The wind screamed like a living thing as Aeron and Kaela entered the eastern border of the continent—a place of razor spines, perpetual storms, and warring tribes. The natives referred to it as the Shattered Teeth, because the way the splintered mountains rose up in a broken jawline, tearing into the air.
Kaela stood at the edge of the cliff, her hood blowing in the wind, eyes fixed on the road ahead. "Well, we've officially left civilization behind."
Aeron shifted the weight of the Riftcore crystal strapped to his belt. "Did we ever have civilization to begin with?"
"Fair," she said. "Still… this place feels angry."
Aeron nodded. "The Riftcore is near. I can sense it." He pointed out the storm-shrouded horizon. "Valthir told me it would be located in the ruins of a fallen city that's been lost to time—Erenhald."
Kaela scrunched up her face. "The city that floated and crashed?"
"That one.
As they started descending into the Teeth, the skies above grew darker. Lightning streaked through the clouds, lighting up shards of ancient towers and spires hidden in the cliffs, leftovers of the floating city that used to reign over the world—before it crashed like a dying star.
But they weren't alone in this world.
And something was observing them.
The Blightborn Raiders
By nightfall, they had set up camp in a narrow valley overhung by wind-blasted stones. Aeron had started a fire with Riftwood from their previous journey—its blue flames undetectable to the naked eye, designed to hide rather than show.
Kaela sat honing a blade, her tone subdued. "I grew up hearing tales of the Shattered Teeth. Rumor says no one returns. Either they're swept up by the storms or taken by the Blightborn."
Aeron stoked the fire. "What are the Blightborn?"
She crouched forward. "Raiders. But corrupted. Some claim they made a deal with the Rift's darkness when the city was destroyed. They revere the shattered magic that oozes from the mountains."
"And now they're our welcoming committee?"
Kaela replied by nocking an arrow and taking aim behind Aeron.
A brief moment later, three dark figures appeared out of the shadows, dressed in tattered armor and bone-masks. Their eyes were faintly glowing with violet shimmer.
Aeron stood, hammer in hand. "You sure you're not just summoning these things?"
One of the raiders raised a curved blade. "Leave the Riftcore, or be left for the crows."
Aeron answered by stepping forward, the runes on his hammer lighting up like a beacon.
"Come take it, then."
The fight exploded in a blur of movement. One raider lunged—Kaela's arrow caught him mid-air, pinning him to the canyon wall.
The second darted forward, too quick for all but the most perceptive eyes, but Aeron saw it coming. He turned, slamming his hammer into the earth. A shockwave ripped through the rocks, sending the attacker crashing into a boulder.
The third—a hulking giant with horns like tusks—charged, bellowing. Aeron met him head-on, hammer clashing with his blade in a ring of magic and metal.
But this one was more powerful—quicker. It knocked Aeron back, threatening to send him to the ground.
Kaela jumped onto the beast's back and stabbed a dagger into the mask. The beast screamed, hashing wildly before Aeron finished it off with a burning slash of Riftfire that cut the mask right off.
The beast's face was distorted, as though burned by some disease from within. Its eyes locked onto Aeron's—and flared with recognition.
"You… bear the Rift's mark…"
Then it fell to dust.
Kaela backed away, panting. "Well, that settles it. The Blightborn know who you are."
"And now they'll inform the others," Aeron growled. "We must go. Quickly."
Through the Wrath of the Sky
For three days, they traveled deeper into the Teeth, avoiding patrols, crossing broken bridges and crumbling spires. The storms never ceased—tempests of magic and wind that pounded them from every direction.
On the fourth day, they came to the rim of a huge crater—the place where Erenhald had fallen.
Jagged towers impaled the air like broken spears. Chunks of the once-floating city were embedded in the mountainside, welded by the impact and twisted by decades of Rift exposure.
Kaela swallowed. "This place… it's not dead."
"No," Aeron said. "It's grieving."
The Riftcore throbbed against his side.
Down below, the last fragment awaited.
So did something else.
They descended slowly, bridges of broken sky-stone spanning before them as they navigated the twisted alleys. Here, the magic was dense, vibrant. Whispers drifted through the air, not in terms, but memory. Reminiscences of a city that had reached towards the stars.
They walked over murals buried halfway in rubble—showing winged fighters, crystal spires, and machines of unworkable conception.
And so they came to the center of the ruin.
A sky-glass cathedral, shattered in two, its front half buried and the rest hanging suspended in mid-air by unseen power. Within, at the foot of an altar, drifted a core of pure Riftlight—the last piece.
But something stood in front of it.
A figure—hooded in violet and obsidian, humanoid in form but completely motionless. Its face concealed behind a helm sculpted like a screaming mouth.
Kaela automatically drew her bow. "Let me guess. Shadowborn?"
Aeron advanced, hammer aglow.
"No. This one's different."
The figure slowly swiveled its head to face them. Its voice, when it spoke, was cold and serene.
"I am the Harbinger. Last breath of Guardian of the Rift. You were not supposed to come… yet."
Aeron prepared himself. "We're not leaving without that core."
"Then you will leave in fragments."
The air erupted into violet flame, and the Harbinger charged forward, cloak streaming like wings of smoke.