The sky no longer held stars.
They had not vanished they had been rewritten.
Where once constellations whispered the stories of the ancients, now they danced in unfamiliar alignments, etching new myths into the night. Some spoke of a phoenix crowned in flame, others of a mirror that devoured reflections. And between them, like twin stains upon a pristine canvas, two shadows hovered, never crossing, never merging yet always circling.
Zeirion stood atop the floating spires of Ilnariis, a sanctum that drifted between realms, long severed from time. It was here, at the edge of stillness, that he prepared to meet what even he did not yet understand.
"The sky speaks lies," murmured Velathein, the Last Oracle, as she poured crushed moonstone into a basin of breathwater. "The stars rearrange, yes but it is not creation. It is warning."
Zeirion watched silently.
Aralya stood beside him, expression unreadable, her fingers tracing the hilt of her glaive not out of fear, but readiness.
Velathein looked up, blind eyes glowing silver. "The Spiral gave you truth… and now truth resists you. What you see in the sky those shadows they are not harbingers. They are echoes. Of what you might have been."
Zeirion's voice was a whisper of thunder. "Reflections."
The Oracle nodded. "One of might. One of mercy. Neither is you. Yet both could be."
Outside, the world shook.
From the Threadless Sky an open wound above Ilnariis where the veil had completely unraveled a figure began to descend. A silhouette of pale fire and void light, wrapped in crimson robes that did not move with the wind.
Zeirion stepped forward.
The Oracle shivered. "It's one of them."
The air warped. Reality strained.
And the figure landed without sound.
It was him.
But not truly.
This Zeirion had no warmth in his eyes. No trace of longing. No burden of love. Only power. Cold, endless power. A Sovereign of outcome without origin.
The twin shadows above pulsed.
"You should not be," Zeirion said.
The reflection tilted its head, and when it spoke, it was with his own voice, yet devoid of soul. "And yet… here I am."
Aralya narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?"
The reflection looked at her. "To show him what he gave up. To remind him what he was. Before her. Before peace. Before hesitation."
Velathein hissed. "This one is the Sovereign of the Unyielding Path. The Zeirion who never broke. Who never loved."
The true Zeirion's expression darkened. "You are not my path."
"No," the reflection said. "But I am your debt."
And with that, the reflection raised a hand.
The sky cracked.
Below, the Realms trembled as the first of the Threadborn Behemoths creatures born from the refuse of unchosen futures began to claw into existence.
A war not of survival…
…but of possibility… had begun.