The dawn after destruction was never silent.Smoke curled from the ruins of Aretra’s eastern quarter. Crystal fragments still floated in the air, whispering in fractured echoes—residual leyline voices now cut off mid-scream. The walls were cracked. The banners torn. Half the command tower was gone, buried beneath the twisted wreckage.Samuel stood amid it all, his sword sheathed, his thoughts louder than the wind. Nara had vanished. After the surge—the explosion of leyline energy—she had simply disappeared into the mist like a phantom.But the message was clear: Veyr was no longer just whispering. He was clawing his way back to the surface.Madeline walked slowly toward Samuel, bandaged and pale. “We found nothing,” she said quietly. “No blood. No body. Just scorched stone.”“She’s not dead,” Samuel said.“How do you know?”“Because I can still feel her.”Madeline didn’t ask what he meant. She only nodded. They had grown past explanations. The leyline connected them all now, in echoes

Word had spread like wildfire: the god Veyr had returned, and Nara, once a corrupted vessel, now wielded the power to stand against him.Samuel stood in the shadow of the citadel’s east spire, watching the people gather in the plaza. They stared at the sky—still rippling from the strange event that had unfolded at the Plateau. His heartbeat hadn’t slowed since.Madeline joined him, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. “I can’t explain what happened. Not completely. That wasn’t just Ascension. It was integration.”“She fused with him?” Samuel asked, voice taut.“No. She resisted him. But she took something. Power, yes. But also memory. She knows more than any of us now.”

Last Updated : 2025-05-30

The sky over Aretra bled into hues of purple and deep crimson as dawn pushed through the night’s veil. The city was quiet, but beneath that fragile calm, a tempest roared unseen—a storm brewing not from the weather, but from fractured souls and hidden truths.Samuel stood near the edge of the High Wall, clutching the fragment of Nara’s crown like a fragile ember in his palm. Embra, the child who was both echo and shadow of Nara’s mortal self, sat beside him, eyes tracing the shifting stars.“Why do you think she left it with you?” Embra’s voice was soft, almost unsure.Samuel’s gaze didn’t waver from the distant horizon. “Because she trusts me to protect what she couldn’t.”Embra’s eyes flickered with something close to sorrow. “Or because she’s preparing me for something no one else can understand.”He turned to her, frowning. “You think you’re more than just a fragment?”Her lips quivered into a faint smile. “I’m not just a piece of her. I’m what she fears to become.”Before Samuel

The revelation of Dorian’s betrayal tore through the council like a hurricane, uprooting every foundation of trust they had painstakingly built. Even as his cold smile faded behind the iron bars of the council’s holding cell, the damage was done—his secrets had unsettled the fragile balance of their world. But beneath the surface, a darker truth waited to be unearthed—one none of them saw coming.The next morning, sunlight filtered weakly through the high windows of the council chamber. Embra sat silently at the head of the long oak table, fingers lightly tracing the intricate carvings etched into its surface. Her mind churned relentlessly, grappling with the weight of Kael’s words and Dorian’s betrayal.Samuel leaned against the wall, eyes scanning the room filled with restless council members. “We can’t afford to waste time. The Cradle’s forces are massing beyond the Eastern Ridge. They’ll strike soon.”Falcon frowned, voice low. “Dorian compromised our defenses. We don’t know what

Embra’s breath hitched as she stared at the glowing message on the floor. “The true war begins now.” The words pulsed like a heartbeat, mocking her failure. Kael was gone, taken by the entity. The shard, the power she thought she controlled, lay dormant in her palm—cold, lifeless.“How?” Her voice cracked in the emptiness. “How could this happen?”Samuel stepped in, eyes dark with fury and disbelief. “We were blinded by trust. Kael never wanted redemption—he was a pawn all along.”“No,” Embra whispered, shaking her head. “He said he wanted to help.”Samuel’s jaw tightened. “Or maybe he wanted to help... the entity.”The weight of betrayal crushed her chest. She sank to the floor, the shard’s chill seeping into her bones. She had been used.Outside, the wind howled like a mourning spirit. Embra pulled her cloak tighter, trying to stem the cold inside and out. The council gathered, broken and exhausted.Liora’s voice was somber. “The entity’s power is greater than we feared. It used Kae