The Obsidian Dominion

The skin on Draven’s left arm did not bleed anymore, it shattered.

He stared at the jagged fracture line cutting across his wrist, where the meat of his arm had turned into smooth, pitch-black void glass. The smoke rising from the ruins of the Godfall Domain tasted like ash and copper on his tongue. He gasped for air, his lungs burning as the sheer volume of a thousand lifetimes slammed into his skull all at once. He remembered dying by fire. He remembered a sword through his throat. He remembered names, faces, and betrayals that had been wiped clean from his mind during a dozen previous shatters. Except this time, the slate wasn't clean. He remembered everything.

"I told you to stay dead this time," a voice rasped from the shadows of a fallen pillar.

Draven didn't look up right away. He knew that voice before his chaotic mind could even fish out the name. "Hello, Jack."

Jack Cole stepped into the dim light, the edge of a heavy hunting blade catching the violet glow of the sky. His coat was torn, his boots caked in the dust of a dead civilization. He looked like a scavenger, but his eyes were wide, bloodshot, and completely devoid of mercy. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to just wake up and act like you didn't leave me to rot in the canyon."

"I don't remember the canyon the way you want me to, Jack," Draven said, his voice entirely flat, entirely hollowed out by the sensory overload.

"Don't lie to me!" Jack lunged forward, grabbing Draven by the collar of his ruined shirt and slamming him hard against a cracked stone column. The impact rattled the teeth in Draven's skull, but he didn't even flinch. Jack’s breath was hot, smelling of stale liquor and panic. "Look at me! Look at my face and tell me you forgot how you begged me to kill you before the last shatter!"

Draven finally raised his eyes, meeting Jack’s furious, trembling gaze. "I remember the way you screamed when the sky fell. I remember the sound of your bones snapping under the pressure of the gods. But the rest? It’s gone. It all wiped when I broke."

Jack’s grip tightened, his knuckles turning white. "You coward. You absolute piece of garbage. You get a clean slate every time you fail, and I’m the one who has to carry the weight of everything we did. You left me there."

"Do you think this is a clean slate?" Draven lifted his left hand, pressing the cold, lifeless black glass of his forearm against Jack’s cheek. "Touch it, Jack. Feel how much of my soul is left. This is the final shatter. There are no more do-overs. If I die now, the void takes everything. I am running out of flesh."

Jack flinched away from the cold touch, dropping his hands as if he had been burned. He took two steps back, his chest heaving, his eyes darting to the black glass. "Good. Let it take you. You deserve it after what you pulled."

"You don't mean that," Draven muttered, leaning his head back against the stone. "If you wanted me dead, you would have cut my throat while I was still unconscious in the crater. You were looting, Jack. You're always just trying to survive."

"Don't act like you know me," Jack spat, his voice cracking with an emotion he was desperately trying to hide. "The man I knew died three shatters ago. You're just a ghost wearing his face."

Before Draven could answer, the ground beneath them groaned, a deep, sickening vibration that rattled the loose gravel around their boots. The sky above the domain ripped open, a jagged fissure of pure, absolute darkness tearing through the clouds. It wasn't a normal storm. The air grew freezing cold in an instant, and a low, agonizing hum began to vibrate in their teeth. It was the sound of a dying god’s final scream, a localized void rift opening directly above their heads.

"A rift," Jack muttered, his anger instantly vanishing beneath a layer of primal terror. He stumbled backward, his eyes fixed on the twisting vortex. "It's opening right on top of us. We need to run, Draven. Now!"

"We can't outrun a void rift, Jack," Draven said calmly, his old survival instincts taking over, freezing his emotions into ice. "The sector is already locking down. Look at the perimeter."

A shimmering wall of distorted space was rising around the edges of the ruins, sealing them inside the crater. The gravity in the center of the room began to shift, pulling loose stones and debris upward into the swirling black vortex. The wind picked up, howling like a wounded animal.

"No, no, no," Jack panicked, scrambling backward as a heavy chunk of masonry lifted into the air right next to him. "You have the Dominion now. I saw the markings on your chest before you woke up. Fix it! Use it!"

"You don't know what you're asking for," Draven said, his voice barely audible over the roaring wind.

"I’m asking you to save our lives!" Jack yelled, his face pale as he struggled to stand against the unnatural gravity. "Do something, Draven! Use the bond!"

"Every command costs a life, Jack," Draven shouted back, stepping into the center of the shifting winds. "If I command the void to close, it will take whatever is closest to fuel the price. It eats vitality."

Jack froze, his eyes darting from the terrifying vortex above to the black glass on Draven's arm. He pressed his back against a crumbling wall, his hand gripping his knife so hard it trembled. "You wouldn't. You wouldn't kill me for a spell."

"I don't want to," Draven said, his left arm beginning to pulse with a faint, dangerous purple light. "But if I don't, the rift expands and we both get erased anyway. The math is simple, Jack. We die together, or someone pays the toll."

"Don't you dare look at me like I'm a sacrifice," Jack screamed, his voice breaking under the weight of a deep, historical betrayal. "I am the only person who stayed loyal to you through three lifetimes! You can't just use me as currency because you're too afraid to die!"

"I am not going to die on my final shatter," Draven said, his voice cutting through the noise of the storm like a razor blade. He closed the distance between them, his movements blurred and heavy with the weight of the void. He grabbed Jack’s right arm, his fingers clamping down right over a deep, bleeding gash Jack had taken from the ruins' defenses earlier.

"Get off me!" Jack fought back, driving his elbow into Draven’s ribs, but Draven didn't move an inch. The void glass made him unnaturally strong, unnaturally cold. "Draven, let go!"

"Stop fighting me, Jack! Just a few drops! I need the blood to anchor the command!" Draven slammed his glass palm directly over Jack’s open wound, squeezing until the blood welled up between his black, crystalline fingers.

Jack let out a choked, agonizing scream, his knees buckling. The black glass didn't just touch the blood, it began to draw it straight out of his veins, weaving the crimson fluid into glowing threads that wrapped around Draven's forearm. The pain in Jack’s eyes wasn't just physical, it was the look of a man watching his worst fears come true. "I hate you," Jack whispered, his strength draining rapidly as he sagged against Draven’s shoulder. "I swear to God, Draven, I hate you for this."

"I know," Draven murmured, his heart aching beneath the frozen exterior. "I know you do."

Draven turned his face toward the roaring vortex above, raising his blood-stained glass hand toward the sky. The air felt thick, like mud, as he forced his mind to connect with the ancient entities waiting on the other side of the veil. The power flooded him, hot and violent, demanding to be unleashed. He looked at the rift, then he looked down at Jack's bleeding shoulder, realizing exactly what the Dominion was about to take to seal the tear.