LOCATION: SILKFANG — NOMAD CAPITAL OF THE VEILED REACH
Currently roosting atop the skull of a long-dead god
The winds whispered through bone tonight.
Silkfang, capital of the Veiled Reach, shifted its weight atop the skull of a fallen god — a city that moved with the dunes, and changed names as often as faces.
Beneath a mirage-dome laced with heat illusions, Lady Nyssra Vel'Kirel held court. Her throne was simple: golden bone and stretched silk, coiled in lazy elegance. A jeweled Sandstalker scorpion crawled along her arm, its stinger gently tapping her skin. She didn't flinch.
A Whisperborn messenger knelt and bowed, holding out a sealed scroll.
"From Ashvale. Confirmed reports. A girl from Hollowglass was captured. Glassblood."
Nyssra didn't move at first.
Then, slowly, she accepted the scroll — and let it fall unread to the sand.
She already knew.
"So," she murmured, stroking the back of the scorpion, "Halix has caught herself a Velloren. And Seraphine… has yet to scream."
That earned a twitch from one of her Whispersands nearby — the kind of shift only noticed by those trained to notice everything.
Nyssra smiled without looking at them.
"Good. That means it's true."
She rose from her throne. Every step she took caused the sand beneath her to swirl in faint glyphs, like the ground knew not to resist her.
"Dispatch two Mirageborn," she said.
"One to Hollowglass. One to Ashvale."
A pause.
"They are not to interfere. Only to watch."
Her voice lowered, silk hiding the steel beneath.
"Watch who tries to reach the girl. Watch who hesitates."
She turned to her gathered agents now — rows of silent veiled assassins cloaked in shimmerdust.
"Because in the Reach, the one who blinks first…"
She raised the scorpion.
It perched atop her fingers, tail poised.
"…loses the tongue."
Then the mirage dome rippled — and vanished.
Orders had been given.
And the desert doesn't forget.
---
LOCATION: MIRRORHOLD — CRYCHAMBER BELOW THE HALL OF ECHOES
The air was colder here.
Not the kind of cold that bit skin — this one reached deeper. It whispered to the bones. To the blood.
Seraphine Velloren stood barefoot in the center of the Crychamber, a wide circle of cracked mirrors surrounding her. Each shard shimmered with echoes — fractured timelines flickering in and out like candleflames.
In one, Nyza stood proudly beside her.
In another… she didn't stand at all.
A Cryshard advisor approached the edge of the mirror circle. He bowed low.
"My Lady… there's news."
She said nothing.
"Nyza… she followed the Echo Veil team we dispatched to Ashvale. Stowed away."
He hesitated. The next part weighed heavier.
"That team hasn't returned. Neither has she. It's… been days."
Still, Seraphine didn't move.
Another Cryshard stepped forward. This one less afraid.
"It may be nothing. A delay. Routine—"
"Stop."
Seraphine's voice wasn't loud. But it cut.
She walked slowly, stepping between the mirror fragments, letting reflections of a hundred possibilities shimmer at her feet.
When she reached the far wall — a smooth pane of old glyphglass, cracked and half-darkened — she placed a hand on it.
The crack pulsed.
Her voice dropped lower. Closer to who she was before the throne.
"Ashvale touched what was mine."
"They reached through the dark and pulled at blood they didn't earn."
"They think because I whisper, I do not strike."
She turned now.
The Cryshards stiffened.
Because this was not just a mother. Not just a ruler.
This was the Saint of Hollowglass — the one who carved silence into blades.
"Send the Hollowguard," she said.
"Quietly."
A pause.
Then colder:
"If Halix believes she holds my daughter…"
"She'll learn what happens when glass stops reflecting…"
She stepped back into the center of the mirror ring — and the shards began to hum, pulse, move.
"…and starts cutting."
---
LOCATION: SHADEREACH — EMBERFALL HALL, UMBRA SEAT
The chamber was shaped like a war glyph.
Curved walls of obsidian rose around a circular table, glowing faintly with emberlight. No torches. No chandeliers. Just runes breathing in and out like they were alive.
The ceiling arched high above — black glass, cracked once by a god's blade.
At the center of it all stood Ezekar Nythe.
Unmoving.
Watching.
Waiting.
Around him sat the generals of the Umbra Seat — cloaked figures etched with sin and silence. They were called many things: Nightbound, Nullbrands, Whisper Captains.
Each one had survived what others couldn't even pronounce.
But today?
They argued.
---
"The Hollow Creed is splintered," said the youngest general, face half-covered in ritual gauze. "We shouldn't waste our strength on outlaws and echoes."
Another, older and sharper, leaned forward.
"Lucan is a system flaw. A spark that wants to believe it's flame."
"Let Halix snuff him. If she can."
A third — draped in battle-tattered shadowweave — slammed a fist down.
"Ashvale attacked without declaration. But retaliation makes us the aggressors. If we move now, the other Thrones will rally to Halix out of fear."
Murmurs followed. None loud. Just layered. Tense. Ready to fall into silence or blood.
But Ezekar?
He didn't move.
Not at first.
Then — a breath.
And a single sentence.
"She struck a faction under our eye."
That stopped the room.
"Not to reclaim a Rite," he added, eyes gleaming under shadow.
"But to test how long shadows sleep."
He stepped away from the head of the table — slow, deliberate — and walked toward the center dais.
There, suspended in a stasis ward, hung a Riteblade — chipped, blackened, still humming with old power.
Beneath it: a glyph-map of the world— Black Glyph Atlas, glowing with political tension.
Ezekar tapped two points with his gloved fingers.
Shadowedge.
Ashvale's eastern flank.
"We do not invade," he said.
"We do not roar."
A pause.
He looked up, gaze sharp enough to draw blood.
"But we remind her… that judgment is not hers alone to pass."
---
Now came the orders.
Precise.
Measured.
Terrifying.
"Deploy a Nullbrand to Aetherion. Quietly. Let whispers leak — about Ashvale's unprovoked strike on neutral ground."
One general nodded, already scribbling encrypted dispatches on voidscroll.
"Send Nightbound scouts across her border towns. No sabotage. No killing. Just presence. Let her people wake up with shadows where none should be."
Another bowed her head and vanished mid-step — already gone.
"Assemble a silent battalion. Tier-IIs only. Hidden glyphmarchers. Station them near the Cinderwall Path. Not to attack."
"But to occupy… if she dares again."
Still no shouting.
Still no cheers.
Just the quiet sharpening of a nation made of ghosts.
One general leaned forward again, eyes unreadable.
"And Lucan?" he asked. "Do we shield the Ritebreaker… or shadow him until his light burns out?"
Ezekar turned slowly, returning to the edge of the table.
His voice was low now.
Heavy.
"We watch. Not to protect."
"But because evolution doesn't happen in silence."
A beat.
Then he sealed it all with a single line.
"We don't start wars…"
"…we end the ones others think they can survive."
---
One by one, the generals nodded.
No more dissent.
No more questions.
Only the kind of obedience born not from fear…
…but from understanding exactly who they followed.
And why kingdoms still flinched at the mention of Ezekar Nythe.