THE SILENT WARDENThe world did not welcome them.Arin felt it the moment he emerged from the rift an instant resistance, like the very air recoiled from his presence. The fissure spat him and Liora out onto ground that wasn’t entirely ground, a shifting surface of glassy stone etched with spiraling lines of ancient runes that pulsed faintly like a dying heart. The silence was absolute. A suffocating, heavy stillness that pressed into their lungs and forced them to breathe shallowly, as if full breaths were forbidden in this place.Liora steadied herself, one hand instinctively grabbing Arin’s arm. “This is wrong,” she whispered, though her voice sounded muted, as if something had stolen half of its sound before it reached the air. “This place is… empty. But not dead.”Arin nodded. The Rune-surge inside him crawled against his skin like it wanted to hide.“We’re in the Inner Veil,” he murmured. “The path to the Nexus Core.”She shivered. “Feels like a graveyard.”“Because it is.”The

THE HEART OF THE COREThe light inside the Nexus Core was unlike anything Arin had ever felt. It wasn’t a brightness that demanded vision it was a presence that pressed into his bones, warm and ancient, woven from whispers and memory. He stepped into it slowly, Liora’s hand in his, both of them wincing as a wave of heat washed over their skin, not painful but alarmingly intimate, like the Core was studying every thought they had ever held.The chamber widened around them, an immense circular expanse suspended in a void that churned with slow-moving threads of blue, gold, and black. Runes spiraled along the perimeter of the chamber, glowing faintly, shifting beneath the surface like they were alive. At the center of the chamber, raised upon a dais of radiant stone, was the Heart.It was not a crystal. Not a flame. Not a weapon, nor an artifact.It was a pulse.A living pulse of energy, beating slowly, like the heart of a sleeping titan.Arin inhaled sharply. “I can feel it all of it.”

THE NEXUS THAT REMEMBERSThe sky had fully awakened by the time Kai carried Elira through the western corridors, but the daylight did nothing to soften the fear lodged in his ribs. Every step felt heavier, as though each footfall pulled him deeper into a fate he was never meant to touch. Yet he did not slow. Could not slow. The girl in his arms was too still, too fragile, her breaths thinner than the thin veil of mist rolling across the courtyard stones.Ryn walked beside him, tension bristling through every movement. Mara followed close behind, her hands glowing faintly with stabilizing energy, her face tight with urgency. The Nexus rarely called anyone. It was not meant for humans. Not meant for bloodlines bound in mortal form. It existed for something older something the world had forgotten. Something that once feared Elira’s ancestors.“We’re almost there,” Mara whispered.Kai didn’t answer. His eyes stayed fixed on Elira’s face. Her skin was colder now. Her lips pale. The fain

THE FATHER IN THE DARKNESSThe forest swallowed them as they ran, branches clawing at their clothes like the hands of restless spirits. Rain finally broke from the sky in a sudden downpour, turning the dirt path slick under their boots. The storm made everything feel frantic and unstable, but the real violence wasn’t in the thunder.It was in the presence behind them.Aiden could feel him. His father’s aura pressed through the trees thick, cold, and suffocating. It didn’t move like a human. It slithered. It stalked. It pulsed like living fog, weaving between the trunks, closing the distance with terrifying ease.Elena stumbled over a root, and Aiden caught her before she hit the ground. “Careful,” he whispered, though his voice trembled with the storm building in his veins.Rowan sprinted ahead and stopped at a cliff’s edge. The forest opened abruptly into a vast drop, the valley yawning below like a mouth ready to consume anything foolish enough to fall in.“We can’t go down!” Elena

WHEN DESTINY TREMBLESThe dawn broke reluctantly, as if even the sun feared what waited in the valley below. A muted, copper-colored light seeped across the shattered landscape surrounding the Sanctuary, illuminating scorched earth, fallen stone, and the lingering smoke of a night that had nearly cost them everything. The storm had passed, but the aftermath felt heavier than thunder. Every survivor felt it in their bones something had shifted, some boundary crossed, some fate awakened.Aria walked through the courtyard slowly, her steps unsteady but determined, her body stiff from exhaustion. Her mind replayed the moments of the previous night like shards of a dream gone wrong Kai’s blood on her hands, the screams from the northern gate, the air splitting open with the force of the enemy’s breach, the way she had felt her power surge in her veins as if an ancient river had been waiting to flood out of her all this time. She still wasn’t sure if she had controlled it… or if it had cont