By dawn, the sky had turned the color of iron—dim and without warmth. The constellations that once guided caravans and kings had shifted in the night, like chess pieces moved by an unseen hand. For Lirien, it was an omen. For Haraza, it was confirmation: the world no longer spun as it once had. The Accord was gone, and in its absence, something far older was waking.
They departed from the broken sky-temple, descending a winding trail of shattered marble stairs and creeping moss. The air smelled of ozone and fresh ash. Every footstep echoed like it was being recorded by the stones themselves.
("This route leads to Ubrac,") Lirien said, her voice muffled beneath her fur-lined hood. ("The city-state never aligned with the Accord. It's a fractured trade hub. If anyone's still listening, it'll be the Arcanum Syndicate.")
Haraza adjusted the strap across his chest, the twin-bladed polearm from the ruined Covenant Shard still secured along his back. "And if they're not listening?"
("Then we remind them why they should.")
They reached the valley floor by midday. The terrain had changed dramatically since they last passed through—rivers had reversed course, hills were sheared at unnatural angles, and obsidian pillars had risen from the soil, pulsing faintly with a strange hum. Haraza touched one and felt a flicker of emotion—not memory, but anticipation. Like something was waiting beneath the surface.
("The land remembers,") Lirien muttered. ("But it's remembering the wrong things.")
The two travelers moved in silence after that, shadows trailing long behind them. Haraza had grown more introspective with each step. Since the encounter with the Shard, a thread of golden light pulsed faintly at the edge of his perception—an echo of the choice he'd made. It didn't guide him so much as challenge him. A reminder of the burden tied to mercy.
They crested a low ridge and caught their first glimpse of Ubrac.
It looked like a wound in the earth.
Unlike the gleaming spires of Accord-loyal capitals, Ubrac sprawled outward like a fungal bloom—haphazard towers, overlapping districts, smoke-stained glass and metal rigs erected over ancient ruins. Its streets pulsed with noise, its gates perpetually open to whatever merchant, mercenary, or fugitive sought a place to disappear.
And over all of it loomed the Gilded Canticle, the Syndicate's central tower—an impossibly narrow spike of black and copper that defied physics, stretching hundreds of meters into the air and ending in a fractured dome that sparked like static between worlds.
Lirien scowled.( "Still standing. That's a good sign.")
Haraza nodded, though his thoughts remained far from the city's stability. ("You said the Syndicate collects Accord relics?")
("They hoard them. Covet them. Trade in them like coin.")
("Then someone in there knows about the Shards.")
She smiled grimly. ("Oh, they know. Question is: what will it cost to make them talk?")
The two approached the southern trade gate by late afternoon. The guards—a mix of mercs and former ritualists—eyed them warily but didn't interfere. Ubrac's only law was coin. If you didn't look like trouble, you weren't.
Inside, the city felt alive in a way Haraza hadn't experienced since crossing the Rift. Criers shouted the value of enchanted blood. Machines hissed steam from their backs as they clanked past market stalls. Alchemical lights hovered above intersections, flickering with green-blue flame. And beneath it all—beneath the sound and chaos—there was something else.
A low hum.
Haraza stopped mid-stride.
("Do you hear that?") he asked.
Lirien tilted her head. ("Barely. It's under the city. Old Accord resonance tech. Keeps the upper towers stable.")
("No. It's not mechanical.")
He closed his eyes and reached out—not with his hands, but with that part of him awakened beyond the Rift. The part that could see things not meant for mortal eyes.
He saw threads.
Hundreds of them.
All converging beneath the Gilded Canticle.
The Syndicate's inner sanctum sat at the highest levels of the tower, accessible only through a series of shifting elevators and arcane locks. They didn't bother requesting an audience; Lirien had long since earned the Syndicate's "permission" through reputation and fear. After some hushed arguments and the exchange of a sealed black crest—likely forged—Haraza and Lirien were admitted.
The chamber was not what Haraza expected.
No thrones. No gold. No grand illusions of wealth.
Just a round room of black stone, humming with faint vibrations. Six figures sat around a central table, each obscured by half-masks of different metals—iron, silver, brass, lead, obsidian, and crystal.
One of them leaned forward.
("You bring with you a scent of extinction. A recent cut. Riftborn?")
Haraza remained silent.
Lirien answered. ("He's Unbound. That's all you need to know.")
Another Syndicate figure—the one wearing the lead mask—tapped the table. ("The Accord is no longer broadcasting through its ley-seals. The stars have moved. And the Covenant alarms in the Lower Vein just went silent two days ago. That's not nothing.")
Haraza stepped forward. ("Then you know what's coming.")
("We know the old lies are unraveling,") said the crystal-masked figure. "We know something was sealed, and you broke it."
("The question,") said the iron mask, ("is whether we should thank you—or kill you.")
The tension in the air sharpened. Lirien shifted, hands not quite on her blades, but close.
Haraza raised a hand.
("I'm not here to bring ruin,") he said. ("But I need knowledge. About the Shards. The other twelve. Where they are. What domains they govern. You've been collecting their traces for decades.")
Silence.
Then the brass-masked figure laughed softly.
("Of course we have. But nothing comes without price, Riftborn.")
Haraza met their gaze, unblinking. ("Name it.")
The silver-masked one stood.
("One of the Shards has awakened in the north. The Dread Vale. A region sealed off since the Age of Binding. No Accord emissary ever returned. Now the stars above it are missing. Gone. Erased from the sky.")
("We want you to go there.")
("Bring us its helm. And we'll give you what you seek.")
Haraza frowned. ("You want me to kill it?")
("We want you to return. Whether it lives or not... is immaterial.")
Lirien stepped forward. ("You're using him.")
("We are all used, mercenary. Even you.")
Haraza turned the thought over in his mind.
The Rift had changed him. The Shard had spared him. And this city, however fractured, held pieces of a puzzle he could not ignore.
He nodded.
("Send us north.")
They left the next morning, carrying a sealed missive from the Syndicate—a rune-locked orb meant to record everything Haraza witnessed in the Vale. It thrummed with faint energy, aware of its importance.
The road north was no road at all. It was memory.
The world twisted as they traveled—weather patterns shifting by the hour, day and night breaking in uneven cycles, the land contorting in strange, surreal ways. They crossed a plain of floating stone discs. Climbed a ridge where the wind carried whispers of languages not spoken in centuries. Fought off shadow-laced creatures whose blood shimmered like mercury.
Every step forward was a descent deeper into the chaos born of the Dream's death.
By the fourth day, Lirien noticed the trees no longer had roots.
("They're feeding off memory,") Haraza said, kneeling beside one. ("See how the bark flickers? It's pulling echoes from the land. From what was.")
She stepped away. ("This is madness.")
("No,") Haraza said, straightening. ("This is freedom. Terrifying. Raw. Untamed. But free.")
And then, at the edge of the horizon—they saw it.
The Dread Vale.
It was a chasm, miles wide, filled with dark mist that rolled like ink. Above it, the sky was blank—a flat void where stars refused to shine. The land around it was dead and cracking, as though reality itself were trying to hold back something buried deep within.
Lirien stepped back. ("Are you sure about this?")
Haraza said nothing.
He gripped the polearm on his back, felt the weight of the golden thread of choice still echoing in his soul.
Then he stepped forward.
Into the dark