Far beneath the known world, where light had never been born and even the gods had forgotten to fear, it awoke.
The chamber was not carved, not built. It had grown from the agony of creation — a twisted sanctum formed from the roots of the worldtree that once held reality together. Those roots now writhed, half-alive, fed by what slept beneath them.
But it did not sleep anymore.
Chains hummed, pulsing with cursed starlight. They were forged from the first lie ever spoken — and they were fraying.
The creature within stirred, its many limbs twitching in unison. Eyes blinked open across its surface, blinking sideways through timelines. It had no name. It had once been called the Unwritten, a being too volatile to be recorded in divine law.
But now…
It laughed.
Each eye watched a different version of the world above.
In one, Liora sat upon a throne of shattered prophecy, her daughters kneeling beside her.
In another, she was gone—consumed in light—while her daughters warred across continents.
In a third… the twins were no longer two.
But one.
One being.
One mind.
One terrible, perfect fusion of light and shadow that unmade the world just by existing.
And in that version, the Unwritten saw its moment.
Its path.
Its release.
It opened its mouth—not a maw, but a fracture in reality.
And it sang.
Back in the mortal realm, Liora awoke gasping.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
She sat upright in the tent, the moonlight cutting sharp lines across her sleeping daughters. Vaerion stirred beside her, instinctively reaching for his blade—but stopped when he saw her expression.
"You felt it too," he murmured.
Liora nodded. "Something just changed. Something old."
She stood, grabbing her cloak. The air inside the tent was growing heavy, as if something far below the earth had begun pulling at the surface.
"Where's Kelvir?" she asked.
Vaerion was already stepping into his boots. "Out with the eastern scouts. He said he felt tremors."
"Get him back. Now."
An hour later, Liora stood at the edge of the war-camp as Kelvir returned with blood on his robes and dread on his face.
"We found a fault line," he said. "Not natural. Not even magical."
"What is it?"
He handed her a carved tablet—half-melted, but still humming with trapped whispers.
"It's a containment rune," he said. "From the old days. From before the gods unified their law."
Liora traced the edge of the stone. It burned her fingertips.
"This was sealing something," she whispered.
"Not anymore," Kelvir said. "The roots are cracking. The runes are failing."
Liora didn't need to ask what had changed.
She had.
She and her daughters were rewriting the world by existing. And with each change, the oldest seals—those not built to bend—were breaking.
In the Aether Sanctum, the Dreamer sat alone.
Ilyra was gone. Balthoros, erased. The others either fled or silenced by the new balance Liora had forged.
But he remained.
He watched the stars rearrange themselves around her. He watched the weaves of fate tangle and respool, trying to find order. And he saw, deep below them all, the Unwritten stirring.
He had tried to warn them.
The prophecy had never been about a war.
It had been about a choice.
And the moment Liora chose her daughters, the locks that kept the worst of the world at bay had begun to snap.
"I should go to her," he whispered.
A voice behind him answered:
"You waited too long already."
He turned — and saw the Guardian of the Shard standing at the edge of the platform, flame flickering in its obsidian limbs.
"If the Unwritten escapes," the Dreamer said, "even Liora won't be able to stop it."
"Then she will not fight it alone."
Liora paced inside the central chamber of the warcamp's command tent. Maps fluttered on their own. Candles burned upside-down. The reality around her was off-kilter, like the world had tilted and hadn't stopped spinning.
The dark twin watched from the shadows, expression unreadable.
The light-born daughter sat quietly near the fire, eyes glowing faintly, hands folded in her lap.
Vaerion entered. "The scouts report cracks forming near the Hollowspire. Trees dying. Soil turning to glass."
"How fast is it spreading?"
He hesitated.
"Too fast."
Liora turned to her daughters.
"Do either of you feel anything unusual?"
The dark twin tilted her head. "Something beneath me is humming. It wants to climb."
The other whispered, "It's calling to us."
Liora's heart thudded.
"What does it say?"
Both answered at the same time:
"It remembers the old names."
They arrived at the Hollowspire before dawn.
The earth had cracked open into a spiral canyon, glowing faintly with molten light and threads of shattered bone. The air reeked of ancient memory — not decay, but something primordial. A scent older than death.
Liora stood at the edge with her daughters at her sides and Vaerion just behind.
She peered down into the spiral.
And saw it.
Not the creature itself.
But its presence.
An absence of all things.
A place in reality where nothing belonged — not air, not light, not law.
The Unwritten.
One of the twins — the dark one — stepped forward, lips parted in awe.
"I know this place," she said.
"You can't," Liora said quickly.
But the child only smiled. "It knows me."
The canyon shook.
A thousand whispers rose.
"Come home… little gods… come rewrite the end with me…"
Liora turned to Vaerion, whispering fast and low.
"If it calls to them, it might use them. Twist them."
"Then we stop it before it reaches them."
Liora looked back at the girls—both staring downward. Both unmoving.
And suddenly, she understood.
This wasn't just a threat.
This was a test.
The world had balanced itself—two daughters, two anchors.
But something had noticed.
And it wanted to tilt that balance.
To force a merge.
To make Liora choose again—or lose everything.
"We can't fight it here," Liora said. "The soil's unstable. One misstep and we'll fall."
"Then what do we do?"
Liora looked at the dark twin.
And asked the unthinkable:
"Do you want to meet it?"
The child blinked. "Yes."
The light-born looked up. "If she goes, I go too."
Liora closed her eyes.
Then nodded.
"Then we all go together."