Haraza moved quickly, yet cautiously, through the gnarled woods, the glaive low at his side, its edge still humming with residual Riftlight. The figure ahead of him never looked back, never stumbled. They glided between the twisted trunks like shadow given form, their staff clicking softly against stone and root.
The Duskroot forest seemed to lean in on them both.
These trees—massive, hollowed things with bark like cracked leather—weren't natural. Some bore scorch marks, others strange carvings that pulsed faintly in rhythmic patterns. Runes? No—veins. The trees were alive in some buried, unnatural way. One opened its hollow trunk as they passed, revealing a dozen glassy eyes embedded in its inner walls, blinking once before closing again.
Haraza didn't flinch.
He didn't trust this place—but he trusted the Rift. And the Rift had led him here for a reason.
The cloaked figure finally came to a stop at the edge of a glade unlike any he'd seen. The trees parted, revealing a circular grove with a shallow basin of clear black water at its center. Hanging above it—unmoving—was a single shard of crystal, suspended in midair by no visible means. It rotated slowly, casting refractions of pale blue light onto the grove floor.
The figure turned at last.
Their hood fell back.
It was a woman—at least, mostly. Her face bore the features of humanity—sharp cheekbones, thin lips, eyes like sunlit amethyst—but there was an otherworldliness to her. Her skin shimmered subtly, as though woven with threads of starlight. Long hair, braided with thin strands of silver wire and pale blossoms, flowed behind her in waves. Her left arm was not flesh but living crystal, etched with glowing sigils.
("You've awakened it,") she said, her voice like wind over still water.
Haraza took a step forward.( "The Seed?")
She nodded.
("Then you know why I'm here?")
She tilted her head slightly. ("Not entirely. But I know what you are.")
He didn't move.
("I'm Haraza Genso,") he said. ("Marked by the Rift. I was trained in the Sanctum of Brass. Tarsis sent me here.")
At the name, something passed behind her eyes. A memory. Or a wound.
("You bear the Forge's echo,") she said at last. ("That explains the storm earlier. It wasn't just Riftspawn—it was the valley responding to your presence.")
("The Seed did that?")
("No," she said. "You did.")
She approached the pool at the center of the grove and gestured for him to follow. When he hesitated, she smiled faintly.
("If I wanted you dead, you'd be speaking to a tree by now.")
("Fair,") he muttered, stepping forward.
Together, they stood at the basin's edge. The water reflected no sky—only memory. As Haraza looked in, the surface shimmered, and he saw a thousand faces flicker across it—some his, others not. Some were twisted by pain, others radiant with power. He saw himself die, rise, and become—again and again, in echoes of what could be.
("What is this place?") he asked quietly.
("The Hollow Grove,") she replied. ("The last still-point of the old wardens. Before the Rift tore the sky, before the world broke into echoes, this was where the first Riftborn trained.")
Haraza's breath caught.
("There were others?")
("Of course.") She crouched and let her crystalline fingers skim the surface.("The Rift has always chosen. It is a river that flows through time and possibility. It picks those it needs, not always those who want to be chosen.")
("Did it choose you?")
She didn't answer.
Instead, she rose slowly and faced him.
("You are not just Riftborn,") she said. ("You are something else. Something new. The Seed you carry is not merely a gift—it is a mirror. It reflects the truths you're willing to confront.")
Haraza stepped back. ("And if I'm not ready?")
("Then it will consume you.")
There was a long silence between them, filled only by the whispering wind in the branches.
Finally, she said, ("Come. There's someone you need to meet.")
She led him through a narrow path at the far edge of the grove, where roots and vines wove themselves aside at her approach. The air changed again—colder, older. The trees here were petrified into stone. The soil was ashen but firm.
They emerged into a sunken amphitheater, half-collapsed, carved into the side of a low hill. Stone statues lined its perimeter—faceless figures wielding weapons of impossible design, some shaped like stars, others like torn pages frozen in glass.
And at the center… a campfire.
Still burning.
Three figures sat around it.
Haraza immediately recognized the first: a man in tattered gray robes, one eye missing, a scar down the side of his jaw. He was sharpening a blade made of wind—that is, the blade looked like it was made of solidified current, caught mid-gale.
The second was harder to define. A being of dark feathers and bone, wearing a mask with a long beak. Its voice, when it spoke, sounded like birds echoing in a cave.
("Another joins the war,") it said.
The third was a child—no more than ten. But her eyes were older than any of theirs, and she carried a broken hourglass wrapped in chains.
Haraza tensed. ("What is this?")
The cloaked woman stepped forward.
("These are the Echoed. Riftborn like you, but from... further down the spiral. Some from futures that never happened. Others from timelines that have already died. They were called here to protect what remains.")
("To fight the Warden things?")
("To fight what commands them,") said the scarred man.
("Which is?") Haraza asked.
The child answered, voice like falling sand.
("The Sleeper. The Dream That Broke.")
Haraza stared.
("I've never heard of it.")
("You will,") said the feathered one. ("Before this is over, you will become part of its dream.")
Haraza looked at them all—the firelight reflecting in his glaive's edge, the weight of the Seed thudding in his chest.
This wasn't just a corrupted valley.
It was a crucible.
The beginning of a war far older and far more twisted than he'd been told.
But he didn't flinch.
Instead, he nodded.
("Then tell me what I need to know,") he said.
The fire crackled.
And the stories began.