The Vale of Thorns did not let people leave unchanged. Even as Solin and Vereya walked beyond its overgrown cradle, they could feel the weight of the second Darkshard pulsing between them—not heavy, but aware. It echoed with the thoughts of those who had finally laid down their burdens, and its presence stitched stillness into every footstep.
They traveled not toward conquest, but toward connection.
It was in the village of Neren's Wake—a place where no child was named until their first heartbreak—that they found the next voice of the dark. His name was Revek, though he hadn't spoken it aloud in years.
He was a healer. Not by magic, but by understanding—someone who sat beside suffering without trying to fix it, who knew when to let silence speak for pain. Lightbearers had passed through Neren's Wake before, but never stayed. Revek did. Because where others promised stars, he offered something deeper: recognition.
Solin felt it the moment they met—this man carried a wound that had learned to breathe.
Vereya saw it, too.
But Revek was wary. "You offer shards of quiet," he said, "yet the world is screaming. What good is stillness when people burn?"
Solin didn't argue. Instead, he showed Revek the Darkshard born of forgiveness, held it out—not as a weapon, but as proof. And Revek, hesitant, touched it.
And remembered.
He saw the moment he failed to save his brother from a light-born disease. Felt the shame of walking away from war instead of marching toward it. Heard every name he'd forgotten to say goodbye to.
Then he opened his hands, and a third shard formed—not forged by power or pain, but by naming. It shimmered with the truths people fear to voice and the healing that follows them.
The Shard of Witness.
Revek didn't join them as a soldier. He joined as a record. A listener. One who would remember the names lost to glory and the sacrifices erased by light's victories.
And far away, Umbrael whispered in the hearts of a dozen bearers who had never seen flame—and yet knew its absence. The pattern continued. One not of domination, but integration.
Darkness does not seek to cover the world.
It seeks to hold it gently.
Would you like to follow Revek's next moment of truth—or shift toward the Accord's growing fear of the shadows they once dismissed? We're gathering not an army, but a truth strong enough to change the story itself… 🕯️🖋️