2025-01-21 23:06:02
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The sun broke over Aretra like a dying flame—blood-orange and weary, casting long shadows over ruined spires and shattered walls. Smoke still curled from pockets of fire in the northern sector, and ash drifted through the air like snow, a cruel imitation of peace.But within the temporary calm, the earth pulsed.Samuel sat beside Madeline, her head resting on his shoulder as medics swarmed the chamber they’d just fought in. She was weak but conscious, eyes glazed with exhaustion. Her body trembled, more from what she’d endured than the chill of the broken temple."You shouldn't have come alone," she murmured.Samuel half-smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “You know me better than that.”She turned her face slightly toward him. “Arthur… is he dead?”Samuel hesitated. “I don’t know. When the siphon imploded, he disappeared. The leyline swallowed him.”Her voice lowered. “Then he’s not dead.”Before he could respond, the artifact at his side pulsed—once. Then again. A deep, resonan
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The sky over Aretra City bled orange as the first fires erupted on the eastern wall. Smoke coiled like serpents through the narrow alleys while bells rang with panic and command. Civilians scattered. Soldiers formed shaky lines. From the northern towers, Samuel could see the enemy pouring in like floodwaters from broken dams."Where the hell is Captain Virel?!" Samuel shouted over the chaos.A younger soldier—barely older than a boy—ran up to him, face slick with soot. "Sir, Virel’s down. Arrow to the throat. You’re in command."Samuel blinked once. Then he nodded. "Sound the horn. Call in the Crimson Guard. And someone get word to Madeline."The boy saluted, stumbled, then disappeared into the smoke.The city groaned under its own weight.Allies from the western clans had arrived at dawn, banners still stained with blood from battles fought just days before. But Aretra wasn’t ready. Supplies were low. Morale thinner than a blade’s edge. And worst of all—they had no idea who had betra
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The candlelight flickered, and for a moment, I could’ve sworn it moved against the wind.Not with it.I watched Sarah as she stared into the flame, unmoving.“They’re not gone,” she said, without looking up.“I know,” I answered.We both felt them. The echoes. The splinters of us that had fallen through the light, fusing into our bones like glass under skin.Each choice we had not made.Now a memory we carried.Samuel leaned against the wooden post near the entrance to the sanctum.“We need to talk,” he said grimly. “Something is wrong with the Well.”I tensed. “It’s sealed.”“Not anymore.”We rode to the southern cliffs in silence, the wind too heavy for speech. Falcon scouted ahead, his eyes darker than usual, haunted by the sight of the Seer’s end.Or rebirth. I still didn’t know.The Well was older than the rift, older than even the Maker. It was the first doorway—a wound in the world’s crust where memory once bled freely.When we arrived, the rocks around the Well pulsed softly.
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“You’re not her,” I whispered.The woman before me had the Seer’s voice, her silvered hair, the delicate fracture lines in her face from too many visions—yes. But her presence?Wrong.Wrong like a song sung backward.Wrong like silence in a heartbeat.She opened her eyes, and void looked back.“She gave consent,” the not-Seer said softly. “A willing vessel makes the strongest Gate.”Sarah stumbled to my side, blood still drying on her temple. “What does that mean?”“It means she didn’t resist,” I answered. “She chose this.”“No,” the creature countered. “She chose you. And you failed her again.”Sarah didn’t speak. Her breathing was ragged. Her hands trembled.Falcon and Samuel arrived seconds later, weapons drawn. Falcon looked between us all, then immediately pointed his blade at the Seer.Samuel’s voice was cold. “What happened?”“She’s the Gate now,” I said, never taking my eyes off her. “The Sleeper’s using her to hold the rift open.”Falcon took a step forward. “Then we close it
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I wandered the shattered cave, barefoot, my blood sticky against salt and ash. My limbs trembled—not from pain, but from absence.The Sleeper’s voice had vanished.And that terrified me more than when it whispered.The silver mask was gone, broken into nothing. Not even dust remained. Only the echoes of power, still humming in the walls, like a dying heartbeat.I had destroyed the third vessel.But at what cost?Miles away, Samuel stared at the new rift opening across the eastern horizon. The land peeled like an onion, layer after layer of glowing rock beneath.“She's unleashed something,” Sarah whispered. “This... this isn’t supposed to happen.”“She broke the mask,” Falcon said, pacing. “That thing was meant to contain it. Now the Sleeper's free to move.”“No,” said the Seer, voice shaking. “Worse. Now it breathes.”I emerged from the cave at dawn, clothes in tatters, hair caked with soot. The forest beyond was quiet—no birds, no wind. Like the world itself had stopped waiting.A fi
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I didn’t tell Samuel. I didn’t tell Sarah. I didn’t tell anyone.Not about the man in green.Not about the silver mask.And definitely not about the dream.Because it wasn’t just a dream.It was a warning.Or maybe… an invitation.I stood over the ancient basin inside the library’s lower crypt—where time seemed to curl around the dust and the air hummed with unspent spells. The last pages of the Sleeper Codex floated above the water, glowing faintly in the dark.“When the third awakens, the Gate will burn open, and the Sleeper will wear a face.”A face.Mine?Upstairs, the war council convened again. This time, there were strangers among us—envoys from the Flame Tribes, the Marshland Seers, and a group that introduced themselves simply as “The Harrowed.”“We’ve fought monsters,” said the Harrowed leader, a woman with bone piercings and a scar down her throat. “We’ve hunted gods that fell from their thrones. But we’ve never seen anything like this.”Samuel leaned forward. “We need unit
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