The door groaned open before her—iron warped by heat, stone cracked from strain. Kaia squinted into the sudden pale of dawn, but there was no warmth in that sky. It hung heavy, the sun struggling to rise through a veil of smoke.
They had reached the courtyard.
Wind swept through the broken battlements like breath through old bones. Kaia stepped forward slowly, Rei slumped over her shoulder, each of her strides measured and strained. The cold air stung the cuts on her arms, the dried blood crusting on her face.
But it wasn't the wind that froze her now.
It was the silence.
Too still. Too wrong.
And then it came.
A sound like bones grinding in a mill. Wet breath through torn lungs. A low, guttural growl rising from the stone.
Kaia's eyes adjusted—
—and she saw them.
They slithered from shadow. Crawled from broken arches and cracked walls. Wolves, once. Or something like them.
Now?
Twisted things.
Ash and bone knitted their forms together—spines that jutted like jagged armor, ribs exposed like teeth in a smile too wide, too human. Their flesh was not their own. Strips of it hung loose, stitched to their limbs like cloaks made from the dead. Human skin. Beastkin hide. Some still twitching.
And their eyes—
Gods above—
Their eyes were violet.
Lit from within, like coals soaked in sorcery. Glowing. Hungry. Not mindless. Watching.
A dozen of them padded into view. Then another pack. And more.
All facing the center of the courtyard—where a group of Blackstone guards had formed a desperate line, shields locked, spears raised.
"Hold them!" a captain roared, panic clawing at his throat. "For the Keep!"
The first Rift Spawn leapt.
Its body hit the shield wall like a boulder, and the man behind it screamed as claws tore through metal and mail alike. He fell, his insides dragging behind him. The line faltered.
Kaia did not move.
She crouched behind a broken statue, breath shallow, eyes wide. Rei slumped beside her now, barely conscious. His body trembled with the effort to remain upright.
She stared at the creatures—and something within her stirred.
Not fear.
Recognition.
"…you've seen them before," she whispered.
Rei's lips moved, barely audible. "Dreams."
Then his eyes opened. For the first time since she found him, his gaze focused—truly focused.
"These are not from this world."
Kaia gritted her teeth. "What are they?"
Rei blinked slowly. "Rift Spawns. Born from what should not be. Fed on pain. Called by blood."
She turned to him. "Yours?"
He shook his head weakly. "No. But they know me. The Rift knows."
A scream cut across the courtyard as another guard fell. The line broke. Two of the creatures leapt into the gap, jaws splitting wide—wider than a wolf should be able to. One clamped onto a man's head and twisted. A sickening pop followed.
Then chaos.
The guards scattered.
Some tried to flee. Others fought, but their blades passed through smoke, only to strike bone beneath. Every wound they dealt seemed to heal in reverse—as if time itself recoiled.
One creature turned its head slowly.
Sniffed the air.
Then locked its gaze on Kaia.
She felt it—like a chain tightening around her throat.
Its eyes were not just looking.
They were searching.
"…Rei," she said softly, rising. "Can you move?"
He tried.
Failed.
"Then stay here."
She stood tall now, knives drawn. Bone glinting against dawnlight, crusted still with Malrec's blood.
The wolf stepped forward, claws clicking on stone.
Then it ran.
Kaia didn't wait.
She moved—sidestepped, low and sharp, blades flashing in an X as the creature lunged. Her strike carved across its side—but instead of blood, ash burst out. Still, the thing staggered.
She pressed.
A roll beneath its second lunge, then a thrust between ribs—again, no heart, but the creature howled, spine quivering.
Two more broke from the pack.
Kaia cursed under her breath. "Of course."
She twisted, flipping over a fallen guard's shield, caught it mid-spin. One of the wolves leapt—and met the metal face-first. Its jaw cracked sideways. She ducked under the second, slashed at its legs.
Still, they kept coming.
Like shadows with form. Like death given hunger.
Rei groaned behind her, trying to rise. His fingers curled against the earth. Violet light flickered under his skin—brief, then gone.
The pack surged again. The guards were finished now—only three remained, and one was crawling.
Kaia gritted her teeth. Her breath came sharp, arms burning, body aching.
She could not win this.
Not like this.
Unless—
She backed toward Rei.
He looked up at her, face pale. "You should leave me."
"No."
"They want me. I can feel it."
Kaia's voice was quiet. Steel beneath frost. "I don't care."
More of them now. The entire courtyard was filling—wolves circling like sharks around the ruined keep. The tower above creaked from pressure. The air had changed. The very world had changed.
The Rift was open.
Kaia knelt beside Rei.
"Can you fight?"
"…not yet."
"Then I'll buy you time."
"No," he rasped, and for a moment—his voice was different. Older. Wiser. Wrong.
She looked at him.
His eyes shimmered violet.
He raised a trembling hand. Pressed it against the stone.
A hum.
The nearest wolf stopped. Snarled.
Then it whimpered.
A glow burst beneath Rei's palm—thin veins of light snaking across the stone like roots. Symbols. Runes. Ancient and wild.
The Rift pulsed.
All of them—every creature in the courtyard—howled in unison.
Kaia staggered back as the air split. Not with light. Not with fire.
With memory.
With pain.
Rei fell back, chest heaving. The glow faded—but not completely. His arms still shimmered faintly. The creatures hissed, circled slower now.
"What was that?" Kaia asked.
"I remembered," Rei muttered. "Just a little."
The wolves did not flee.
But they no longer charged.
They watched.
Waited.
And somewhere, high above Blackstone Keep, where the sky bled and the stars hid behind veilclouds, something else watched too.
Something older than wolves.
Older than Rei.
Older than the Rift itself.
Its gaze fell across them like frost in spring. Cold. Endless.
A shadow among stars.
And it whispered—
—but not yet.
Clang.
It rang once, distant but heavy. As if a bell made of bone had been struck deep beneath the skin of the world.
Clang.
The Rift Spawns halted.
Every last one.
Kaia's breath caught mid-motion, her blade frozen just short of another strike. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Clang.
The third toll rippled through the courtyard, not through air but stone—through marrow.
Then came the silence.
And then… the Rift opened wider.
It did not tear. It unfolded. Like flesh peeling from old scars. Like the world remembering something it had long tried to forget.
A figure stood within.
No face. No form. Only shadow—but not the kind cast by light. It was the absence of presence, a silhouette where reality refused to exist. Tall. Cloaked in tendrils that writhed like smoke underwater. Its steps were slow, deliberate, and yet it made no sound beyond the clang, clang, clang—as if it dragged something massive behind it, though nothing touched the ground.
The Rift Spawns howled.
Not in hunger.
In fear.
They backed away from the figure, snarling, retreating as if from fire. As if from judgment.
Kaia stepped protectively in front of Rei—but her knees nearly buckled. The air itself thickened around her, like drowning in ash. Her lungs refused to fill. Her knives trembled.
The figure did not look at her.
It looked at Rei.
And then—it spoke.
But not aloud.
"Feed me, Riftborn."
Rei gasped. His eyes shot open.
"You hear me now. Good. Do you want to save her?"
His lips parted.
Kaia turned. "Rei…?"
"Do you want to leave this place? Escape the chains, the pain, the fear?"
His body shook.
The bleeding from his nose returned, now joined by trails of violet from the corners of his eyes. His hands clutched the stone.
"You possess power you do not understand. The power to erase. To devour. The power of the void."
Kaia reached out. "Rei—don't listen—"
"FEED ME."
And Rei screamed.
The sound wasn't human. It was layered—like ten voices torn from his throat at once, rising like a storm, collapsing like mountains. Light exploded from his chest—violet, blinding, jagged like broken glass through water.
He rose.
Not stood. Rose. Lifted by unseen force, back arched, limbs loose like a puppet whose strings had just been cut—then pulled taut by the void.
Kaia stumbled back, shielding her eyes.
The Rift Spawns saw it—and they charged.
Every one of them, in unison. Snarling, shrieking. A wall of death leaping toward him and the girl beside him.
Kaia turned to fight—
But Rei moved first.
He blinked.
Not disappeared. Shifted. Space folded.
He shoved Kaia aside mid-air, gently, as though time itself slowed to let him move her out of harm's way.
And then he blinked again—into the pack.
The first Rift Spawn lunged at him.
He caught its face with both hands.
It vanished.
Not slain.
Erased.
Turned to dust that never touched the ground.
Another blink. Another wolf. A dagger of pure Riftlight in his hand now—no one knew where it came from.
Slash.
A spine clattered to the ground, twitching still.
And then he remembered.
Not pain.
Not death.
But a living room. A couch. A game controller. Flickering screens. Hours spent battling shadow-beasts with dodge-rolls and combo slashes. Boss fights that mimicked gods. Timing. Rhythm. Flow.
He remembered how to fight.
Pivot.
Slide.
Cross-slash.
A sword fell from a dying guard nearby. Rei snatched it mid-motion.
He flipped it once in his hand.
Then he moved.
Blade to neck. Blink. Elbow through rib. Blink. Duck. Slide under lunging jaws. Blink. Strike from behind.
Every movement perfect. Every blow lethal. His body remembered the games. But the Rift made them real.
The Spawns fell around him.
One tried to run.
Rei blinked beside it—touched its throat.
Gone.
Another leapt from above. He turned, raised his arm—and caught it mid-air. For a moment, it thrashed wildly.
Then it stilled.
Then it, too, was erased.
Kaia watched.
Her heart thundered—not from fear of the creatures now.
From him.
This man, this broken chained soul she had freed. Dancing through the battlefield like a memory of war. Violet fire bleeding from his eyes. Movements too precise to be human. Too brutal to be godly.
He was not man.
He was becoming.
And yet he bled.
Every blink left a trail. His nose. His eyes. His ears now too.
He was breaking even as he triumphed.
But he did not stop.
The final creature circled him, warily, growling low. It was the largest. The alpha, if such things still had pack order.
It lunged.
He did not blink.
He met it blade to fang.
Steel shattered.
He caught the broken shard.
And drove it into the creature's eye.
It howled—and dissolved.
Rei staggered back.
The violet glow flared—and vanished.
His knees gave.
He collapsed.
Kaia ran to him, caught him before his head struck the stone. His body was hot. Burning. His skin glowed faintly still, like coals cooling under frost.
"Rei," she whispered.
He looked up at her.
For a moment—he didn't know who she was.
Then—
"I… remembered," he said.
Kaia nodded slowly. "I saw."
She helped him sit.
The courtyard was quiet again. Ash swirled in slow circles. The Rift had closed, though faint lines still shimmered in the air where it once stood. The figure was gone.
Only the echo of its whisper remained.
Feed me, Riftborn.
Kaia looked at Rei.
He was breathing still.
But something within him had changed.
And whatever it was…
The world would feel it soon.