The abandoned mining station clung to the cliffside like a metal parasite, its rusted supports groaning in the wind that swept across the Shattered Reaches. Kael pressed his back against the corrugated wall, listening to Lysara's labored breathing as she leaned heavily against him. Blood had soaked through the makeshift bandages they'd wrapped around her torso, and her usually sharp green eyes were clouded with pain.
"We can't stay here long," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the howling wind. "Veyron's hunters will have tracking hounds. They'll pick up our scent within hours."
Kael nodded, though doubt gnawed at him. The other survivors—three Remnants who'd escaped the enclave's destruction—had scattered to different hideouts across the wasteland. They were alone now, and Lysara was in no condition to travel. The Prime Catalyst relic pulsed against his chest, its blue-black light seeping through his shirt like a heartbeat made visible.
*Welcome home, Riftborne.*
The words echoed in his mind as they had countless times since he'd first touched the sphere. But now they carried a different weight, tinged with something he couldn't quite identify. Urgency? Warning? Or was it something else entirely?
"Lysara," Kael said, settling beside her on the cold metal floor. "You mentioned that Fia is being held in the capital. But how do you know she's still alive? The Aetherlords destroyed the Riftborne centuries ago."
Lysara's laugh was bitter, cut short by a wince of pain. "Because I've seen her, Kael. Not just in old records or whispered stories. I've seen her with my own eyes."
The confession hung in the air like smoke. Kael stared at her, processing the implications. "What do you mean you've seen her?"
"Three years ago, I was still working for the Aetherlords. Chief Engineer for their most classified projects." Lysara's eyes grew distant. "They brought me to the Nexus—the heart of their power beneath the capital. They needed someone to maintain the containment systems for… special prisoners."
She paused, struggling with the memory. "That's when I saw her. A girl, maybe sixteen, suspended in a crystalline prison filled with liquid Vein energy. Her hair was white as starlight, and her eyes…" Lysara shuddered. "Her eyes were the same blue-black as your relic. She was awake, Kael. Conscious. And she was screaming without making a sound."
Kael felt something cold settle in his stomach. "The Aetherlords have been keeping her alive for three years?"
"Longer than that. Much longer." Lysara met his gaze. "The containment chamber had maintenance logs dating back decades. She's been their prisoner for at least thirty years, possibly more. They're using her, Kael. Draining her Riftborne essence to power their technology."
The relic against Kael's chest pulsed more rapidly, and for a moment, he could swear he heard something—a whisper at the edge of perception, like wind through distant ruins. He pressed his palm against the sphere, and the whisper grew clearer.
*Find me. Please. The compass is broken, and I cannot see the way home.*
Kael jerked his hand away, gasping. "She's trying to communicate. Through the relic."
Lysara's eyes widened. "That's impossible. The Aetherlords' containment systems should prevent any external connection."
"Then maybe they're not as secure as they think." Kael stood, pacing the small space. The abandoned station creaked around them, and through the broken windows, he could see storm clouds gathering on the horizon. "Or maybe something's changed."
As if summoned by his words, a new presence touched his mind—different from Fia's desperate whispers. This one was older, colder, and carried with it the weight of immense age.
*The Catalyst awakens, and the old bindings weaken. But beware, young Echo. Not all who call themselves Riftborne share your noble heart.*
Kael stumbled backward, his head spinning. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Lysara struggled to sit up straighter, alarm clear in her voice.
"Another voice. Someone else is out there, someone with Riftborne abilities." Kael touched the relic again, but the presence had withdrawn, leaving only the echo of its warning. "They said something about old bindings weakening."
Before Lysara could respond, a sound cut through the wind—the distinctive whine of Aetherlord skimmers approaching fast. They both froze, listening as the sound grew closer.
"Impossible," Lysara breathed. "We covered our tracks. Used dampening fields to hide the relic's signature."
Kael crept to the window and peered out through the cracked glass. Three sleek vehicles were approaching from the south, their blue energy trails cutting through the gathering darkness. But something was wrong with their flight pattern—they were weaving erratically, as if struggling to maintain altitude.
"They're not tracking us," he realized. "They're fleeing from something."
As if to confirm his words, a massive shadow passed overhead, blotting out the stars. Kael caught a glimpse of something impossible—scales that shifted color like oil on water, wings that seemed to be made of crystallized Vein energy, and eyes that burned with the same blue-black light as his relic.
One of the skimmers fired upward, energy weapons blazing. The dragon-like creature—for what else could it be?—responded with a roar that shattered several of the station's remaining windows. Then it dove, and one of the skimmers simply ceased to exist, consumed by shadows that moved like living things.
"Impossible," Lysara whispered, her face pale. "The Riftborne war-forms were destroyed. All of them. The Aetherlords made sure of it."
The surviving skimmers accelerated desperately, racing toward the capital. The creature didn't pursue them. Instead, it circled once over the mining station before landing on the plateau above them with surprising grace for something so massive.
Footsteps echoed on the metal stairs leading down to their level. Kael reached for the knife at his belt, but the relic pulsed with sudden warmth, and he found himself inexplicably calm.
The figure that appeared in the doorway was not what either of them expected. She was tall and elegant, with silver hair that seemed to move in a breeze that touched nothing else. Her skin had a faint luminescence, and her eyes were pools of starlight. She wore robes that shifted between blue and black like deep water, and around her neck hung a pendant identical to Kael's relic.
"Hello, young Echo," she said, her voice carrying harmonics that resonated in Kael's bones. "My name is Vera Nightwhisper, and I am the last of the Riftborne Council. We need to talk."
Lysara tried to stand, reaching for her weapon, but Vera raised a hand. "Peace, daughter of engineers. I mean no harm to either of you. In fact, I bring news that may change everything you think you know about the Sundering."
"The Council is dead," Lysara said through gritted teeth. "They died with the rest of the Riftborne."
Vera's smile was sad and ancient. "That is what we wanted everyone to believe. But some secrets are too dangerous to die with their keepers." She turned to Kael, studying him with those impossible eyes. "Tell me, young one, what do you know of the Sundering's true cause?"
Kael glanced at Lysara, then back at Vera. "The Aetherlords betrayed the Riftborne. Used a weapon to sever their connection to the Vein."
"Partially correct. But incomplete." Vera stepped closer, and Kael could feel power radiating from her like heat from a forge. "The weapon they used—we helped them build it."
The words hit like a physical blow. Lysara sucked in a sharp breath, and Kael felt the world tilt around him.
"What?" he whispered.
"The Riftborne Council discovered something in the deep places of the Vein," Vera continued, her voice heavy with old grief. "Something that had been sleeping since before the first star kindled. Our exploration woke it, and we realized that our very existence was calling it closer to our reality."
She paused, looking out through the broken window at the storm clouds. "We faced a choice: allow this entity to fully manifest and consume not just our world but potentially countless others, or make the ultimate sacrifice. We helped the Aetherlords create the Sundering weapon, knowing it would destroy us but hoping it would also seal the breach we had opened."
"You're lying," Lysara said, but her voice lacked conviction.
"I wish I were." Vera's pendant pulsed in rhythm with Kael's relic. "But the seal is weakening. The entity stirs again, and the Aetherlords' actions—their torture of Fia, their attempts to harness Riftborne power—are accelerating its awakening."
Kael felt something vast and terrible brush against his consciousness, like a tide of hungry darkness. The relic grew cold against his chest.
"What does this have to do with me?" he asked, though part of him already knew the answer.
Vera's expression grew grave. "You are not just any Echo, Kael Miren. You are the last key—the final component needed to either permanently seal the breach or to shatter it entirely. The choice will be yours, but first, you must understand what you truly are."
She extended her hand, and Kael saw that her palm held a small crystal that pulsed with familiar blue-black light. "This will show you the truth of your heritage, but know that once you see it, there will be no going back. The comfortable illusions of your origin will be stripped away forever."
Kael looked at Lysara, who met his gaze with a mixture of fear and resignation. "The choice is yours," she said quietly. "But whatever you decide, I'll stand with you."
Outside, thunder rolled across the wasteland, and in its echo, Kael thought he heard something else—a sound like reality itself groaning under an impossible weight.
He reached for the crystal.
*End of Chapter 6*