When the Walls RememberThe wind had sharpened into a scream.Selene stood by the window slit, her breath fogging against the cold stone, as the howling outside rose to a pitch that seemed almost alive.Varin had gone still — utterly still — one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his head tilted slightly toward the sound.“They’ve found us,” he murmured.Before she could ask how, the first impact shook the outer gates. A thunderous clang rang through the citadel, followed by another, and another — rhythmic, purposeful.Selene’s pulse quickened. “How many?”Varin’s eyes glinted. “Too many.”He turned to her with a look that cut through hesitation. “Stay behind me.”“I won’t,” she snapped. “I didn’t come this far to hide behind anyone’s blade.”The faintest hint of a smile touched his lips — grim, approving. “Then you remember what it means to be queen after all.”The torches flickered as they moved toward the great doors of the hall. Snow drifted down from the cracks in the roof,

The Pulse Between WorldsThe first thing Selene felt was pain — not her own, but something deeper, older, echoing from a place beyond sight. It thrummed through her veins like the toll of a distant bell. She gasped and clutched her chest, staggering as the battlefield around her blurred.“High Priestess!” one of the Veyne soldiers called, but she barely heard him. Her mind was elsewhere — caught between two worlds.For a heartbeat, she saw nothing but shadow. Then — light. A flare of white fire bursting through the dark, so bright it tore through the edges of her consciousness. And within it… Adrian.His name didn’t leave her lips, but her soul screamed it.Adrian.He was alive.The certainty hit her like lightning. She had feared — though she never said it aloud — that when the void swallowed him, he’d been lost forever. The Blight had a hunger that devoured not only bodies but souls. But now, she felt him like a heartbeat in her chest — ragged, desperate, but burning still.She s

The Master StirsDeep beneath the earth, where no prayer had ever reached, the Blight coiled like a sleeping god.Its voice had no sound. Its breath had no air. It existed in that infinite stillness between one heartbeat and the next — the silence of things forgotten.And then… it shook.A ripple passed through the void — faint at first, like a pebble dropped into an endless well. But then came the echo — a return.Something had left.Something that was not supposed to.The Master opened his eyes.They were not eyes as mortals knew them, but vast pools of liquid black, swirling with shapes of all who had ever fallen into his dominion.Souls drifted there, whispering fragments of prayers that never reached heaven.He sat upon his throne of bone and shadow — the Throne of Silence — and for the first time in eons, the quiet broke.“He lives.”The words came not from lips but from everywhere — a chorus of his servants’ voices layered through him. The Blight shuddered, uncertain.Across th

The Shadow Between UsThe dawn came pale and thin over the ruins of Orren, as if the sun itself hesitated to rise upon what it might find.Selene stood at the edge of the broken courtyard, her cloak drawn tight against the cold, though the chill that troubled her came not from the air, but from something deeper — something that had begun the moment Adrian woke from his nightmare.He had said three words. He’s coming through us.And ever since, the air has changed.The wind no longer carried the scent of dust and ruin, but a strange metallic tang — like lightning just before a storm. The ground trembled at times, subtly, rhythmically, as if echoing a heartbeat not their own.She turned to look at him.Adrian sat a few yards away, head bowed, the golden light of the fire painting his features in fragile amber. He looked human — but the shadows clung too closely to him now, moving with his breath, rippling faintly like smoke across his shoulders. His eyes, when they caught the light,

The Seers of ThalenorThe dawn broke like a wound that refused to heal.Selene rode hard through the ashen forest, the wind tearing at her cloak, her arms tight around Adrian’s limp form. His skin burned cold against her, alternating between feverish heat and deathly chill — as though two worlds warred beneath his flesh.Every few breaths, his body shuddered. Once, he murmured her name — not as a plea, but as if it were the only anchor left keeping him tethered to life.The sight of him — this man who had faced gods and darkness alike — reduced to trembling silence made her throat tighten. But she did not cry. Not yet.Ahead, the trees thinned, giving way to the valley of Thalenor — a place that shimmered faintly even in daylight, as if refusing to belong to the mortal world.The air itself hummed with quiet resonance. And there, at the valley’s heart, stood the marble arches of the Seers’ Sanctuary — veined with silver, half-buried in ivy and fog.As she dismounted, her legs nearly