The sky above the Fractured Expanse was no longer a single color. It bled shades of violet and red, streaked with iridescent scars left behind by the unraveling of realms. Great tendrils of shimmering light danced like serpents across the firmament, fracturing reality into prisms that wept memories. From the ground, the effect was both majestic and terrifying—a reminder that the multiverse was no longer stable.
Riven hovered above a jagged plateau, cloak billowing behind him like a banner. His eyes narrowed on the strange structure ahead—a monolithic arch of obsidian stone that hummed with a resonance too deep for mortals to perceive. It hadn't been here before. Not even a whisper of it had appeared in the dreams of the seers or the records of the Spiral.
And yet, here it was—impossible, undeniable, and ancient in a way that defied lineage.
Xiyan landed beside him, her footsteps silent on the rock. Her blade remained sheathed, but Riven knew the tension in her stance. She was coiled like a predator, every breath measured, every thought calculated.
"This place isn't natural," she muttered. "It's built from something older than stone. It sings."
Riven nodded. "I hear it too. Like a choir without mouths."
Behind them, the rest of the vanguard approached—Lun Se with his mirrored staff, Issra trailing motes of dreamdust in her wake, and twin siblings Vorr and Vya, each in harmony with opposing flows of time. Together, they made up the most attuned of the listeners, chosen not for strength of arm but the strength of understanding.
Riven turned to face them. "This arch may be a fracture point. Not just a tear in space, but in memory. We step through, and we may find ourselves walking inside a forgotten thought."
"And if it remembers us?" Issra asked, voice delicate, like frost on glass.
"Then we answer with truth," Riven replied. "Or silence."
With a nod from Xiyan, they stepped forward. The moment Riven passed beneath the arch, reality shifted.
It was not teleportation. Not dislocation. It was translation. They were translated—not just in space, but in meaning. Riven's breath caught as the world around him remade itself.
Gone was the Fractured Expanse. In its place stood a circular chamber of living crystal, every surface reflective yet revealing scenes of the past—moments both intimate and immense. A mother's lullaby beside a war cry. A tear dropping onto parchment beside an emperor's execution.
"This… this is the Dominion's Heart," whispered Lun Se, awe and dread mingling in his tone.
But it wasn't ruined or burnt like the Dominion they'd remembered. This was its dream of itself—a perfect version, unsullied by collapse. The walls pulsed with heartbeat rhythm, and in the center, a throne hovered—empty but breathing, as if it had just been vacated.
A figure stepped into view.
Not walked. Stepped into view, as though peeled from the backdrop of history itself.
He was robed in flowing obsidian and gold, a mantle of star-thread draped over his shoulders. His face bore no malice, only curiosity—yet it was the kind of curiosity one might feel when dissecting a butterfly.
"Welcome, Riven. You bear your burden well."
The voice echoed through each of their minds—not spoken, but impressed. Xiyan stepped protectively in front of Riven, her hand on the hilt of her blade.
"And you are?" she demanded.
"A Custodian. Not of a place, but a memory," he said. "This realm exists because the Dominion willed it so. It is not a tomb, but a seed. One waiting for the right soil in which to awaken."
Riven's breath stilled. "You were waiting for us."
"No," said the Custodian. "I was waiting for it. The memory that stirs in your Heartseed. It has been crying out, hasn't it?"
Riven did not respond, but the silence was confirmation enough.
"You misunderstood the Spiral," the Custodian continued, walking slowly, hands clasped behind his back. "You thought it ended when it broke. But what if that break was its true beginning? A molting, not a death?"
The thought struck deep. Riven's chest tightened.
"We came here to observe," Lun Se said carefully. "To see whether threat or truth lingered in this echo."
"And what have you seen?" the Custodian asked, turning slowly.
Issra stepped forward, eyes shimmering. "I see sorrow. But not for what was lost—for what was never allowed to become."
The Custodian smiled. "Wise child."
Then, his smile faded. "But even wisdom can be dangerous. You are not the only ones listening. Others are beginning to remember as well. Old factions, buried deep in the bedrock of time, are stirring. And not all of them want peace."
Riven stepped forward. "What are you saying?"
"I am saying," the Custodian replied, "that your multiverse is cracking. The Dominion's echo is only the first. The walls between belief and being are thinning. Soon, even thought may bleed."
The crystal walls pulsed again. Images flooded them—rifts opening in forgotten corners of the worlds, old gods writhing in their sleep, and somewhere deep in the starlight, a hunger. Endless. Patient.
"It feeds on memory," the Custodian said softly. "It devours context. Once it eats enough, even names will become hollow."
Riven's hands clenched.
"And what can we do?" Vya asked. "How do you fight something that devours meaning?"
"You become undeniable," the Custodian said, turning back to the throne. "You become story incarnate. Not fact. Not fiction. Something stronger."
They emerged from the arch at dusk, breaths uneven, skin slick with the weight of visions.
The Fractured Expanse greeted them with its broken beauty, but it no longer felt stable. The tremors they'd once ignored now pulsed in rhythm with something larger.
"That wasn't just a memory," Xiyan said. "It was a warning."
Riven nodded slowly. "We have to prepare. And not just us. The whole Spiralborn lineage. Every realm that remembers, every soul that listens."
"And what if they don't believe?" Lun Se asked.
"Then we give them something they can't ignore," said Riven.
Back at the Crescent Hall, Zhao awaited their return. His eyes searched their faces and found the answer before they spoke.
"It has begun," he said simply.
"Not begun," Riven replied. "Resumed."
They gathered again that night—not just to recount what they'd seen, but to strategize. The whispers of the Hollow Flame were growing into murmurs. The walls between realms were beginning to blur. Even the Heartseed had gone still, as though holding its breath.
Yanmei laid out a map—not of land, but of beliefs. A cartography of what once was and what could still be.
"This is where we strike," she said, pointing to a flickering cluster of light. "Not with weapons. With truth. With memory made real."
"And if the old hunger comes?" Talin asked.
"Then we meet it with something it cannot consume," Zhao answered.
"Us," Riven said.
Not a boast. A promise.