SHADOWS STIR (ASHES OF THE BOUND)
FRACTURED AWAKENING
The chapel had been reduced to ash and fractured stone. The great heart that once pulsed on its altar was gone—absorbed into something else.
Into him.
Riven lay amidst the debris, half-buried beneath the broken arch of a moonstone column. The scent of burning iron filled his lungs. His body was trembling, not from cold, but from something worse.
Something inside him was stirring.
His fingers twitched. Not hands anymore—claws. Not human. Not fully wolf. And the mark on his chest burned with a radiance that shimmered into the air like a beacon.
He gasped.
A shape passed before his vision—black wings, curved horns, a crimson eye staring down through veils of ash.
Then gone.
He sat up sharply, choking on dust and blood.
"Elara—?"
Silence.
Not deathly silence—false silence. The kind that hid footsteps. Breathing.
Watching.
He stood slowly, the glow from his sigil illuminating the ground in slow pulses. Shadows around him didn't move in rhythm. Some moved backward. Others held still even when wind stirred the trees.
The world was fracturing.
He reached for his belt, only to realize it was torn away in the blast. No blade. No sigil blade. No defense.
Just him.
And the thing he had become.
Elsewhere — Within the Rift's Edge
Elara Duskveil's body lay suspended in a cocoon of shimmering bloodlight.
The vampire side of her had awakened during the fight with Khaedros—and it had taken control when the Heart erupted.
Now, within her mind, two voices battled.
One was hers.
The other… older.
Cold. Noble. Cruel.
:: You are of the Nyxis blood. You are heir to the Crimson Covenant. Stop pretending to be human. ::
Elara twisted in agony as memories not hers bled into her mind—memories of feeding in marble halls, of commanding entire battalions of nightborn. She saw her mother, lips red with royal vitae. She saw the House sigil, the sigil of Night That Remembers.
"No," she whispered aloud. "I won't become her. I won't become them."
But the blood pulsed, and the voice returned:
:: They will come for you. Your house has not forgotten::
Far North — Frostspire Keep | The Pale Synod Awakens
A pale woman knelt before a pool of obsidian water. She wore white robes embroidered with bone thread and crescent scars down her arms. Her eyes were sewn shut—but behind the veil, she saw more than most.
"The Lunarch Heart has been disturbed," she said.
A cloaked man beside her nodded. "A revenant lit the flame. One of the Old Ones."
The woman turned her face upward.
"And the hybrid. The one who is neither man nor wolf. Neither alive nor dead."
"He bears the mark. The first convergence in centuries."
The woman stood.
"Then send the Ember Paladins. We ride for the Heart's ashes. We will end the revenant's oath once and for all."
Within the Twilight Between — Aeron Vale
He stood in nothingness.
The sky was a shifting sphere. Below his feet—no ground. Only memory, crumbling into dust.
And before him: them.
Ten shapes, seated on thrones of shifting matter. Revenants. All dead. All bound.
One stood—half a head taller than Aeron. No face. Only a mirror.
"You brought the Rift upon us," it said.
"I sealed it," Aeron answered.
"You failed. And now the Heart breathes again."
"I didn't awaken it."
"You brought the child to it. You brought the war back."
A blade appeared in Aeron's hand. "Then judge me."
All ten stood.
:: Then we shall. ::
Back to the Chapel Ruins
Riven stumbled forward.
The forest around the ruins was unnatural. Trees bled sap that shimmered like stars. Crows had eyes like mirrors. Time was off.
He could hear things he hadn't lived yet.
"—will betray you—"
"—Elara will burn—"
"—the curse has already taken hold—"
He clutched his head. "Get out—!"
Then he saw her.
Elara stood at the edge of the ruins.
But it wasn't her.
Her eyes were glowing violet. Her feet didn't touch the ground.
And something moved in her shadow.
"Riven?" she said, voice melodic and wrong.
He stepped back. "Elara, don't—"
Her eyes flickered.
Then she collapsed.
He ran to her, catching her just before she hit the stone.
She was pale. Her veins blackened with something not natural.
Then her lips parted.
"Riven," she rasped. "They're coming. They're already here."