The twin moons were a sliver of bone in the sky, offering little light as Alan approached the old merchant's quarter. The System's compulsion was a cold knot in his stomach, pulling him forward like a fish on a hook. Every shadow seemed to hold watching eyes, every scuff of his boot on the cobblestones sounded like a thunderclap in the silent, sleeping streets.He found the street the courier had named—a narrow, refuse-choked lane that stank of rotting vegetables and stagnant water. And there it was: a door of splintered wood, set deep in a stone archway. The lintel was indeed chipped, looking like a stone weeping a single, dark tear. The "Weeping Stone."[Directive: Observe and enter. Primary objective: Identify cell members. Secondary objective: Locate any documents regarding "Northern Operations."]Alan's body moved forward while his mind screamed at it to turn back. This wasn't a public tavern anymore; this was a den, a hidden nest of fanatics who wanted to dissect his Alpha. His

— Eldrige Mage College —Alan materialized in a swirl of black, misty shadow that coalesced into the form of a wolf's head before dissipating. He stumbled forward, catching himself on his dorm room desk. The familiar scent of old books and ink filled his nostrils, a stark contrast to the blood and fear-scent of the alley he'd just escaped.For a long moment, he just stood there, breathing. His heart still hammered, his hands still trembled. He looked at them, these hands that had just struck a man in the throat, that had stolen documents, that had lied to fanatics who would have killed him without a second thought.The dawn sunlight entered his room through his window.He'd done it. The forged documents suggesting the Orthodox Church planned to betray the Reclamationists were out there. The discord was sown.Alan sank onto his narrow bed, the straw mattress crunching familiarly beneath him. He was back in his small, sparse room in the student quarters. A single window looked out over

The Aetherium shard lay on Kreed's central anvil, a paradox of blazing light and profound silence. It was the most beautiful and terrifying thing he had ever seen. The diagnostic scanners had failed, their readings a mess of contradictions. It was Jax, with his old, knowing eyes, who finally said what they all felt."It's dead, lad. Whatever that was, it's gone. This is just the bones."Kreed shook his head, his gaze locked on the shard's internal constellations. "No. Not bones. A battery. One that's been disconnected for a million years." He reached out with his senses, not through a machine, but through the innate connection to celestial materials that had earned him the title 'Star-Forged.' He felt the echo of immense power, a chord that had been struck at the dawn of creation and had never fully faded. But the music was gone. Only the memory of the vibration remained, trapped in crystal."It's like our sun," Lira whispered, understanding dawning. "Before it went critical. All that

Two days of hard marching north-east had stripped away the familiar. The rugged but life-filled foothills of the Serpent's Teeth gave way to a blighted expanse that seemed to suck the very vitality from the air. The ground was a cracked, grayish-purple, like old, clotted blood. Sparse, twisted trees clawed at a sky the color of a day-old bruise. There was no birdsong, no scuttling of insects. Only the moan of a wind that carried the taste of ash and ozone.The Howling Peak army moved through this desolation with a grim, focused silence. The initial energy of their departure had been replaced by a wary tension. Their enhanced senses, a gift from Adrian's ascension, were now a curse, amplifying the wrongness that permeated everything."It's not just dead," Bella murmured, her boots scuffing the brittle ground. "It's... infected. The earth is in pain. It's screaming, but the sound is too high for anyone but it and I to hear."Adrian felt it too, a constant, low-level psychic static that

Adrian's boot hit the first step of the black altar. The stone wasn't cold. It was a void, sucking the warmth from his soul. Each step upward was a fight against the hook in his core, the hungry void above pulling him in while the dead weight of the Anchor tried to drag him down.He was halfway up when a wave of force slammed into him, not from the rift, but from the side. It wasn't physical. It was a command, written in pure will.STOP.Adrian staggered, his head ringing. At the top of the platform, Brother Mordian had turned from the raging pillar of green light. His eyes were no longer human. They were pools of the same oily blackness as the rift, his tattooed skin cracking like dry earth, leaking that same void. He held one hand toward the rift, sustaining the connection, and the other was now pointed at Adrian.YOU ARE THE KEY. YOU WILL BE THE GATE. The words weren't spoken; they were branded directly into Adrian's mind.The pull intensified. Adrian grunted, driving the base of t