The rain was ash tonight.
Not water. Not snow. Ash—fine, grey, and silent as regret. It drifted down over the crumbled ruins of Valdheim Ridge, clinging to cloaks, lashes, and blood-wet steel. The wind moaned through the cracks in the broken stone like the voices of the dead, and Raizel stood at the edge of it all, watching the storm swallow the horizon.
He didn't speak. Neither did the others. Vanya knelt by the fire, her wrists still red with marks from the Binder's chains. Elyssia stood apart, her silhouette a blur beneath her hood, unreadable. And Tahl, ever grim, cleaned his axe without looking at anyone, as if the dried sinew on its blade had offended him personally.
Then came the messenger.
He didn't ride. He crawled.
Raizel turned first, sword half-drawn before he even registered the sound. The figure emerged from the ridge line—no horse, no mount. Just a man—barely that anymore—dragging himself with shattered arms and a back bent at a crooked angle, bones poking through split leather. His mouth worked around air, as if he'd forgotten how to speak.
Vanya reached him first.
She knelt beside him, fingers glowing faintly with magic, but when she touched his neck, she flinched. "It's not blood in him," she said quietly. "It's… it's oil. And tar. Something's wrong."
The man coughed. And spoke.
No sound.
Just a name, mouthed silently: Elyssia.
Raizel turned.
Elyssia was already moving, boots kicking up ash as she rushed forward, tearing off her hood. "Who sent you?" she asked, crouching low.
The man bled shadows. Thick, slug-like trails of inky black dripped from his eyes, ears, even his navel. He raised a broken hand. In it was a single object.
A whispersteel knife.
Raizel's heart stopped.
The blade was unmistakable—thin, curved, its metal a sickly grey that shimmered with an oily sheen. He'd seen such a knife once before, during the Black Chamber Trials. It was the chosen weapon of the Veiled Choir, a cabal of royal executioners who didn't kill for punishment—but for silence.
Elyssia didn't flinch. She took the blade. Studied it.
"He was sent to kill me," she said flatly. "But someone got to him first."
Raizel stepped closer. "Why you?"
A pause. Elyssia didn't answer right away. Instead, she lifted the man's head gently and whispered, "Tell them what you saw."
For a moment, there was only the fire. Then, the man convulsed, and with his last breath, a memory tore from his lips—not in words, but in images.
Raizel saw it.
A chamber carved from bone and veined with black roots. Seven figures in crimson masks seated around a circular altar. A map of the kingdom, marked not with cities—but with bloodlines. And at the center, bound in rune-twisted chains, was an old man—crownless, stripped, but unmistakably royal.
Valthorr.
And then the words, hissed like a curse: "Kill the last blood. Cleanse the root. The throne is not for rot."
Raizel staggered back. The vision vanished.
"They're planning to erase the entire bloodline," he whispered. "Not just Valthorr. All of them. Every descendant."
Vanya looked at Elyssia. "That includes you."
Elyssia nodded. "And you."
"What?"
Raizel turned sharply.
Elyssia stood slowly, face pale but calm. "You think you're just a warrior. A tactician. But there's more in you than you know, Raizel. The Tahta Daging—Throne of Flesh—responds to blood. And it screamed when you touched that scroll."
Raizel didn't respond. Couldn't. The ash on his gloves began to sizzle as heat surged in his veins. A memory brushed the edge of his mind—chains, a mirror, a whisper in a language older than pain.
"We need allies," he said finally. "Before they come for us."
Elyssia's mouth curled into a grim smile. "I know where to find one."
They traveled by night.
Through the drowned fields of Kerynth, past the charred remains of the Ashbarrow villages—each burned in silence, without warning, their wells salted and their children taken. Signs of the Choir's passage, Raizel guessed. Or worse.
They reached the Scorched Chapel by dawn.
It sat alone atop a dead hill, half-collapsed, its bell tower leaning like a drunk too proud to fall. From within came chanting—low, guttural, the voice of someone not entirely human anymore.
"This is your ally?" Tahl muttered.
Elyssia gave him a look. "He owes me a life. That'll be enough."
They entered without knocking.
The inside was worse than expected—pulped pews, melted icons, and a mural defaced with entrails that still pulsed faintly. At the altar stood a figure in flayed priest's robes, face hidden beneath a mask of stitched parchment.
When he turned, Raizel almost drew steel.
But Elyssia stepped forward. "High Scribe of Wormlight," she said softly. "We have come for a name."
The figure tilted his head. "A name is a price."
"Then name your price."
A long silence.
Then the Scribe extended a blood-crusted hand. "One memory. Not yours. His."
Raizel felt something twist in his chest.
Elyssia hesitated. "He won't—"
"I will," Raizel interrupted.
The Scribe didn't wait. He reached forward, placing two fingers on Raizel's forehead.
Raizel screamed.
Pain exploded behind his eyes. The world turned red, then black. And then—
He stood in a different time.
A throne room. Columns of ivory and glass. Soldiers in black-and-silver armor, kneeling before a masked king. And at the king's right hand—himself.
No. Not Raizel.
But someone like him.
Younger. Crueler. Eyes like dead suns.
The king spoke: "You are my blade. My shadow. My legacy."
Then he was back.
The Scribe staggered away, hissing. "He is marked," he said. "He remembers."
Raizel touched his face. It was wet.
With tears. Or blood. He couldn't tell.
"What's the name?" Elyssia snapped.
The Scribe looked at her. "Grand Inquisitor Vexis. He commands the Choir now. And he resides within the Corpse Citadel."
Raizel's pulse stilled.
"That place is cursed."
The Scribe nodded. "Then go prepared."
They left the chapel in silence.
Elyssia walked beside Raizel, close but not touching. "You saw something," she said. "In that memory."
"Yes."
"Was it truth?"
"I don't know yet," he admitted.
But he did.
And it terrified him.
As they made camp near dusk, Tahl scouted ahead while Vanya laid sigils in a protective circle. The forest around them was wrong—trees too quiet, air too thick. The birds had stopped singing.
Raizel sat with Elyssia, the fire between them.
"What if I'm one of them?" he asked. "The ones hunting you."
Elyssia looked at him then. Really looked.
"If you were," she said, "you'd already have killed me."
A rustle.
Then a scream.
Tahl burst into the clearing, blood pouring from his side. "They're here!" he snarled. "Choir blades—three of them—hiding their faces!"
Raizel grabbed his sword.
But it was too late.
The trees around them exploded in motion. Shadows darted through the firelight—tall, thin figures in red masks and bone armor, their blades whispering through the air like silk. Vanya screamed something in a forgotten tongue, and the earth cracked, but the assassins didn't stop.
One leapt straight at Raizel.
And as their blades met, the assassin hissed one word:
"Brother."