chapter 2 – The Arcbound Arrival
After awakening the dormant Pulselink, Kael and Zayen are visited by two strangers from the skybound Arcbound Order—Eryn Vale, a reserved girl who sees things in dreams, and Riven Korr, a stoic sentinel with mastery over wind and silence. They reveal Kael's sketchbook has triggered ancient energies tied to a forgotten war and a forbidden bridge between realms.
Kael and Zayen agree to leave their peaceful floating island with them in search of answers—boarding a sky citadel bound for a place called the Skyvault, where all new Arcbound are tested in their first trial: The Arcfall Baptism.
Chapter 3: SkybreakBaptism
"To rise is to be shattered—and shaped."
Narrator:
The floating world is not made of land and sky alone. It is shaped by what we leave behind—echoes, choices, fears. And sometimes… those echoes scream louder than the living.
The Skyvault Storm
Kael stood at the edge of the Arcbound citadel's deployment deck, staring down at a swirling vortex of stormclouds far below. Known as the Skyvault, it was no ordinary weather pattern. It spun with violet lightning and glowing fragments of shattered islands—relics from a lost era, spinning like debris caught in a god's breath.
Beside him, Eryn was calm. Or pretending to be.
"This is what you call a test?" Zayen yelled over the wind, gripping a steel rail as the platform beneath them trembled.
Riven Korr didn't respond. She stood still as stone, a metallic rod strapped to her back and a faint pulse of blue runes flickering beneath her cloak. She glanced toward Kael, her gaze unreadable.
"Two drop pods," Riven finally said. "You'll enter the Vault in pairs. If you survive the descent, the Pulse will test your truth."
Kael frowned. "What does that mean?"
Riven's answer came sharp. "You'll see the part of yourself you hide."
The Pairings
Kael with Eryn.
Zayen with Riven.
"You sure you don't want to trade?" Zayen asked, half-joking, but there was nervousness behind his grin.
"No," Eryn said plainly.
"Definitely not," Riven added, without humor.
Zayen sighed.
The drop-pods hissed as they unlocked from their clamps, lowering them into position.
"This thing better have seatbelts," Kael muttered as they climbed into the tight chamber.
"You won't need them," Eryn said cryptically. "But hold on anyway."
The Descent
5… 4… 3… 2…
1.
Release.
The pods plunged into the Skyvault like metal raindrops piercing thunder. Wind screamed. Lightning arced around them like dragons made of fire and glass.
Kael's body went weightless. Then heavy. Then weightless again.
Then—
He wasn't in the pod anymore.
Kael's Vision
He stood alone.
Surrounded by empty white.
In front of him: a boy.
His age.
His face.
His eyes.
But wrong.
Cold.
Hollow.
Kael stepped forward. The boy mirrored him exactly.
"You're not real."
"I'm more real than you," the boy whispered.
His eyes turned black.
"You draw worlds, Kael. But you've never created one. You're a copy. A child sketching godhood."
Kael tried to speak—but the boy lunged.
Meanwhile: Zayen and Riven
Zayen tumbled from the drop-pod as it shattered mid-plunge. He screamed, flailed, grabbed at the air—until a massive blast of wind caught him and threw him back onto floating debris.
Riven hovered above him, standing on nothing.
"You scream too much," she said.
Zayen sat up, coughing. "You walked on air. That's not normal."
"I'm not normal."
She extended a hand. "Up."
Zayen took it—and for a split second, felt a pulse of warmth. Not the cold, calculated kind he expected from her. Something human. Familiar.
He looked up. Her hood had fallen back slightly.
For a second—just one—he thought he saw the curve of her cheek, softer than expected.
But then it was gone.
Kael vs. Kael
Kael fought the mirror of himself across a world made of his own drawings—broken temples, floating staircases, the outline of Eryn.
Every time he landed a blow, the other Kael turned to ink, then reformed.
"You're afraid of what you could become," the false Kael said.
"No," Kael whispered. "I'm afraid of becoming nothing."
He summoned everything—the marks on his hand glowed blue, white, and gold. His pulse flared.
And then—he drew in the air.
A door.
The clone charged.
Kael stepped through it.
The Reemergence
Kael burst from the storm cloud, spinning wildly.
Eryn caught him—somehow floating.
"How—"
"I found my truth," she said simply.
"You okay?"
He nodded slowly.
Across the chasm, Zayen landed hard, laughing in disbelief.
"Still alive!" he yelled.
Riven floated down beside him, silent. But her runes dimmed slower than usual… and her breathing was uneven.
Kael noticed.
So did Eryn.
But no one said anything.
Narrator (softly):Each of them passed the Skybreak.But they didn't return whole.Something else passed with them.And one of them was never what they seemed to be at all…