The dawn was a thin slash of pale light across the ridge. The moor's grass pulsed faintly with dew, but it was fragile—like the breath of something newly born. Mary stood at the edge of their camp, violet tome open against her palm. The rune she etched the night before glowed softly in the morning breeze.
Lela approached, stepping carefully past tendrils of warding mist. "Everyone's moving out," she said. "They expect cult remnants in the Wraithwood."
Mary closed the book. "They won't find what we seek there."
Lela frowned. "Runes are erupting across the land. People are disappearing. These Riftborn—they're being drawn in."
Mary nodded. "Good. Let the Riftborn collect themselves. We go after the Rift."
Loosie appeared in the tent's opening, boots crisp and uniform. "Mom," she said. "There's a commotion. A Riftborn converged on the camp."
From the edge of camp came shouting and metallic clatter. A tall man stumbled in, garbed in tattered robes—half-runic, half-cultist sigils glowing on his skin. His eyes were spirals of crimson and black.
"Mistblade—" he gasped, clutching the rune on his arm. "It called me… made me whole."
Mary stepped forward. Before question, she did what she did best: saw.
The man trembled. His shadows flickered at the edges. Lela readied her spear. Loosie drew a knife shimmered with warding light.
Mary knelt and touched his arm where the rune glowed. Instantly, memories crashed into her mind.
Memory: The Man before the Mark
He walked through opal-glass corridors beneath a sky of molten fractals. Each step rung with pulse-beating carpets. Whispers in his head dragged him deeper into the Rift's path. A voice called his name—soft, hungry, divine.
He offered his scar—blood spurted in arcs. Focused light traced the rune shape across his veins. He looked at the world with new eyes—seersight into fracture lines between realms.
Then he trembled. He opened his mouth to scream—and found his voice torn apart, swallowed into the Veil.
Mary pulled back, blinking. The man's eyes stared at her.
"I don't want this," he said, voice raw. "But my bones… my mind was broken open."
Lela said quietly, "The Rift isn't just opening on places. It's opening in people."
The man stumbled. "I saw… her. A woman with silver eyes. She writes the world."
Mary's heart stilled. She closed the tome. "Then we're here."
They brought him into the circle of warding mist. Loosie placed talismans upon his chest and forehead. Lela readied binding chains of starsteel and runic iron. Mary stood back, steadier than she felt.
"We'll help you," she said. "But you have to understand—this path you walk… it transforms."
He reached out, trembling. "Will you help me… keep me?"
She nodded. "We'll do more than that."
The man was named Cethan. His eyes, even after warding, still glowed like fractured time. The rune that bound him screamed when Mary traced her palm across it.
"Cethan," Mary said, voice gentle. "Tell us what you saw."
He closed his eyes. "She stood at a window in the Rift. She wrote on the wind—and the words burned the sky. Silver lines that chained reality. I watched her carve blood into the air—and even that, it answered her."
Lela's spear hand tightened. "She's returning."
Mary turned pages in the violet tome. Five runes remained. The sixth—the Rune of the Rift—glowed softly.
"Cethan, this rune… it's half your blood. The other half… mine. It sings to you because we share this path."
He swallowed. "What path?"
Mary closed the book. "The path of author and subject. You are becoming Riftborne. The question is… will you submit—or stand?"
Lela knelt. "We can pull you back."
He shook his head. "No. I've seen her name. The Author. It's etched in my soul."
Mary exhaled. "Then you must walk with us."
They left the camp under sepulchral dawn. Cethan walked between Mary and Loosie, his shadows pooling but controlled. Lela marched ahead as vanguard. The world beyond the crib of Elarith was shifting—lines of fracture crawled across plains, streams of starlight leaking into pockets of darkness.
Each step brought them closer to the Rift's epicenter—the Valley of Broken Words. Once a glade of scholars, now cracked marble temples and drifting scripts hung in wind. Here, the Rune of the Rift pulsed against Cethan's chest, and Mary's codex glowed with living ink.
They paused before the Grand Pillar. It stood like the world's spine—lavender sigils carved deep, broken halfway around its circumference. Where missing symbols left hollows, dark mist seeped upward.
Mary exhaled. "This is the wound."
Loosie turned. "That's the place you saw the Sword Woman in your vision?"
Mary nodded. "Yes. The Author."
Lela raised her spear. "Then we burn this wound shut."
Mary closed her eyes. She touched the violet tome. The first rune glowed—rune of Blood. She whispered its name. Light flickered across Cethan's rune; the blood lines pulsed.
He cried out—but steadied.
The second rune glowed—rune of Memory. Faint runes painted across the Pillar. Memories swelled—echoing pain scenes of those Riftborn lost. Mary let them breathe through her, then erased them with touch.
Cethan wept—but strength returned.
The third rune flared—Rune of Binding. Mary traced it around the Pillar's circumference. Silvery chains of glyph-light wrapped the cracks. Moonlight lit the lines, and darkness hissed.
Cethan staggered, tears falling. "It holds… but I—"
Mary reached for the fourth rune—Rune of Choice. She laid hand flat against Pillar; the rune pulsed bright, and as it did, the Pillar sang—a whispered vow across fractured realms.
Then it cracked. Light and dark exploded. Gravity buckled. The Pillar condensed.
When the dust cleared—the Pillar stood mended.
The Rift's wound sealed.
Silent.
Cethan sank to his knees. Mary and Loosie kneeling beside him. Lela stood guard.
He whispered hoarsely: "It's… done?"
Mary closed the violet tome. "It's held."
He looked at her. "So the Author… she stays out there?"
Mary placed a hand on his shoulder. "We hold here. She holds there. For now."
Lela spoke for the first time: "This peace is fragile."
Mary looked to dawn. "So we stand," she said. "Always with watch."
Loosie added softly: "Always together."
They returned to camp by midday. A celebration had begun—a gathering of races in laughter and mourning, in the scrap of rebuilding. But Mary's gaze stayed on Cethan, now calm, no longer Riftborne. In his eyes—memory of the Author's window.
The violet tome moved within her cloak. Five runes remained. Five waits. Five promises.
But one had been sealed.
And one name had been answered.