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"Drop it."
The spear tip stopped an inch from my throat. Three more surrounded me, bronze catching the grey morning light. The guy in front wore wolf pelts and a necklace of teeth that definitely weren't animal.
"I don't—" I started.
"Drop it," he said again. His accent was thick, guttural, but the meaning was clear. He jerked his chin at the shard in my hand.
The obsidian was still warm. The words burned into my palm hadn't faded. Make sunrise. What the hell did that even mean?
"Look, I don't want trouble," I said, hands up. "I don't even know where—"
He lunged.
I jerked back and the spear tip split my cheek. Hot blood down my jaw. The other three closed in, footsteps crunching frost and dead grass.
"Give sacred stone," another one said. Younger, maybe sixteen, but the hate in his eyes was adult. "You steal. You die."
"I didn't steal anything," I said. My voice cracked. "I woke up here. I don't even—"
"Liar." Wolf-pelt spat at my feet. "Stone choose no outsider. You kill keeper. You take."
"I didn't kill anyone!" My back hit a tree. Nowhere left to go. "I'm a software engineer from California. I write code. I don't kill people."
They looked at each other. I don't think they understood half of that.
The shard pulsed.
Hot, then cold, then a line of text seared across my vision like a heads-up display.
**HOSTILE INTENT DETECTED. RECOMMEND: DOMINANCE DISPLAY.**
"What?" I whispered.
"What?" Wolf-pelt mocked. He stepped closer. The spear tip pressed against my ribs, right above my heart. "You talk to stone? Stone talk back?"
"It's not—" I stopped. The shard was vibrating. The heat in my palm spread up my wrist, into my elbow, my shoulder. It didn't hurt. It felt like holding a live wire that didn't want to kill me.
**SUNRISE PROTOCOL ACTIVE. DELIVER COMMAND IN DOMINANT TONGUE.**
Dominant tongue. I didn't speak whatever language these guys used. I barely spoke Spanish.
"Last chance," Wolf-pelt said. "Give stone, we kill fast. Keep stone, we take slow."
The kid with the hate-eyes grinned. "We take hands first."
"Then feet," another one added. Older, scar across his nose. "Then tongue. Then stone."
"Jesus Christ," I muttered.
The shard flared.
Bright, white-hot, like a magnesium flare going off in my hand. I shouted and tried to drop it but my fingers wouldn't open. The light spread, up my arm, across my chest, into my eyes.
The warriors stumbled back, shouting. One of them dropped his spear.
Then I opened my mouth and words came out that I didn't choose.
"Kneel."
It wasn't my voice. It was deeper, layered, like three people speaking in unison. The sound hit them like a physical wall.
Wolf-pelt staggered. The kid fell to one knee, gasping. Scar-nose pressed both hands to his ears, face twisted.
"What—" I tried to say, but the shard cut me off.
**SUNRISE PROTOCOL: 5% CHARGE. EFFECT DURATION: 40 SECONDS. DO NOT WASTE TIME.**
Forty seconds. Then what?
Wolf-pelt was already pushing back up, shaking his head like he'd been hit. Blood trickled from one nostril.
"You—" he rasped. "You *are* chosen."
"I'm not chosen," I said. My own voice this time, hoarse and cracking. "I'm just trying to survive."
"Stone speaks through you." He looked at the others. They were getting up too, slower, wary. "He is vessel."
"No," the kid said. "Vessel or thief, he still took it. Elders say stone must return."
"Elders aren't here," Wolf-pelt said.
"They will be." Scar-nose pointed east. "Warband is half day behind us. They find his trail, they find us."
Wolf-pelt's jaw tightened. He looked at me, then the shard, then back at me.
"You run," he said slowly, "warband catches you in open ground. You stay, we take you to elders. You die either way."
"Great options," I said. The shard's heat was fading. My arm felt like I'd been holding a kettle too long. "What if I have a third option?"
"You don't," the kid said.
Wolf-pelt held up a hand. "Speak."
I didn't have a third option. I was stalling. But the shard pulsed again, faint, and another line of text scrolled past.
**STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS DETECTED: GROUND INSTABILITY 2.3 METERS NORTH-NORTHWEST.**
I blinked. What?
Wolf-pelt took a step closer. "Speak, vessel, or we choose for you."
"The ground," I said. I had no idea what I was doing. "You're standing on a collapse point."
They froze.
"What?" Scar-nose said.
"Old tunnel. Maybe a den. Maybe a sinkhole." I pointed at the space between Wolf-pelt and the kid. "Right there. One good stomp and it goes."
Wolf-pelt's eyes narrowed. "You lie."
"Try me."
He stared at me. I stared back. My heart was trying to break out through my ribs.
Then he stomped.
The ground gave.
Not a full collapse. Just a crack, spiderwebbing out from under his boot, a sound like ice breaking on a lake. He jumped back, swearing in whatever language they spoke.
The kid looked down. The frost-covered dirt was sagging inward, just a little, just enough to see.
"How did you—" Wolf-pelt started.
The ground opened.
No warning. Just a roar of crumbling earth and the kid dropped straight down, gone in a cloud of dust and frozen soil. Scar-nose lunged for him, missed, and the edge gave under his weight too. He slid in with a yell that cut off hard.
Wolf-pelt and the fourth guy—silent until now—scrambled back.
I didn't move. The shard was burning again.
**SUNRISE PROTOCOL: 1% CHARGE REMAINING. THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE. SECONDARY CONTACT DETECTED BELOW.**
Below.
I stepped to the edge. The hole was maybe ten feet across, twelve feet deep. Old stonework lined the walls. Not natural. Not a den.
A tunnel.
The kid was on his back, groaning. Scar-nose wasn't moving. And standing over both of them, torch in one hand and a bronze knife in the other, was a woman.
She looked up.
Her face was smudged with ash and dirt. Her hair was short, hacked off unevenly like she'd done it with a dull blade. She wore layered furs and leather armor that had seen hard use.
She looked at me.
Then she spoke.
"Aiden."
My name.
In English.
Broken, accented, but unmistakable.
"What the hell," I breathed.
Wolf-pelt grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around. "You know her?"
"I don't know anyone here!" I jerked free. "I don't even know where *here* is!"
He looked back at the hole. The woman was climbing out, using the old stones like a ladder. She moved fast, controlled. The knife stayed in her hand.
Wolf-pelt's face went white.
"Ironthorn," he whispered.
"Who?"
He didn't answer. He was already backing away. The fourth guy was gone, sprinting into the trees.
The woman pulled herself over the edge. She stood. She was maybe five-six, lean and hard, and the way she held that knife said she'd used it recently.
She looked at Wolf-pelt.
"Run," she said. Her English was clearer now, still rough around the edges. "Tell elders Liv still breathes."
Wolf-pelt ran.
Liv turned to me.
She tilted her head, studying me like I was a broken piece of gear she couldn't quite figure out.
"You hold it," she said. Not a question.
"Hold what?"
She pointed at the shard.
"My tribe's stone," she said. "The one that should have burned your hand off."
I looked down. The obsidian was still whole. Still warm. The words on my palm were fading.
"It didn't burn," I said.
"I see." She stepped closer. The knife was still out. "So the stone chose foreigner. Chose soft-hand who speaks sky-tongue."
"Sky-tongue?"
"English," she said. She was close now. Close enough that I could see the scar across her collarbone, the exhaustion in her eyes, the dried blood on her knuckles. "Trader-tongue. Greta teaches me three summers ago. I learn, I trade, I survive."
"Who's Greta?"
"Not important." The knife tip rose, pointed at my chest. "Important is you. You hold stone that killed my family. You stand in land that burned my home. You *alive* when all my blood is ash."
Her voice cracked on the last word.
"I didn't do that," I said. "I swear. I woke up yesterday in the middle of nowhere with this thing in my hand and no idea how I got here."
She stared at me.
"Yesterday," she repeated.
"Yes."
"Stone was stolen three days ago."
"I don't know what to tell you. I didn't steal it."
Her jaw tightened. The knife didn't move.
Then the shard pulsed.
Hot, bright, and a voice that wasn't mine came out of my mouth again.
"Bonded," it said. "Ironthorn bloodline recognized. Claim disputed. Mediation required."
Liv's eyes went wide.
The knife fell from her hand.
"No," she whispered.
The shard burned one more line into my palm.
**SECONDARY HOST DETECTED. INITIATING**