The ravine camp stood as a fragile bastion, its tents frayed to threads and consoles cloaked in ash under a sky heavy with gray. Jason walked with Eryn and Mara’s group, their steps a faltering rhythm, a pact fractured but enduring through Renn’s redemption. His broken knife hung at his belt, a relic of a man he no longer was, his mind a shadow drained by the enclave’s cage, now tormented by whispers—you are the haze. The haze slept, its echoes bound, but the air thrummed with a restless pulse that screamed of danger. Eryn’s signal cloth was tucked into her belt, her eyes blazing with Lira’s fire, though dimmed by exhaustion, hunger, and fractured trust, her fingers twitching as if tracing invisible wires. Mara led with her spear, her scar a quiet echo of the past, while Gav followed, his spear steady, his eyes carrying Kalia’s loss, softened by Tira’s, Renn’s, Lirae’s, and Soren’s redemption, yet shadowed by doubt.Jason’s memories flickered—Callen’s grin, splicing wires with hope; L

The citadel’s wreck still smoked, its walls groaning like wounded beasts under the weight of silence. The relic’s glow was gone, but its absence left the air trembling—a hollow void, a pause heavy enough to crush breath. Jason stood amid the wreckage, broken knife loose at his side, while Mara’s group huddled in a wary circle, their eyes darting between shadows that no longer held phantoms, yet still whispered with memory.The rival leader wheezed, her blood darkening the cracked stones beneath her. She tried to laugh, but it broke into a ragged cough. “You silenced it… for now. But silence breeds hunger. The relic will wake again, and when it does, it won’t just feed on doubt—it will command it.” Her head lolled back, eyes dimming, but her words lingered like a curse.Jason’s grip tightened on his knife. He wanted to silence her, to end the last echo of her certainty—but his own hesitation froze his hand. Killing her wouldn’t erase her warning. Worse, part of him feared she was right

The citadel shuddered as though the bones of the world had cracked.The relic’s silence—once a hollow absence—ruptured into soundless fire. A shockwave rippled outward, hurling Raven soldiers and defenders alike into the rubble. Stone split, banners tore, steel rang against the walls like broken bells.Jason slammed into the ground, breath ripped from his chest. His knife skittered from his hand, sparks trailing. When he tried to rise, the world buckled, as if the air itself had weight.The relic was awake.Not glowing, not burning, but exhaling an invisible heat that licked through marrow. Every oath in the net screamed at once. Every shard shook, splintering under the surge.Mara staggered to her feet, spear trembling in her grip. “Jason—what did you do?”“I didn’t—” His voice broke under the weight pressing down. His lungs refused air, his veins felt aflame.Damian stood untouched in the chaos, his mask gleaming with the reflection of fractures only he seemed to understand. His voi

The storm folded inward.Not outward chaos, but inward collapse—memory pressed into diamond-hard shards, each slicing through flesh and thought alike. The battlefield dissolved, the citadel with it, until only Jason and Damian stood within the heart of the relic’s silence.The storm was no longer around them. It was inside them.Jason staggered, clutching his chest. His knife flickered in his grip, phasing between steel and shadow. Damian stood tall, mask gleaming, his blade burning with that same silence.Then the relic spoke.Not with words, but with vision.The shards fused into a single crucible: a hall of mirrors, endless, each pane reflecting not their faces but their truths. Jason saw himself failing—Kalia’s body in his arms, Yara’s empty eyes, comrades buried because of his hesitation. Every pane cut deeper than any wound.Damian’s reflections burned with a different fire—his triumphs, his inevitability. A child clawing his way from shadow, a brother left behind, a man crowned

The decision hit like the cracking of the sky.The relic’s silence split open, pouring light and shadow in equal measure. Every shard that had fed into its core ignited—anchors burning, phantoms screaming, truths colliding in a storm so vast it drowned the citadel itself.Jason hit the ground with a cry, blood soaking the stones. His knife seared in his grip, no longer just steel, but a conduit of the choice that had been made.Across from him, Damian staggered. His mask fractured down the center, light bleeding through the cracks. For the first time, his certainty wavered.The relic pulsed again.And the battlefield broke.Walls dissolved into rivers of glass, the floor cracked into yawning chasms where memory bled into haze. Every soldier—Raven or Wing—was thrown into visions not their own. Mara found herself staring at Jason’s childhood, a boy clutching a wooden knife with shaking hands. Gav collapsed to his knees as Damian’s rise from the shadows poured through his skull like fire