They stood at the edge of the world.
Beyond the ravine, Eldermoor sprawled like a corpse stitched into the earth — its towers cracked, its walls bleeding with vines long dead, its streets humming with something older than decay.
Riven exhaled slowly, his breath misting in the air despite the summer heat.
"We cross at sundown," he said.
Behind him, Kaela scoffed. "Why wait? Every second we waste is another child gutted in Valdareth."
"Because," Sol answered for him, "this place isn't just guarded by shadows."
She knelt by the earth, pressing her palm to the brittle ground. Her eyes glowed faintly, reading echoes embedded in soil.
"Listen."
And Riven did.
The wind was whispering.
They camped in silence, the army they'd gathered — a chaotic blend of former rebels, mercenaries, soulbound disciples, and the remaining students of the Sanctum — restless and armed to the teeth.
Among them, the recruits from the Sanctum courtyard now wore armor that bore no crest — only a single glyph:
信.
Faith.
Riven traced the symbol absently on his gauntlet.
It wasn't magic.
But it meant magic.
That night, Sol approached him alone, the obsidian shard she had summoned earlier now embedded in her chest like a second heart. Its glow pulsed with unnatural rhythm.
"You know what this means, right?" she asked softly.
"If you let the pact awaken fully, it won't let you return as you were."
He looked at her. "We don't return as we were anyway."
Sol smiled, bitterly. "You sound like Aria."
"I've started listening to her more."
"About time." She touched his shoulder. "Still. If it consumes me—"
"I'll stop you," he said, gently.
She nodded, satisfied.
"I hope you fail."
At midnight, Aria opened the first seal.
They stood before an altar buried in stone — the ruins of an ancient chapel that once belonged to the Order of the Flamebound, a sect that had sacrificed its soul to imprison something the world had no name for.
Kaela muttered, "Tell me again why we're unsealing the thing a thousand monks gave their lives to contain?"
Aria ignored her, drawing runes in the air, her eyes glowing with blacklight.
"Because," she said, "the Whispering Veil didn't create soul magic. They stole it."
"And this," she added, "is where they stole it from."
The seal broke with a scream.
Not a sound — a memory. It slammed into them all at once: visions of fire, of a city turned to ash, of gods weeping molten tears, of a boy who sealed his own heart in iron to stop a war.
And in the center of the broken altar, a mirror rose.
But not a mirror of glass.
A mirror of soul.
Riven saw himself in it — but older, harder. A tyrant. Or a savior.
The reflection bled.
One by one, they touched it.
Kaela saw her brother — the one she'd lost to the Veil — reaching for her with accusing eyes.
Sol saw a world where she ruled with fire — and hated every breath.
Aria saw herself in chains — golden, beautiful chains — singing the spells that kept the world in motion, and herself imprisoned in eternity.
And Riven…
Riven saw her.
Leila.
Not dead.
Not gone.
Just waiting.
In the heart of Eldermoor.
He ripped his hand back, breath ragged.
"It's not real."
"Does that matter?" Aria whispered. "What's real anymore?"
As the mirror cracked, energy poured into the earth. The Pact had been accepted.
And with it came a voice.
A god's voice.
Or something worse.
"WHO DARES STIR THE ASHES OF FOREVER?"
Riven stood tall.
"I do."
The voice hissed.
"YOU SEEK POWER?"
"No."
He drew his blade, pointing it at the swirling energy.
"I seek vengeance."
Silence.
Then:
"THEN BURN, O KING OF RUIN. BURN TO REMEMBER."
Power erupted around him, fire not of heat but of memory.
His soul screamed.
Not from pain — but from awakening.
He saw flashes — timelines that never were, futures that might still be.
Him, atop the Throne of Dust.
Leila, crowned in chains.
Sol, dead in his arms.
Kaela, laughing as she betrayed him.
Aria, falling into void.
And in the center of it all — a choice.
To rise.
Or to let it all fall.
When the light faded, Riven was still standing.
But different.
His right eye now burned silver.
His blade hummed with ancient hunger.
His voice — when he spoke — was layered with something no longer entirely human.
"Eldermoor falls tomorrow."
As the army rose, wind howling around the cliffs, Kaela approached him, not quite looking at him.
"You okay?"
He looked at her, smiled faintly.
"No."
"But I'm ready."
She hesitated.
Then, surprising even herself, she hugged him.
Tight.
"Don't become the thing we fight."
He whispered back:
"I already have. But I promise — I'll burn for them, not against them."
Far across the ruin, the Whispering Veil watched through a soulglass.
At their center, cloaked in robes made of living shadow, sat the High Binder.
He smiled.
"So... the last king wakes."
He raised a hand.
"Then let the world break."