The night beyond the shattered ridge was darker than any Collins had ever seen. Not the ordinary darkness of an unlit sky — this was a thick, heavy blackness that felt alive, as if something inside it was breathing. Watching. Waiting.Collins stood at the cliff’s edge with Elyndra and Kael behind him, the cold wind tugging at their cloaks. Far below, the ruins of the old fortress stretched out like a broken skeleton, crowned by faint lights that flickered unnaturally — not torches, not magic flames, but something colder.Something wrong.Kael swallowed hard. “Whatever lives down there… it doesn’t want visitors.”Elyndra didn’t respond. She was staring at the ruins, brows knitted, her hand hovering near her staff. Her aura was tense — too tense, even for her.Collins noticed.“What are you sensing?” he asked quietly.Elyndra hesitated. “Not sensing… remembering.”That made Collins turn fully toward her. Elyndra never hesitated. She was a spirit seer; memory was as sharp to her as sight

The ruins shuddered like a living creature awakened from a nightmare. Dust rained from the broken ceiling. Cracks slithered along the ground. And the cold darkness at the far end of the hall thickened until it felt like the night itself was folding inward.Collins could feel a pressure in the air — a pressure that squeezed his lungs and tightened around his heart.It felt like he was being watched.No… claimed.The boy who shared his face — his other half — stepped back, fear flickering across his expression for the first time.“He’s here,” the boy whispered. “The Sovereign’s Shadow.”Kael swung his sword up immediately. “What do you mean shadow? Where’s the actual Sovereign?”The boy shook his head. “The Sovereign doesn’t come in person. He sends only an echo. A small piece of his presence. It’s enough to destroy everything.”A cold wind blasted through the ruins, extinguishing every unnatural flame except the ones flickering on Collins’ wrist and the boy’s.Elyndra stepped forward,

The entire vaulted chamber trembled as Collins stepped deeper inside, each footstep echoing like a heartbeat against the timeless stone. The air was different here—heavier, colder, dense with a pressure that made his skin prickle. It was as if the vault itself was alive and watching him.Behind him, Seraphine closed her eyes, fingertips glowing faintly as she scanned the chamber with her Spirit Sight.“Collins,” she whispered, “there’s something wrong with this place. The energy… it dips and rises like something breathing.”Dareon unsheathed his curved blade, keeping his stance low and ready. “Just tell me where to swing.”Collins didn’t answer.His attention was fixed on the massive door at the far end of the room—a towering slab of pale stone engraved with swirling runes that pulsed like veins. Four elemental symbols circled the center, arranged like points of a compass: fire, wind, earth, water.But at the center was a fifth symbol—one he had never seen before. A spiral of black fl

The darkness swallowed Collins whole, so suddenly that the sound of Seraphine and Dareon screaming his name vanished as if someone had cut a string. The ground beneath him dissolved, replaced by nothing—an endless, weightless void.Then light erupted.Not bright.Not warm.A sickly, pulsing hue like dying embers.Collins gasped as his feet struck solid ground again—dusty, cracked stone. When he looked up, his breath caught in his throat.He stood in the ruins of a city.Broken towers leaned at impossible angles, shattered rooftops scattered like bones. Fires burned with black flames, silent and unmoving, as though frozen in time. The sky was no sky at all—just swirling darkness with streaks of violet lightning.A chill raced through him.“This… this place…”A voice whispered behind him.“Do you recognize it?”Collins spun. The shadow figure stood at the edge of a collapsed building, its form flickering in and out like a glitch in reality.“What is this place?” Collins demanded.The fi

Light returned before sound.A pale glow flickered around Collins’ vision, blurring and bending like ripples in water. His body felt heavy—no, hollow, like his soul had been stretched thin and snapped back into place.Then he heard a voice.Close. Panicked.“Collins! Collins—wake up!”Seraphine’s hands gripped his shoulders, her palms blazing with warm spirit energy. Dareon hovered behind her, sword drawn, eyes darting around the vault as if expecting something to leap out of the shadows.Collins blinked, breath trembling. “I… I’m back?”Seraphine pulled him into a tight embrace before he even finished speaking.“You were gone for too long. The barrier wouldn’t let us through. I thought—”Her voice cracked.“I thought we lost you.”Dareon cleared his throat loudly. “Yeah, well, I knew he wouldn’t die. He still owes me five gold.”Seraphine glared at him. “Dareon—!”“What?” Dareon shrugged. “Crying won’t make him any prettier.”Collins let out a rough laugh, leaning forward as the grou