.
The smoke they had seen from the basin was no illusion.
MASTERS OF THE ETERNITYCHAPTER 29: Ash on the Horizon
By the second day, it blackened the entire eastern sky, thick enough that the sun was reduced to a pale coin swimming in a sea of ash.
They followed an old trade road north, one the Pale Twin claimed would cut through the ruined provinces faster than any main route. Raian could see why it had been abandoned — the paving stones were shattered in places, the ditches choked with skeletal remains of wagons and beasts, the mile-markers scored by deep, deliberate cuts, as though someone had tried to erase the road's own memory.
The Blade at his side was heavier now. Not in the way of weight, but in the way a promise grows heavier the closer it comes to being kept. The two glowing Runes etched into its steel pulsed in alternating rhythm, sometimes falling into sync for only a heartbeat before slipping apart again.
Lira kept glancing over her shoulder at the sky.
"Feels like it's following us," she murmured.
Raian didn't answer. She wasn't wrong.
---
By midday, they crested a rise and saw the source of the smoke.
Below lay what had once been the city of Kareth — a river fortress, famed for its markets and its carved sandstone gates. Now it was a sprawl of collapsed buildings, bridges sagging into the river, streets littered with the remains of barricades that had been burned from both sides.
But the war wasn't finished with Kareth.
Two armies faced each other in the ruins — one flying the crimson banners of the Creed, the other bearing the gray-marked pennants of the Order. The river split the city between them, and each side had fortified their half with walls of debris and iron spikes. The air shook with the constant thunder of siege engines.
And in the center of the bridge connecting the halves of the city…
Raian saw it.
A shard of impossible size, blacker than night, embedded deep in the bridge's span, its surface crawling with faint blue veins.
The Blade's pulse quickened. The Third Anchor.
---
The Pale Twin's voice was low, but sharp enough to cut through the wind.
"They've built their war on top of it."
"Then we take it before they destroy it," Raian said.
"Or before they use it," she replied.
Izek squinted down at the battlefield. "If either side gets their hands on it, this war tilts. No turning it back."
Lira closed her sketchbook, her fingers tight around it. "And if we get it?"
No one answered.
---
They moved at night, skirting the outskirts of Kareth where the ash fell thickest. The streets were too quiet — no civilians, no scavengers. Just the occasional armored corpse slumped against a wall, and the sound of distant, disciplined marching.
The Order's half of the city glowed with torchlight, methodical and contained. The Creed's half was chaos — fires burning uncontrolled, shouts and war drums rising and falling without pattern.
Raian kept their route along the shadowed riverbank until they reached the underside of the bridge. The shard above radiated a cold so sharp it bit through the stone supports, frosting the edges of their hands as they climbed.
Halfway up, the first arrow struck the wall inches from Raian's head.
Creed scouts.
---
The fight under the bridge was brutal and close. The supports offered no room to maneuver, forcing Raian to meet each strike head-on. Creed fighters fought with speed and fury, their weapons meant to wound rather than kill, to bleed an enemy out before the killing blow.
Izek fought like a wall, holding the narrow ledge while Lira used her voice to weave dissonance into the air, making arrows splinter mid-flight. The Pale Twin vanished into the dark, only to reappear behind their attackers, her dagger flashing once before another man fell.
They pushed forward until they reached the bridge's surface — and walked straight into the middle of a siege.
---
The Creed and the Order had clashed again, neither side willing to yield the shard. The fighting swirled around it, lines breaking and reforming, soldiers dying within arm's reach of the Anchor but never touching it.
Raian understood why.
Up close, the shard's surface writhed faintly, as though alive. The blue veins within it pulsed in rhythm with something deep beneath the stone. Any soldier who got too close would suddenly falter — their strike slowing, their shield dropping, their eyes glazing over before they were cut down.
The Anchor was defending itself.
---
A horn blast cut through the night.
From the Creed's side came a figure in black-enameled armor, a halberd in his hands, his helm shaped like the beak of some carrion bird. From the Order's side came a robed warrior carrying a sword whose edge shimmered like glass in sunlight.
Both went for the Anchor.
Raian moved. The Blade in his hand sang in a voice that was almost eager, the Runes along its edge flaring so bright they cast his shadow ahead of him.
The halberd met his swing first — the impact shook the bridge, sending chips of stone into the river below. The robed warrior struck next, her glass-edged blade screaming against the Blade of Eternity's steel, sparks scattering like fireflies.
They fought in a triangle, each blow meant for two opponents at once, the Anchor always between them.
---
Raian feinted left, pivoted, and drove his blade into the shard's base.
The world broke again.
Light flooded him — but this time it was not the void of the Second Rune. It was fire and storm, a vision of armies marching under skies split by lightning. Towers falling. Oceans boiling.
And in the heart of it all, seven Runes burned in the sky, each casting a shadow shaped like a hand.
Three flared bright. Four waited.
A voice whispered:
> "Three steps. Four to fall."
When Raian came back to himself, the Anchor was gone. The bridge was littered with bodies from both armies, their weapons fallen, their faces slack as though asleep.
The Blade now bore a third glowing Rune.
Far in the distance, horns sounded again — but not of Creed or Order. Something else was coming.
Something neither army had planned for.
---
TO BE CONTINUED