The world was silent.
No screams.
No footsteps.
Just ash — drifting like snow across the pit.
Eighty-Eight knelt alone, breath ragged, heart pounding like war drums in a hollow chest. The man with mismatched eyes — the one who had lunged with jagged blades and bloodlust — now twitched in the black sand. His shadow squirmed behind him, alive, as if it sought to flee its own body.
And then, that whisper again.
Feed me.
It wasn't sound.
It wasn't thought.
It was hunger — inside his bones, behind his ribs, coiling around the mark on his chest like smoke through cracks.
He dug his fingers into the sand. It felt different now. Warm. Humming. Breathing.
The jagged violet sigil beneath his ribs pulsed — not in pain, but desire.
As if something had been waiting.
No one came.
No guards. No crowds. No orders.
Just the soft, broken breath of the man on the ground… and the sound of ash kissing silence.
He stood slowly.
His hands weren't glowing. Weren't changed.
But he was.
Something inside had peeled open — like a sealed door now swinging freely, no hinges, no lock.
He turned to leave.
But his shadow didn't follow.
He stopped.
Looked down.
It was there… but not.
Its edges shimmered, detached — dancing like fabric beneath water.
And just for a second…
It had eyes.
The gate groaned open.
Torchlight spilled across the chamber as a guard stepped in, took one look at the twitching fighter, and froze.
"What in all the gods'—"
Two more followed. Weapons drawn — not toward Eighty-Eight.
Toward the man on the ground.
"Get him out of here," one barked. "Overseer wants him intact."
"And the other one?"
A guard jerked a chin toward Eighty-Eight.
Silence.
Then:
"…Leave him."
And just like that, he was alone again.
That night, the cell was colder.
He sat in one corner, curled tight, arms around his knees. His shirt clung with sweat and grime. The brand on his chest pulsed now and then — not with light, not with pain. Just presence. A sleeping beast breathing in sync with him.
In the adjacent cell, the beastkin woman sat with her back to the bars, polishing a curved bone knife — one she must've hidden from the guards.
She hadn't spoken since they were dragged back.
He finally did.
"You saw what happened."
"I smelled it."
Her voice was calm. Crisp. Like ice cracking underfoot.
"…Smelled it?"
"The Void," she said. "It doesn't shine. It spoils. You carry it like rot."
He flinched.
"It's not supposed to awaken in someone like you."
"…Someone like me?"
She looked up.
Golden eyes sharp, unreadable.
"You're not of this world.
You're not Chosen.
And yet the Rift branded you?"
He said nothing. Just leaned back against the cold stone.
"None of this makes sense."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then:
"The man in the pit — did you kill him?"
"I don't think so."
"Good," she said. Not kindness. Not relief.
Just… fact.
"…Not yet."
Far beneath Blackstone, in a hall of quiet gears and chains, the overseer listened.
"It reacted?" His voice oozed between breaths, slick and dry. "The mark?"
"Yes, Overseer," the guard said. "No chanting. No sigils. Just... pressure. The pit cracked. His opponent collapsed. Shadows moved."
"He didn't cast?"
"No, sir."
"Then he's not a caster," the overseer murmured. "He's a vessel."
A pause.
"Move him to Isolation.
No more pit matches.
No more triggers.
We observe now."
No more triggers.
We observe now."
That night, Eighty-Eight slept in chains.
And he dreamed.
Glass halls.
Shattered moons.
Violet stars bleeding across a sea of night.
Statues whispered in languages not yet born.
And in the echo of that unreal place, a word drifted through him.
Riftborn.
He didn't know what it meant.
But somehow… it felt like a name.