The stars had long since abandoned the sky above the Ashplains.
Haraza stood at the edge of the cracked horizon, the weight of his glaive slung across his back, and the last flickers of Riftlight pulsing faintly in the crystal veins running down his right arm. The land ahead was gray—endlessly gray—an expanse of broken stone and scattered bones, stretching far into a haze so thick it might as well have been the edge of the world.
Behind him, the Hollow Grove was fading from sight, swallowed by the creeping fog that rolled like smoke from the wounds of the land. The Echoed had not followed him. Their task was to remain—to guard the last bastion of memory. Haraza's path led away from safety, toward a place even they feared.
Beside him now walked the cloaked woman—Lirien, she had finally called herself. Once a Warden, now something more. Something freer.
("The Ashplains weren't always like this,") she said, her voice muted by the wind. ("Before the first Sundering, this was the heart of a kingdom. Cities made of glass and light. The sky was red with banners. Then the Rift sang.")
("And the Dream answered,") Haraza murmured.
Lirien nodded.
("It was not the first place to fall. But it was the first to remember what fell with it.")
Haraza glanced at her. ("You're speaking like these lands think. Like they have memory.")
She looked toward the horizon, her gaze distant.
("They do. Every stone here remembers the moment it was unmade. The ash you breathe? It's not dust. It's names. People. Places. Whole lives, reduced and scattered. And the land has not yet forgiven us for surviving it.")
Haraza inhaled slowly. The air was thick with the scent of scorched metal and old sorrow.
("I thought you said the Rift was the scar—not the blade.")
She met his gaze. "It is. But a scar aches when you touch it. And we are walking across the bruised skin of a god that never was."
They moved forward in silence for some time, their steps crunching across fine ash and brittle bones. Strange obelisks rose from the ground like jagged teeth—black stone with veins of pale silver, etched with runes that glowed faintly when Haraza passed near them.
("Markers,") Lirien said, ("left by the first Riftborn. They tried to map the bleeding points. Areas where the Dream leaked through. Most were consumed. Some… became the things they were trying to stop.")
Haraza paused beside one of the monoliths. The rune upon it blinked once, then faded.
("What happens if I touch it?")
("You remember something that was never yours. Sometimes you don't come back the same.")
He pulled his hand away.
Far in the distance, a mountain of obsidian loomed against the sky. It wasn't naturally formed—its shape was too angular, too precise. It looked like it had been constructed, then melted. At its peak, a single spire jutted outward, pointing at the heavens like a defiant finger.
("That's the edge of the Tower of Unknowing,") Lirien said. ("We'll reach it by dawn—if the Mirrowalkers don't find us first.")
Haraza raised an eyebrow. ("Mirrowalkers?")
She hesitated.
("Fragments,") she said finally. ("Souls torn by the Rift and lured back by their own reflections. They have no faces. Only masks of who they once were. They haunt these plains, seeking to remember themselves.")
("And if they find someone who does remember them?")
Lirien didn't answer.
That was all the confirmation Haraza needed.
They continued on, the terrain shifting beneath their feet. At times it seemed to breathe—swelling with each gust of wind, then falling silent again. Once, they passed a fissure that belched smoke and emberlight, its depths pulsing with an unnatural heartbeat. Haraza felt the Seed respond—glowing faintly beneath his ribs, as if drawn to the Rift beneath them.
He turned to Lirien. ("How deep does this go?")
She glanced at the fissure. ("To the bones of the world. Maybe deeper.")
As the sky darkened further, they stopped to rest beside the remains of what might once have been a caravan. Shattered wheels, splintered metal, a few half-buried corpses, long since stripped of flesh by wind and time.
Haraza knelt, brushing ash from a rusted amulet tangled in one of the skeleton's ribs. It bore a sigil he didn't recognize—three intersecting circles, like overlapping echoes.
Lirien knelt beside him. ("A family crest. The Line of Ellonar. They believed the Rift was divine.")
He frowned. ("Divine?")
("They worshipped it. Built temples in its name. Prayed to the Dream for clarity, for power. It gave them both. And when they opened the Spiral Gate, it took everything back.")
Haraza stood. ("Sounds familiar.")
Lirien's gaze darkened. ("We all come to the Rift hoping it'll give us something. Few of us understand what it's taking in return.")
A sudden noise caught them both—soft at first, like cloth brushing stone. Then louder. Footsteps, out of rhythm. One soft. One scraping.
Haraza turned, his glaive already in hand.
The fog ahead parted.
A figure emerged.
It walked slowly, jerkily. A man-shaped shadow with no face. Its body was wrapped in rags, but its mask—oh, gods—its mask was a flawless mirror. It reflected not Haraza's face, but his fears.
He saw himself as a Warden. Eyes hollow. Covered in blood. The Seed in his chest cracked and glowing with black fire. He saw a future he didn't want. One he hadn't yet walked—but might.
The Mirrowalker cocked its head.
Lirien whispered, ("Don't speak to it.")
It took another step.
Haraza braced.
Then it opened its arms.
And he heard his own voice.
("Help me,") it said.
The same tone. Same cadence. It was him.
From another path. Another echo.
("I failed them,") it said, stepping forward. ("I thought I could carry it alone. But I became what I swore to destroy.")
Haraza's grip tightened.
Lirien drew her staff. ("Strike before it finishes the memory.")
("But—")
("It's not you,") she hissed. ("It's what you could become. It's trying to bind you.")
The Mirrowalker shuddered. The mirrored mask cracked—once, twice—then split open, revealing a gaping void of lightless teeth.
Haraza moved.
The glaive sang through the air, carving a brilliant arc of Riftlight that cut through the creature's midsection. It screamed—not in pain, but in loss. The echo of his voice warped and distorted, fading as the creature dissolved into smoke and shrapnel.
Haraza stood over the ash where it fell, panting.
Lirien approached slowly.
("They get stronger the closer we get,") she said. ("It's not just the tower they guard. It's the question buried beneath it. The one truth the Dream cannot absorb.")
Haraza looked down at his hands. The Riftlight in his glaive flickered—unsteady.
("I saw myself,") he whispered. ("But it wasn't just fear. It was… truth. A path I might take.")
("And one you might still need to,") Lirien said.
He looked at her sharply.
("You said we resist. That we fight.")
("And we will,") she said, her eyes hard. ("But fighting something like the Sleeper means you risk becoming the very thing you fear. The question isn't just what you'll do to win—but what you're willing to lose.")
They didn't sleep that night. The Mirrowalker's whisper echoed long after the wind carried its ash away.
As the horizon brightened with the first hints of false dawn—bloody red and trembling—the Tower of Unknowing came into view. It rose from the cracked earth like a forgotten god's monument, surrounded by a sea of shattered glass and ancient bones.
Haraza stood at its threshold.
Beneath his ribs, the Seed pulsed once.
And somewhere far below, the Sleeper stirred.