The storm above the tower did not relent as Haraza and Lirien descended the ridge. Black clouds churned with unnatural fury, clawing at the sky like a beast pacing behind a cage of lightning. And in the distant east, a strange light pulsed in slow rhythm—like the heartbeat of something long dormant beginning to stir.
Haraza knew what it was.
The Sleeper had turned in its grave.
The Tower of Unknowing stood silent behind them, its great obsidian spire now cracked near the summit. What once loomed immutable was now imperfect—scarred. It hadn't fallen, not yet. But the fracture in its peak was not just a wound in stone; it was a wound in reality. Something had been released… or perhaps, remembered.
Wind howled across the Ash Steppe as they moved, and for the first time, Haraza realized it wasn't only wind. It was voices—millions of them, whispering through the dirt, through the air, through his blood. Not ghosts, but echoes. Echoes of lives consumed when the Rift was first torn.
Lirien kept pace beside him, her hood up against the swirling ash. Her expression was grim and distant, as though walking alongside him through a world she already mourned.
("I saw something,") Haraza said, breaking the silence. ("In the tower. Futures. Three of them.")
She didn't answer at first.
("Let me guess,") she said at last. ("One where you fall. One where you win but lose everything. And one where you give up everything to seal the Rift forever.")
Haraza stopped. ("You've seen them too?")
("I was born in a tower just like this,") she said softly. ("It was part of my Warden rite. The moment we become bound to the Rift, we're shown what awaits us. But it's not prophecy. It's choice. A warning dressed in truth.")
Haraza considered that. The visions had felt real. Too real. But if they weren't fixed—if they could be changed…
("We're heading toward Cael'Bryn,") Lirien added. ("There's something beneath it. Old tech. Pre-Rift. It might give us a better idea of what the Sleeper is actually doing.")
("What kind of tech?")
("Something called the Resonant Spire. It was built to measure Rift pulses. Track them. But the last reading it sent out—before Cael'Bryn fell—showed a spike large enough to level a continent.")
("Let me guess,") Haraza said. ("Nobody ever found out why?")
("No survivors. The city just went silent. When scouts got there, they found everyone… asleep. Alive. Breathing. But dreaming the same dream. The Sleeper's dream.")
Haraza's jaw tightened. ("He's already touched the world once.")
("Exactly. And if he's waking up now…")
("We have less time than we thought.")
They descended into a narrow valley where jagged cliffs framed the sky like broken teeth. The storm's light dimmed, as if the very land held its breath.
Down below, ruins rose like the bones of a forgotten god.
-Cael'Bryn.-
The last city before the Rift burned through the continent of Aetherin. It was once a jewel—shimmering white stone towers, soaring archways, floating terraces alight with Riftglass and resonance coils. Now it was silent, crumbling, half-submerged in creeping ash and violet moss.
And yet, it pulsed.
A low hum, just beneath the threshold of hearing. The same rhythm as the tower.
Haraza stepped carefully between fallen statues and shattered halls, feeling the air grow colder, thicker. Each step into the dead city was like diving deeper into a memory not his own.
("There,") Lirien said, pointing toward the heart of the city. ("The Spire should still be intact. Beneath the Sanctum Hall.")
They moved quickly.
More than once, Haraza caught movement in the corners of his vision—shadows ducking behind pillars, shapes that melted into mist when he turned to face them. He didn't ask if Lirien saw them too. She did. Her hand was already on her curved dagger, the air around it faintly shimmering with protective glyphs.
The Sanctum Hall was partially collapsed, but its great circular door still stood. It bore the mark of the Rift—a spiral carved into stone, surrounded by twelve smaller sigils representing the Twelve Sectors of the Old Warden Accord. Haraza recognized only four of them. The others had been lost to time, buried in events even Lirien refused to speak of.
He touched the central spiral.
The door responded—not with gears or magic, but with silence.
Then—
A voice.
But not one in the air. One in his mind.
("Recognition: Fragment of the First detected. Access granted.")
The door slid open without a sound, revealing a long tunnel leading downward into blackness.
Lirien blinked. ("You just opened a sealed vault that hasn't moved in a thousand years.")
("Guess the tower really did something to the Seed.")
They entered.
The tunnel led to an atrium, its domed ceiling still glowing faintly with Riftglass patterns. Strange mechanical pillars lined the walls—each inscribed with runes Haraza couldn't decipher. The room smelled like dust and ozone.
At the center stood the Resonant Spire.
It was beautiful.
A crystal formation suspended in midair, wrapped in copper and obsidian rings. Blue and violet energy flowed between its components, pulsing like breath. The closer Haraza got, the more the Seed responded.
He reached out.
The instant his hand touched the lowest ring, the Spire lit up.
A projection flared to life above them—three-dimensional, rotating, and impossibly detailed. It showed the continent of Aetherin, the great Rift that split it, and a pulsing point at its center.
A point that was moving.
("Spire is still tracking Rift pulses,") Lirien whispered.
Haraza stared. ("It's heading for the surface.")
("No,") she corrected. ("It's breaking through. That's not a pulse. That's an aperture. The Sleeper isn't just waking. He's tearing the veil apart.")
Suddenly, the Spire flared red.
The projection vanished.
The Spire began to vibrate violently.
Haraza stumbled back. ("What's happening?")
Lirien's eyes widened. ("The Spire's being overridden—")
The ground shook.
The ceiling cracked.
And then, from the shadows behind them—
Something emerged.
It wasn't beast or man. It was a husk. A thing caught between life and dream.
Its body was pale, sinewy, covered in shifting symbols that writhed like worms beneath its skin. Its eyes were wide and empty, its mouth sewn shut with strands of Riftthread. It moved without sound, floating just above the ground, arms outstretched.
Haraza drew his blade.
The Seed flared in response.
("Back!") Lirien shouted, flinging a glyph of light that exploded against the creature's form. It shrieked—not aloud, but directly into their minds.
Painful. Endless.
Haraza lunged, slashing through the mist.
The blade met flesh—but the creature didn't bleed. It fractured. Cracks spread across its form like broken glass.
Then it exploded into a cloud of whispers.
("What was that?") Haraza asked, panting.
("A Dreambound,") Lirien said, voice tight. ("The Sleeper's first servants. They move through memory and thought. Killing one doesn't end it. Only delays it.")
More shrieks echoed through the sanctum.
("They're coming.")
Haraza looked at the Spire one last time. It was still flickering. Still alive.
("We download the last readings,") he said. ("Then we run.")
Lirien held out a crystal disk, fed it into the Spire's base. The mechanism clicked.
The crystal glowed.
("I've got it.")
They turned—and fled into the dark as the Sanctum Hall behind them exploded into chaos.