Night cloaked the highlands in velvet darkness, but the stars above burned too bright—wrong somehow, like they were watching. Samuel stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the vast expanse of the Eastern Divide. Below, silver rivers coiled through dead valleys, and far in the distance, jagged shadows moved where nothing living should.“The stars aren’t aligned right,” Joey muttered as he joined him, clutching a scope.“They’re not stars,” Samuel said. “Not anymore.”Ilara appeared behind them. “They’re beacons. The Gatekeeper’s doing. He’s leaving marks in the sky so his Sentinels can follow.”“How many?” Samuel asked without turning.“Too many,” she replied.Behind them, the camp was a flurry of quiet preparation. Kael was tuning the new relay stone to intercept transmissions from the resistance network. Nyra hovered over the fire, fingers weaving sigils into the flames for warmth and shielding. Dareth sat like a statue, cleaning blood from his blade though they hadn’t fought in ho

The journey to Shatterplain began under a blood-orange sky. The team moved in silence, the weight of the death mark above them pressing on every breath they took. The girl slept deeper now, her connection to the Gatekeeper growing dimmer, but Ilara warned they didn’t have long before he tried another tether.Shatterplain was once a holy site—sacred ground scorched in the War of the Breaking. Now, it was a wasteland of black glass, ruptured stone, and dead whispers. It also housed one of the few people Ilara claimed could sever a bond tied to a Nexus-born fragment.“A witch?” Joey asked, already regretting the thought. “Can’t we just find, like, a hospital?”“She’s not a witch,” Ilara said, adjusting her hood. “She’s a Weaver. And she doesn’t take guests lightly.”“She’s also the only one who ever survived tether corruption,” Kael added. “So if we want the girl free, we go through her.”The team moved swiftly through the broken plains. Every so often, Samuel felt a pull—a faint echo in

The evening sky bled crimson as Samuel’s team reached Mirror Valley.Though the name suggested peace, the valley was far from tranquil. Its waters shimmered like broken glass, reflecting not the sky above—but scenes from lives long lost. Flashes of war, of betrayal, of things never spoken aloud. Every step closer to the center caused those illusions to deepen, to whisper. It was a place where the past clung to the soul like wet cloth.Joey waited near a ring of jagged stones, sharpening his blade out of habit more than necessity. Beside him sat Aria, eyes shut, meditating—or bracing herself. Sarah paced, eyes flicking between the valley’s mirrored pools. None spoke. They didn’t have to.Samuel approached first. “Report.”“We took out a conduit in the western gorge,” Sarah said. “Barely. That Sentinel was… different. Like it wanted us to win, but not too quickly.”“Same pattern,” Joey added. “Mass mind-binding through crystal shards. They’re learning. Testing responses. This is no long

Not from thunder or flame—but from pressure. As if the sky had suddenly remembered it was supposed to crush the world beneath it.Samuel looked up.The rupture spread across the heavens like ink spilled in water—slow at first, then violent, jagged. A figure emerged from the tear, not descending but falling sideways, as if gravity bent around them. They shimmered with shadow and light, wings folded in impossible geometry, body cloaked in robes that shimmered between crimson and void.“Is that…?” Aria’s voice broke.Joey finished the thought. “Riven.”Samuel didn’t reply. His chest tightened. Of all the things he’d expected—an assault, a relic trap, even a corrupted beast—he hadn’t expected him.Riven had once been their ally. A tactician. A protector. The first to unlock the flame after Samuel, the one who taught others how to wield it without burning out.And then he vanished.Without a trace.Without a word.Until now.Riven hovered above the Marsh, his eyes locked on Samuel. The res

The key hovered above Samuel’s hand, spinning slowly, its three interlocked crystals now fused into one pulsating core. Each beat of light felt like a heartbeat, like the world itself was waiting to exhale.The others stared in silence.Aria finally spoke. “What now? You said it’s not the end. But we’ve followed this trail across continents. Lost friends. Fought monsters. And now we’re at the Gate?”“No,” Samuel said quietly, “we’re at his last test.”“The Gatekeeper?” Joey asked.Samuel nodded. “He isn’t gone. Not yet. And that... thing we saw in the Vault? That was a memory. A piece. Elian may have wanted to give up. But the part of him that clings to power—that still wants to decide the fate of the world—he’s still waiting. Beyond the last gate.”Dareth stepped forward. “Then we open it. We finish this.”But Ilara raised a hand. “It won’t be that simple.”The key flickered as she spoke, casting brief shadows that twisted and shimmered unnaturally on the ground.“That’s not just a k