Kaelen stood alone on the edge of a jagged ridge, the cold mountain wind pulling at his cloak like phantom fingers. Below him, the forest sprawled like a sea of gnarled shadows and dying light. Days had passed since he left Frostmere behind, and the weight of solitude clung to him more tightly than the frost.
He preferred it this way.
Trust was a luxury he could no longer afford. Not after the cage. Not after the betrayal. The fire in his veins was his only companion, the whisper of Tri-Fabric power like a predator coiled within his soul.
He moved by moonlight and silence, wandering forgotten trails and dead men's paths. Signs of civilization were sparse—only the remains of old camps, shattered totems, and the bones of beasts long devoured. He had no map. Only instinct, and the strange pull of his power toward places where reality frayed.
Toward the Rifts.
It was near dusk when he found the ruin.
A crumbling temple half-swallowed by the earth, its spires shattered and overtaken by black moss. Strange glyphs marked the stone—ancient, looping patterns that flickered faintly when he approached. The ground trembled beneath his boots, barely perceptible but enough to stir the instincts that had kept him alive.
Kaelen narrowed his eyes. The air here tasted of copper and lightning. Familiar. Wrong.
He stepped through the threshold, the world bending subtly as he crossed. Inside, the ruin opened into a cavernous hall lined with statues whose faces had been scratched out or melted by time. Pillars leaned at impossible angles. The floor was littered with shattered stone, weathered weapons, and bones—some still clad in the remnants of ancient armor.
And at its center—a tear in the world.
The Rift.
It pulsed like a wound of stars, flickering violet and obsidian, suspended above a stone altar. Energy radiated outward in slow waves, warping the air like heat off scorched sand. Kaelen stepped closer, the runes on his arms igniting in response.
Visions rushed him.
Flashes of the First World collapsing. Titans screaming into nothing. A shadowed figure watching with silver-purple eyes—his own.
He staggered back, breath ragged. The Rift responded to him. It knew him.
A low hum began to rise, resonating through the stones, like a forgotten chorus awakening.
Kaelen could feel the Rift pulling at his core. Not just his magic—his soul.
He stepped closer again, letting the pull guide him to the edge of the altar. As he extended his hand, the energy wavered, then stabilized. The runes on his arm glowed in harmony with the Rift's pulses. Lines of ancient script floated in the air before vanishing.
Something had been waiting for him.
Then, the silence shattered.
A screech tore through the hall as a creature dropped from the ceiling—eight-limbed, obsidian-skinned, its eyes glowing like dying stars. A Riftborn.
Kaelen didn't hesitate. He spun, arms out, and space folded.
The creature's lunge missed as Kaelen blinked behind it, his palm igniting with condensed matter. He slammed it into the Riftborn's back, sending it skidding into the altar.
It screamed, warping as time twisted around it.
Kaelen launched forward, fist to palm, distorting gravity as he closed the gap. The Riftborn countered with jagged limbs, slashing—his cloak tore, blood splattered—but Kaelen's expression remained cold, eyes glowing.
He shifted time—a blink ahead—and reappeared with both hands wreathed in rippling flux. With a snarl, he shattered the creature's core with a focused burst of matter collapse.
The Riftborn disintegrated into fractal ash.
But more came.
Three more Riftborn emerged from the temple's shadows, crawling on walls, leaping between fallen columns. Kaelen's breath misted. His body screamed in protest, but he welcomed the pain. It grounded him.
He ducked low, pulled the environment to him—twisting space so a fallen column collapsed sideways, smashing one Riftborn into rubble. Another lunged; Kaelen phased through it, reappearing mid-air above the altar. With an outstretched hand, he crushed the ambient matter around the creature's skull.
One remained.
It circled, slower, more cautious. Intelligent. Its voice clawed into Kaelen's mind, not in words but in primal intent: Join. Belong. Fracture.
Kaelen gritted his teeth. "I don't belong to anyone."
He stepped forward. Time bent. The Riftborn struck—fast, too fast—but Kaelen saw the threads a moment early. His temporal awareness expanded like a ripple in water. He moved through the gaps of fate.
A step. A shift. A strike.
He drove his fist into its core, unleashing space-locked force in a controlled burst.
The creature screamed and imploded.
Silence returned.
Kaelen stood in the flickering light of the Rift. Alone again, blood dripping from his lip, arms trembling. The power inside him pulsed—less erratic now. Sharper. The Rift hadn't rejected him.
It had welcomed him.
He approached the altar again, and this time, the Rift didn't resist. Its tendrils curled around his fingers like smoke, and for a brief moment, his consciousness brushed something vast.
A network.
A memory not his own.
Countless Rifts, scattered across the world. Each linked. Each pulsing with chaotic possibility. And at the center—a throne carved from shattered stars, and a voice whispering: "Weaver..."
Kaelen snapped back, heart pounding.
He turned away and slipped into the night.
There were more of these places. More tears in the world. And something—some deep, buried part of him—hungered to find them.
Not to seal them.
But to understand.
To master them.
The journey was far from over. But in the darkness, Kaelen smiled.
For the first time in a long while, he wasn't just surviving.
He was becoming.