The sky above the Veiled Wastes had turned a violent shade of crimson. Dust swirled in devouring gusts and the scent of something old and rotting hung over the broken plains. Kael stood at the threshold of what once might have been a fortress but now resembled the ribcage of a dead god, stone bent into clawed arches and runes that pulsed with dead light.His steps echoed in silence.The world had not followed him here. Even Lira and Nyra were far behind, held back by the storm or the will of the place. The spiral on his chest burned bright beneath his tunic, its heat threading through his veins like molten wire. Every heartbeat throbbed with voices. Not his. Never his. Not anymore.He approached the center of the ruin. A circle of obsidian stones stood in the dust like waiting sentinels, carved with the same spirals that marked his flesh. The ground inside the ring was black and cracked, as if it had tasted fire and ice both.Kael stepped into the circle.The moment he did, the runes

The sea had never looked so still.Kael stood at the edge of the shattered pier, boots resting on blackened boards, wind teasing the ends of his hair. The sky above was pale and gray, the color of bruised clouds, and the surface of the water shimmered like molten glass. No waves lapped. No gulls called. The world had gone silent.And that silence burned louder than any scream.Behind him, the remnants of the rebel fleet floated in uneasy formation. Their sails were tattered. Their crews exhausted. Kael had led them from the ruins of Dawnspire to the edge of the drowned lands, following the trail carved into the ocean by the wyrm’s descent. But the creature had vanished beneath the sea, dragging the storm with it.Since then, they had waited.Lira appeared beside him. Her cloak snapped faintly in the breeze. She did not speak at first, only stared ahead with him, her presence quiet and firm. Her hand brushed his lightly. He did not pull away.“It’s too quiet,” she said finally.“I know

The sea convulsed as Kael reached for the shard, the pressure of the deep collapsing in around his skull. His lungs burned, not just from the cold or the lack of air, but from the force pressing against his ribs. It was as if the water itself sought to crush him, to keep him from touching what waited at the shrine.The shard floated inches above the drowned altar, humming like a living wound. Its edges pulsed with dark red light, flickering in tandem with the spiral mark across Kael’s back. His vision blurred. Then sharpened.Something ancient moved just beyond the altar, pacing in the dark like a beast waiting for a tether to snap.Lira floated beside him, one hand extended, her mouth open as if to scream—but the sea devoured every sound. Her other hand gripped his forearm tight. She saw it too.The shrine did not just house the shard.It sealed something far older.Kael kicked forward and touched the fragment.A shock tore through him.He was no longer in the water.He stood on ston

Kael’s steps slowed as the woman on the bone throne rose.Her presence was overwhelming. She moved like a dream suspended in time, eyes aglow with a pale light that wasn’t entirely human. The cavern temple around them pulsed in rhythm with her breath, and Kael felt the spiral across his back react with a tightening shudder.“I know you,” the woman said, voice echoing like chimes beneath water. “You wear the mark. You carry the shard. But more than that… you carry him.”Kael held his ground. “Who are you?”Raen lowered his gaze. “Her name was once Ilvare. Now she is only what the world made her.”She smiled. “I am the first to survive the god’s touch. The first vessel to shatter beneath his truth. I am the cradle of every shard that followed.”Kael’s grip on his blade tightened. “You were human.”“I was.” Her smile faded. “Until the god divided. When the Veiled God fell in the First War, the splintering tore through the sky. Each piece landed in flesh. I was the first to receive it. Th

The wind tasted like blood.Kael stood on the cliff’s edge, overlooking the ragged spine of Dalthar. The sky above the ruin was darker than night, veined with red streaks that pulsed like veins. Beneath it, black stone towers twisted toward the heavens, half-swallowed by roots that bled silver sap. He didn’t need to sense the shard’s call—it was pulling at him like a tether wrapped around his soul.But something else stirred.Not just the shard.Something sentient.Hunting.“They’re close,” Raen said behind him. The older man’s voice was tight, strained. “Too close.”Kael turned. “The Judges?”Raen nodded grimly. “The Twins. Mercy and Silence. They’re not human anymore.”Lira looked up from checking her daggers. “What were they?”Raen didn’t answer at first. His eyes drifted to the horizon.“They were my students.”The wind fell silent.Even Kael didn’t speak. Not right away.Raen finally looked at him. “You need to understand this: those two don’t fight to win. They fight to punish.