(From Isolde's perspective)
The obsidian mirrors in Isolde's sanctum pulsed with fractured light, their surfaces whispering with voices from across realms.
She stood in the center, robed in black and crimson, her hands raised to the constellation of orbs above. Each orb held a fragment of stolen memory, stolen soul.
And they all betrayed her.
She could feel it—like a splinter beneath her skin—Jack's surge of power. A new resonance in the cosmic balance. The Sanctum of Origins had awakened to him. Not to her. Not even to the council. To a half-blood child cloaked in moonlight.
She crushed the air with her fist, and the nearest mirror shattered with a scream.
"How dare he," she whispered. "How dare the Sanctum accept him."
The shadows around her stirred. Cloaked sentries, creatures made from her grief, slithered out from the stone to await her bidding. But Isolde barely looked at them.
She was thinking—feeling too much.
For centuries she had waited, plotting in the hollows of Vaelmir, weaving darkness into every root of power. The council of elders had mocked her warnings. Even after Thalon left her for that sea-born creature, even after he vanished between realms, they clung to their denial.
But she had known.
She had felt his presence long after his body had gone. The soul never lied. His bloodline was not ended. Not while she breathed.
Now the boy had crossed into the Sanctum.
Her Sanctum.
"I should have torn him from the womb," she muttered. Her reflection in the unbroken mirror said nothing, though her own eyes stared back—colder than ever. "I gave the council every chance to act. They refused. I offered mercy. They refused. Now, let them see what mercy costs."
She turned to the altar at the heart of the sanctum. Upon it lay a crystal bowl filled with ink-dark ichor. With a motion, she parted the liquid like fabric and summoned a vision.
Jack.
His form flickered into view—arms spread, artifacts shining, Nyssa and Kael flanking him like the loyal little soldiers they were. The power flowed through him like a river—raw, uncontrolled, divine.
But unstable.
He's not ready, she thought, lips curling. He hasn't lost enough. Not yet.
A shadow detached itself from the far wall—a figure robed in silence. The Warden of the Maw, one of her oldest creations. Its face was a void. Its presence, a wound in the world.
"You summoned me," it said in a voice that sounded like bone cracking.
Isolde's eyes gleamed. "Yes. He's awakened the Sanctum, and he thinks he's won. I want the boy broken, not killed. Bring me fear. Bring me suffering. Remind him what loss means."
The warden bowed. "What of his companions?"
She paused, then smiled darkly. "Leave the girl. I want her alive to see the fall of her people. But the boy—Kael—he's too clever. If he dies defending Jack, let it be so."
The Warden vanished, melting into shadow.
Isolde turned back to the bowl. Jack's image remained, but now it was overlaid with flickers of prophecy—visions long denied, long hidden.
She saw Thalon's face, younger and full of fire.
She saw herself beside him once—before the betrayal, before the fall.
She saw the child that should have been hers, had fate not twisted the threads.
"You were meant to be mine," she whispered. "Not hers. Not a pawn of light and sea and false destiny."
Her voice cracked, and for a moment—just a moment—something inside her trembled.
She remembered the days when she walked among the Council of Elders, radiant in white robes, the wind singing to her in languages older than stone. She had carried the light of the sun in her heart, promised to Thalon, chosen by the gods.
And then he left.
Returned from his journey through the veils with a strange woman of the sea realm—a woman not of their kind, not of their laws. He had chosen that creature, broken every vow, and cast Isolde aside like a relic of a fading age.
They called her mad when she warned of the child.
They cast her out when she demanded action.
And when the darkness came whispering, she listened.
Not because she sought revenge.
But because it was the only voice left that believed her.
Now she was more than they ever let her be.
She was queen of the forgotten. Mistress of the void. Keeper of the old truths.
And the boy—Jack—he was a consequence.
He was also her final test.
She turned to the final orb in the constellation above her. This one pulsed with golden-red light. It was the last lock. The last prison.
The Devourer of Realms.
Not yet summoned.
Not yet bound.
But she could feel it stirring.
It waited for one last thread to break.
She would not summon it yet—but she would prepare.
"The boy has crossed into power," she murmured to herself. "Good. Let him taste it. Let him think he can win."
She placed her hands against the mirror again and whispered a curse into the stone.
Then she looked at her own reflection and said softly, "When the sun rises over Vaelmir… it will rise for the last time."
—
Far across the realms, the sky trembled ever so slightly, as if something ancient had turned its gaze back toward the world it once devoured.
The storm was coming.
And Isolde would ride its fury.