MASTERS OF THE ETERNITY
CHAPTER 34: The Mouth in the Sky
The day after the horizon bent, the world felt thin.
The air had a rawness to it, as if they were riding through a wound in the earth. Even the wind — what little of it there was — carried no scent. No pine, no wet earth, no smoke from distant villages. Just emptiness, like a breath stolen before it could warm.
Raian noticed it first in the horses.
The mounts did not whinny or snort. They didn't even shake their heads against flies. They just rode, ears tilted east, as if listening for something ahead of them.
Lira kept looking over her shoulder at the empty road.
"It's following," she said, low enough that maybe she thought he wouldn't hear.
Raian didn't ask what she meant. He could feel it too — the hum in his chest now faintly pulsing in time with the sway of the horses' gait.
---
By noon, they crested a ridge and saw the valley ahead.
Once, it must have been green. Now the grass lay flat as if pressed down by a great hand, every stalk pointing toward the far end of the valley where the hills dipped low.
There, the air shimmered — not heat, but a distortion, the way oil floats on water. And through it, just barely, Raian thought he saw movement.
The Intervener's jaw tightened. "Keep moving. Don't look at it too long."
They descended into the valley.
---
The shimmer grew with each step. It didn't wait for them — it swelled toward them like a tide coming in too fast. Raian's heartbeat tangled with the hum, each pulse climbing higher in his throat.
When the first sound came, it was deep, layered, and wrong — like stone dragging across stone in a hollow chamber. The horses slowed, ears flat.
Then the sky tore.
Not loud. Not a thunderclap. Just a slow parting, like wet cloth being pulled apart.
Through the tear came not light, but color — black shot through with pulses of deep crimson, breathing in and out like the flank of a sleeping animal.
And in that breath, the half-dead survivors from the war staggered into view.
---
They weren't coming from the shimmer — they were drawn into it. Every step was a lurch forward, weapons dragging behind them. Some still wore shattered armor. Some were barefoot, leaving streaks in the flattened grass. None made a sound.
The Intervener's pale mount sidestepped, uneasy. "Eyes ahead. If it takes your sight, it will take the rest of you."
But Raian couldn't stop watching. One of the survivors, a man missing half his face to an old burn, turned toward him as if he'd heard the hum in Raian's chest. His mouth opened, and though no air moved, Raian heard the words inside his skull:
It calls you.
---
The tear in the sky widened. From its edges, threads of darkness dropped down, vanishing before they touched the ground — as if something above was lowering anchors into their world. The hum in Raian's chest deepened, vibrating in his teeth, his skull, until it felt like the marrow in his bones was humming back.
The Intervener spurred her horse. "Ride. Now."
Lira and Izek obeyed instantly. Raian did not — not until one of the survivors broke into a run toward him, mouth stretched too wide, hands clawing. His eyes weren't glassy like the others. They were fixed on Raian, hungry.
Raian's grip found the Blade.
The hum spiked.
---
The air around the survivor warped. The man stumbled — not because Raian struck, but because something pulled him sideways into nothing. The threads from the sky had shifted, moving like the feelers of some vast creature above the tear.
One brushed the ground where the man had been.
The grass withered instantly.
Raian's horse reared. The Blade burned in his hand — not with heat, but with pressure, as if it were part of the same force pulling from the sky.
---
They rode hard.
The shimmer receded behind them, but not completely. The tear stayed open, its edges folding inward, the crimson pulse dimming. Whatever it was, it had not finished anchoring.
Raian's chest still hummed, but now there was a second beat beneath it — slower, heavier, waiting.
He didn't need the Intervener to tell him what it meant.
The Fourth had seen him.
And the next time the sky tore, it wouldn't just send messengers.
It would step through.
---
TO BE CONTINUED...