The Sanctum of Threads buzzed with controlled chaos. Hope sat in the war chamber, her hands trembling beneath the low light of an amber crystal suspended above the table. Maps, diagrams, and runes circled the room like ancient ghosts whispering half-forgotten truths. Duke Silver stood a few feet away, deep in conversation with Sister Elira and a young mage tactician whose robes bore the seal of the Flame Conclave.
None of them noticed the slow flicker of shadow that passed through the room's stone walls.
Hope's eyes drifted to the Timeworn Compass. Its once-fluid rings had grown jagged and sharp in their rotations, sputtering with silver sparks. The temporal fractures were worsening — and fast.
"What exactly did it detect in Natalia's territory?" she asked, loud enough to break the room's tension.
Duke turned. "A spirit core exploded. A powerful one."
"From an artifact?"
"Unlikely," Elira replied. "Cores like that don't rupture unless forcefully drained. Something… or someone… tried to extract the spirit within."
Hope blinked. "You mean a soul?"
Elira nodded grimly. "Yes. Someone's life essence was just ripped apart."
A shiver ran down Hope's spine.
From the hallway beyond the war room, a figure silently observed them — eyes calm, face composed. No one noticed the faint scent of ash that clung to her robes. Cleo leaned against the wall, fingers tapping against her wrist where a thin bone bracelet pulsed with imperceptible life.
She heard everything.
She was listening for one name.
The Undead King had spoken it in her dreams last night.
Hope.
Far beneath Natalia City — deeper than the archives, lower than the forgotten catacombs — a realm of silence stirred.
A gate of bone and black stone groaned open, its hinges shrieking with ancient memory. Blue fire lit the cavern walls, casting long shadows across a twisted throne grown from petrified roots and jawbone. Upon that throne sat a figure cloaked in darkness, his crown forged from fractured sigils, his eyes hollow voids lit with dying stars.
The Undead King.
He stirred from stillness, lifting one skeletal hand.
"The thread tightens," he murmured, voice like dust sliding through a crypt. "Hope Taylor breathes spirit into this age. And with her, the echoes return."
A figure knelt before him — cloaked, faceless, but trembling with fervor.
"She walks under the Silver Dragon's protection now," the servant rasped. "He knows she is the Vessel."
"No protection lasts forever," the Undead King replied. "Silver bleeds with time."
His words twisted through the chamber, clinging to every stone.
"She must be tested," he continued. "She must be broken… or bent."
The servant bowed deeper. "Your spy is in place."
"Then whisper," the King said, his voice soft and terrible. "Whisper through the bones."
As the light dimmed, the walls themselves began to pulse with old blood. A sigil burned deep in the floor — and far above, in the Sanctum of Threads, Cleo's bracelet flared once beneath her sleeve.
Back in the war chamber, Hope sat with her hands folded, unaware of the second heartbeat now echoing in the room.
"I still don't understand," she said. "If the Undead are real… why don't the Immortals care? Aren't they enemies?"
"They were," Duke replied. "In the Third Era, the Immortals tried to erase the Undead from existence. But the Undead can't be unmade — only buried. And the Immortals learned… some powers are immune to time."
Elira added, "It's said the Undead are what remains when soul and purpose are severed from flesh. A being without mortality — but not eternal. They endure… in hunger."
Hope shivered. "So they're monsters?"
"No," Duke said carefully. "Not exactly. Some are, yes. But others… were once kings, healers, mages — victims of the Immortals' arrogance. Now, they serve only one voice."
"The Undead King," Hope whispered.
Duke nodded. "A being older than recorded time. We don't know how long he's existed — only that he emerged in the last years of the Third Era, already ancient."
"And what does he want?"
Elira's gaze sharpened. "You."
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked.
Hope shook her head. "Too many thoughts. This place doesn't feel safe."
"It isn't," Cleo said, standing beside her. "But neither is anywhere else anymore."
Hope glanced sideways. "Do you believe in fate?"
Cleo smiled faintly. "I believe in the weight of choices."
There was a silence.
"I think something's coming," Hope whispered. "Something terrible."
Cleo's eyes glinted in the moonlight. "Then let's hope it finds someone else first."
The trap was silent.
It began with a whisper in the wind — a hum of spirit energy that lured Hope and Cleo deeper into the ruined district known as Glassroot Hollow. Once a thriving hub of artifact traders, now it lay in eerie silence, half-swallowed by crimson moss and twisted buildings that leaned like wilted bones.
Hope moved cautiously, her senses tingling. "Why did Elira say there was a signal here?"
"An artifact surge," Cleo replied smoothly. "Something ancient — pulsing with old magic. She said we had to check it before it destabilized the local ley-line."
Hope nodded, trying to calm her racing heart.
But something was wrong.
Cleo's steps were too even. Her voice too steady.
And then — the sigils beneath their feet lit red.
"Trap!" Hope shouted, jumping back.
The ground exploded in black mist. Dozens of skeletal hands surged from beneath the cobblestones, dragging her into a circle etched with bone dust. She screamed, slashing with a blade of spirit energy, but it passed through the limbs like air.
Cleo didn't move.
Instead, she stood beyond the trap — watching.
Hope's breath caught. "Cleo…?"
"You were never meant to survive this place," Cleo said softly, no longer pretending.
Hope's eyes widened. "You're with them."
"The Undead don't lie. They don't kill for amusement. They only take what the Immortals discarded."
"You betrayed us!"
"I chose the winning side."
As the trap began to compress — draining spirit energy from Hope's veins, preparing to overload her core — her eyes flared white. But just before the pain reached its breaking point…
Time shattered.
A pulse of silver cracked the air. A hundred threads of light weaved themselves into a wall, halting the ritual mid-process. The Undead sigils hissed and collapsed, recoiling from the force of another will — one older than they expected.
Duke Silver stepped through the frozen mist.
Silver hair flowing, eyes aglow with starlight, a flickering time rune spinning behind his shoulder.
"You picked the wrong moment to play with destiny," he said coldly.
He raised his hand. A circle of time expanded outward — freezing Cleo's movement mid-blink.
Hope gasped, collapsing to her knees, spirit energy burning through her skin. Duke caught her, stabilizing her flow with a wave of his hand.
Hope clung to consciousness, breath ragged and chest heaving. Her skin was slick with sweat, and her spirit channels pulsed violently beneath the surface — she could feel them cracking, like glass under strain.
"I—I felt something," she gasped. "Like a storm inside me. It wanted out."
Duke Silver didn't meet her eyes immediately. He set her gently against the wall of an abandoned spirit forge, the glowing sigils from his time magic warding off the residual death energy.
"You were moments away from burning yourself alive," he said. "Your spirit core nearly imploded."
"But I could've fought—!"
"No," he snapped, eyes narrowing. "You would've died. The power inside you isn't ready. And when it does awaken, it won't ask permission."
Hope turned her face away, shame welling in her throat.
Duke sighed, softer this time. "You don't know what you are yet, Hope. But they do. The Undead King does. He doesn't just want you dead — he wants your potential erased before you understand it."
Hope bit her lip. "He sent Cleo."
"Not just her," Duke said grimly. "She's one of many planted over decades. Spies. Sympathizers.
Those who think the Undead offer peace from the chaos of the living world."
"But they drain souls," Hope said. "They feed off death."
"True." Duke stood, glancing down the alleyway as mist curled through the bricks.
"But to the desperate… even a coffin can look like a bed."
A quiet groan echoed from the broken courtyard. Hope sat upright. "She's alive?"
Duke glanced back. "Yes. I froze her in time. She won't move unless I allow it."
"I want to speak to her."
"No," he said flatly.
Hope rose to her feet, still unsteady. "I have to understand. Why someone like her—someone close—would do this."
Duke relented. He walked with her to the edge of the time-freeze circle. Cleo remained suspended mid-breath, her eyes wide but frozen.
Duke snapped his fingers, and the circle rippled.
Cleo's breath returned in a gasp.
She looked at Hope first. "Still alive."
"Barely," Hope said. "Why, Cleo? Why me?"
Cleo didn't struggle.
Her voice was calm.
"Because you're a threat. Not just to the Undead… but to everything. You don't know what you are. But soon you will. And when you do… it will break the world again."
Hope's hands trembled. "I trusted you."
"You shouldn't have."
Duke gestured, and time wrapped around Cleo again, sealing her inside a frozen bubble.
He turned to Hope. "We leave tonight. The Sanctum isn't safe. We'll head to the Fractured Spires. There's someone there who might help us unravel what you're carrying."
Hope looked back at Cleo one last time. Her heart felt heavier than ever.
Not everything undead lacked breath. Some still smiled.
Far beyond Natalia City, where the moon never rose and even spirit energy lay dormant, a ruined citadel sat atop a throne of bones — Kardoss, the Abyss of Memory.
Here, beneath the ground where no birds dared fly, the Undead King sat still as stone.
His form was not skeletal — no. He wore flesh like tattered cloth, a shell of long-dead kings and warriors layered atop each other. His face bore no eyes, but a vertical slit across the brow burned with a pale white flame.
Two Deathknights knelt before him, their armored hands gripping rusted greatswords stained with immortal blood.
"My lord," one rasped. "The girl lives. The Silver Dragon interfered."
The Undead King did not react at first. Then the slit-eye opened wider, revealing a second flame inside — this one silver and flickering like dying time.
"So," he murmured, his voice both whispered and booming, "Seventh regression. Still clinging to fate like it's a child's toy."
He stood slowly. Bones cracked. Shadows wept.
"They protect her… because they fear what she might become."
The kneeling Deathknight stirred. "Shall we send more? We could deploy a Wightcaller."
"No," the King said.
He stepped forward into the chamber's center, where a black stone table displayed flickering visions of the world above — Natalia City, the Spires, the Forbidden Glacier… all touched by invisible war.
He placed one hand over the image of Hope Taylor.
"Her spirit is unformed," he murmured. "But old. Too old for this age."
He traced the line between Hope and Duke Silver.
"She is the lock. The dragon is the key. Together, they might awaken what even the Immortals sealed away."
Then he whispered something no one had uttered in millennia:
"The First Era lives."
Even his Deathknights stirred.
"But the girl must die before she remembers."
His flame-eye snapped open with fury.
"Send her. The Pale Widow. The one who remembers even the scent of the First Light."
"Yes, my king."
"And tell her…" the Undead King leaned close to the vision of Hope's face, "she may harvest her bones slowly. I want the girl to taste despair before her spirit tears."