The trail wasn't hard to follow.
They wanted me to find them.
Mana lingered like breadcrumbs—thick, unnatural traces that pulled the ambient flow out of rhythm. A skilled mage would've called it sloppy.
I called it bait.
I walked anyway.
The woods grew denser. The trees older. Each trunk marked with sigils I didn't recognize—deep, circular carvings that pulsed faintly with light.
Then came the voices.
Not speech. Not language.
Chanting.
A slow, rhythmic hum that vibrated beneath the skin.
The hairs on my arms stood up.
I stopped just before the clearing.
They stood in a loose circle—nine of them, hooded in gray, gathered around a black obelisk that rose crooked from the earth like a broken fang. The girl was there too, bare-headed now. She didn't look surprised when I stepped into the clearing.
"Welcome, Kalen Veris," she said, voice calm. "You made good time."
"I'm not here for your ritual," I replied.
"No. You're here for the truth."
The others stopped chanting. Turned to me. Not a single hand went to a weapon.
That put me more on edge than if they'd drawn blades.
"What is this?" I asked. "Cult? Rebel cell?"
"Neither," the girl said. "We're the Ashen."
She stepped closer, the faint light of the obelisk catching the sharp line of her cheekbone.
"We were once Oathbound. Like you."
I looked around the circle. Hard to see faces under the hoods, but the way they stood—military. Balanced. Disciplined.
Not amateurs.
"Then you know what they did," I said.
She nodded.
"They sent you into the Rift because of the Mark. They called it corruption. But it wasn't."
"I know."
"We've seen it before. Just once. Long ago. The Mark appears when the Veil begins to thin. When the Rift stirs. You weren't infected, Kalen."
Her eyes locked with mine.
"You were chosen."
I felt my jaw tighten.
The Rift hadn't spoken to me in words. Not clearly. But it felt true. Deep, like a memory that hadn't yet happened.
"Why tell me this now?"
"Because the Veil is failing faster than expected. The Order is losing control. They're planning something. A final purge. To erase the bloodlines touched by Riftborn mana."
I stared at her.
"They're going to start a war," she continued. "One the people won't survive."
A beat of silence passed between us.
Then I asked the only question that mattered.
"What do you want from me?"
Her smile was small. Subtle.
But there were teeth behind it.
"To lead."
I didn't answer right away.
I looked at the others. I looked at the obelisk. I looked at the sky—overcast, low, trembling with distant power.
I didn't trust them.
Not yet.
But I hated the Order more.
So I said what needed to be said.
"Show me proof."
She nodded to the man beside her.
He reached into his cloak and tossed something at my feet.
A blade.
Oathbound steel.
But the sigil carved into the hilt wasn't the standard sun-through-sword.
It was the sun—shattered.
"This was taken from High Commander Theran," she said. "Before we burned him."
I crouched. Picked up the weapon.
Balanced. Clean. Light.
Real.
Not forged. Not faked.
My fingers curled around the grip.
Theran was one of the men who had held me down before they cast me into the Rift.
I stood up.
And for the first time in years—
I smiled.
***
Western Watchtower
Elira stared at the map spread across the war table.
A red mark burned through the eastern perimeter.
Right where the outpost had gone dark.
The others in the room spoke in clipped, military tones.
Numbers. Positions. Orders.
But all she could see was the single boot print burned into her memory.
She knew where he was going.
He wasn't hiding anymore.
He was moving.
That was worse.
Because Kalen Veris was never one to run blind.
And if he was walking toward the capital—
He had a plan.
***
They didn't trust me.
Smart.
Neither did I trust them.
That's why I agreed to their test.
"Before you lead, you follow."
That's what the girl—Sylen, she told me—said before handing me the mission scroll.
A quiet job.
A retrieval.
No blood, if avoidable.
They were sending me to an old ruin west of the Hollow Range. A place once held by the Order, now long abandoned. Or so they claimed.
According to Sylen, the Order left behind an archive there. Hidden. Shielded. And inside it—documents proving the existence of a buried bloodline.
The Riftborn Line.
If it was real, it would change everything.
If it was fake, then this whole rebellion was built on ghosts.
And if it was a trap... well, I'd know soon enough.
***
The path was rough.
Windswept cliffs, frost-thin air, and no sign of civilization for miles. The Ashen had given me supplies, a fresh cloak, and a name to use if things went wrong.
I didn't plan to need it.
The ruin sat half-buried in the side of a jagged rock face, its entrance masked by years of dirt and vine. The sigil over the doorway was faded—just a faint ring where the sun emblem used to be.
I drew my blade before stepping in.
Even silence can bleed danger.
Inside, the air was cold and dry. Old mana clung to the walls like mildew—stale, unused.
My footsteps echoed softly through a corridor of stone and dust.
The archive was at the base level.
They had sealed it with an oath-lock—magic that only opened if the right phrase was spoken, the right intention held. Old Order design.
I placed my palm against the seal.
It flared faintly.
A voice whispered in my mind, like a memory that wasn't mine.
"Swear upon the sun, and walk within."
I hesitated.
Then answered aloud.
"I swore once. It burned me alive."
The seal flickered.
Then opened.