The sky wept shadows.
Raine's breath came in ragged gasps as she staggered to her feet, her crystallized arms throbbing with the residual energy of the shattered Void Ember. Above her, the Rift yawned wider, its edges fraying like torn fabric, bleeding streaks of violet and obsidian across the heavens.
The air itself tasted of static and decay, as if the world were unraveling at the seams.
Kaios lay beside her, his silver hair now bleached bone-white, his temporal dagger reduced to rust in his grip. His mismatched eyesgold and violet, like a fractured dawnftickered with exhaustion, but his voice was steel.
*"It's not just open. It's* watching."
A shiver traced Raines spine. The Rift wasnt a wound. It was an *eye*.
And it had *seen* them.
---
The ground trembled as the remnants of the Hollow Core collapsed behind them, swallowing Dermont's broken form and the altars cursed echoes. But the silence that followed was worse. No wind.
No distant cries of beasts. Just the low, resonant *hum* of the Rift's hunger, vibrating through Raines bones.
Kaios pressed a hand to his chest, wincing as temporal energy crackled beneath his skin.
*"The Void Ember... it wasnt just a key. It was a* lock."And we broke it."*
Raine flexed her fingers, the crystals in her arms pulsing in time with the Rift's rhythm. The Earth Ember's power grounded her, but the Fire and Wind Embers *reacted*, their energies twisting like caged animals.
*"Then we find another way to seal it."*
A laugh echoed through the ruinsnot from the Rift, but from the shadows.
Elysa stepped into the dim light, her emerald cloak tattered, her body half-consumed by the same void-black veins that had claimed Dermont. But her eyes... her eyes were still *hers*
*"You cant seal what was never meant to be closed,"* she rasped,
clutching a bleeding wound at her side.
*"The Rift was here before the Conclave. Before the gods. It's the first truththe first* hunger."
Kaios's dagger was in his hand before Raine could blink, though the blade was little more than a shard now. *"Youre infected."*
Elysa's smile was a grimace. *"I'm* enlightened. *The Conclave knew. They lied to us all.
The Rift isnt destruction. Its* evolution." *Her gaze locked onto Raine. *"And youre the catalyst."*
Raine's gloves crackled. *"What are you talking about?"*
Elysa staggered forward, her breath labored. *"Your bloodline. The crystals. The Conclave didnt just experiment on youthey* bred *you.
For this. The Rift doesnt want to consume the world.
It wants to* remake "it. And you... youre the bridge."*
A memory flashedRaines mother braiding her hair, whispering: *"The crystals in our blood arent a curse. Theyre a choice."*
The Earth Ember *thrummed* in response, its energy surging through Raine' s veins like a tidal wave.
She saw fragments: a child in a Conclave lab, needles piercing her skin, elders chanting as liquid void dripped into her eyes.
*Her* eyes.
*"No,"* Raine whispered.
Elysa coughed black fluid. *"The Rift's voice is in you already. Listen."*
hen-
It *spoke*.
---
The voice was not sound. It was *pressure*, a weight against Raines skull, a whisper that slithered between her thoughts.
***You are the spark. The conduit. The vessel.***
Her vision fractured.
She stood in a hall of mirrors, each reflection a different version of herself: one crystallized into a statue, one wreathed in shadow, one burning with ember-light. At the center stood a figurehooded, golden-eyedholding a blade of molten time.
***Choose,*** it said. ***Become the seal. Or become the storm.***
Raine reached for the blade-
And screamed as the vision *shattered*.
Kaios was shaking her, his hands rough, his voice raw.*"Raine! Look at me!"*
She gasped, her gloves smoking, her crystallized arms now threaded with veins of void-black. Elysa was gone, vanished into the shadows, but her words lingered like poison.
*"It's in my head,"* Raine choked out.
Kaios's grip tightened. *"Fight it. The Embers are yours. Not its."*
The Rift *pulsed*, and the sky *rippled*not with light, but with *absence*, a tear in reality so vast it dwarfed the mountains. And from its depths, something *stirred*.
Not a beast. Not a god.
A *will*.
The earth as they fled, tendrils of shadow lashing at their heels. Kaios' s temporal energy was fading, his hair whitening further with every strained breath. Raine's mind reeledElysa's revelation, the Rifts voice, the truth of her bloodlinebut one thought anchored her:
*The Conclave knew.*
And if they knew, they had a way to stop it.
*"The first god's blood became stone,"* she muttered, recalling the Wind Embers whisper. *"The Hollow Core wasnt the end. It was a* grave. *We need to find where Arkalos fell."*
Kaios's eyes darkened. *"The Shattered Peaks were just a burial site.
The real wound is deeper."* He hesitated. *"The Conclaves Sanctum.'
Where they first opened the Rift."*
A gust of wind, thick with the scent of burning ozone, coiled around them. The Rift's voice slithered after it:
***Run, little spark. Run to your masters. They will tell you the same truth.*
***You were never meant to save this world.***
***You were meant to replace it.***
---