Nightfall blanketed the ridge in a violet haze, the dying embers of the previous day still crackling faintly beneath a canopy of twisted boughs. Mo stood at the edge of the plateau, arms folded, gaze locked on the valley below where storm clouds churned, heavy with the scent of iron.
Aylen was sharpening her twin daggers nearby, her movements rhythmic, meticulous. She had barely spoken since their escape from the shattered glade. Something had shifted in her, a quiet tension coiled like a spring behind her gaze.
"They were calling to me," she said finally.
Mo turned. "From the glade?"
She shook her head. "From the breach."
The Azure Shamshir, sheathed against his back, throbbed once—its pulse answering something not physical but ancient. Mo's jaw tensed.
They were being watched.
---
Far below, nestled in the shade of broken stone ruins, a cloaked figure stood amid a circle of crimson thread. His hands hovered over it, fingers weaving intricate patterns through the air. The threads hummed.
"Still untamed," he muttered, eyes glowing faintly violet. "But the blade sings louder with each step he takes."
A second figure emerged from the shadows—taller, armored, with a glaive strapped to his back.
"He'll come here," the newcomer said.
"No," the first whispered, tying the final thread into place. "We'll go to him."
---
Dawn broke to a guttural roar.
A massive beast, six-limbed and plated in earthen armor, burst through the forest edge—an Earthshatter Basilisk, one of the forbidden relics of the old wars. Mo drew the Shamshir in one fluid motion. The blade's edge shimmered, catching more than light.
"Aylen, right flank!"
She was already gone, a blur slicing toward the creature's exposed hind leg. The Basilisk swiveled, tail snapping like a whip. Mo dodged left, sliding beneath its torso and dragging his blade through the undercarriage.
The Basilisk shrieked, blood and smoke erupting in a geyser of primal fury. Its armor thickened in response, limbs mutating mid-battle, calcifying into jagged stone.
Aylen was thrown back. Mo caught her before she hit the rocks.
"Still alive," she hissed.
He nodded and stepped forward.
This wasn't a beast—it was a summoning. A message.
And whoever had sent it was getting closer.
---
By sunset, the ridge was a ruin of stone and fire. Mo knelt beside the basilisk's husk, inspecting a sigil carved beneath one of its scales—an ancient glyph of the Threadweavers. That school had been dissolved after the Thousand-Year Accord. Its arts forbidden.
But this sigil was fresh.
Aylen approached, wiping blood from her temple.
"Someone wants you to come to them."
"No," Mo said. "Someone wants to break the seal."
She hesitated. "The one at the Eye of Dûm?"
Mo didn't answer. He didn't need to. The moment he touched the sigil, he saw flashes—visions of a spire, a cracked mirror, and a man with no face.
"We need to move," he said.
Aylen sheathed her daggers. "To where?"
"To the Crimson Temple."
Behind them, the shadows stirred.