Blackstone Keep was burning.
Not with fire alone—but with memory. With pain. With the weight of centuries cracking under the weight of a single moment of rebellion.
The ash from slain Rift Spawns curled in the wind like the ghost of snow. Embers crackled from shattered towers. Cries rang out—fewer now. Some in rage. Some in agony. Some in silence.
Kaia stood beside Rei beneath the shadow of the broken gate. Blood still streaked her arms. Her knives, once gleaming bone, were dulled now with gore and smoke.
"Rei," she whispered, "we have to go."
He said nothing.
He stood still, breathing hard, gaze turned toward a broken section of the eastern wall. His eyes—no longer glowing—remained sharp, lucid. Human. But heavy with something far older.
"Rei."
He turned his head.
And behind them… he saw them.
Cages. Rows of them.
Sunken in the courtyard's southern flank. Half-buried in soot and rubble, as if the world had tried to forget them. Metal bars twisted like ribs. Some already broken open. Others—still full.
Faces stared out from the dark.
Men. Women. Children.
Gaunt. Hollow. Waiting.
Some dared hope. Some did not even move.
Kaia stepped in front of him, voice low. "We don't have time."
But Rei stepped forward.
Kaia grabbed his arm. "Rei."
He looked at her.
"No one left behind."
She stared at him. The violet in his gaze had faded.
What remained was… conviction.
And Kaia, for all her instincts—for all the wild beast that had kept her alive through chains and fire—felt something in her falter.
"…fine," she said. "Then let's move fast."
Together they crossed the smoking yard, picking paths through rubble and bodies. Kaia moved ahead, slashing locks. Rei followed, dragging open doors. One by one, the prisoners crawled out, limping, some helping others.
A few whispered his name.
Most simply stared.
A boy no older than ten took Rei's hand and would not let go. A scarred beastkin woman wept openly at Kaia's feet.
Kaia found a storage room not yet burned. Inside—cloth, armor, rations. She tore a cloak from the wall—tattered, half-burnt at the hem—and threw it over Rei's shoulders. Took another for herself.
"We go north-east," she said. "Toward the forest."
"North?" he asked, voice hoarse.
She nodded once. "To Druvadir. The Grove lies at its edge. Thornevale guards its back. They won't track us there. We used to hunt in those woods."
A final look behind them.
Blackstone Keep still burned.
It would burn for days.
And yet… the fire could not erase the weight that hung over it. Not completely. Not for those who remembered what was done beneath its stone bones.
Not for Rei.
Not for her.
They traveled in silence, the freed ones following in a slow, ragged line. The weak were carried. The wounded supported. Kaia led them through a forgotten tunnel beneath the wall—one even she had only found by scent, buried behind a collapsed smithy.
Beyond the Keep's edge, the land sloped. Broken hills gave way to trees—dark, ancient, untouched by man or Rift.
The Forest of the Grove.
By dusk, they had reached a watchtower—long abandoned, its stone cracked and roof half-collapsed. It stood at the edge of a rise, overlooking the path they'd taken. From there, Blackstone could be seen still—smoke like a pillar against the sky.
The slaves—no, the freed—rested below. Kaia had found water nearby. Set traps. Left instructions.
Now, within the watchtower's hollow top, she sat across from Rei.
He looked different.
Not because of the violet in his veins, which had faded, or the glow that once danced in his gaze.
But because he was quiet.
Still.
Like someone who had touched something too vast to name—and had not yet decided what it meant.
She spoke first.
"You shouldn't have gone back for them."
His eyes met hers. "I couldn't leave them."
Kaia tilted her head. "Most would have."
"I'm not most."
She smiled faintly at that. A tired thing. "No. You're not."
A moment passed. Then another.
Rei broke the silence.
"Thank you. For freeing me."
Kaia blinked. The words caught her off guard.
Then, quietly, she nodded.
But her answer surprised him more.
"Don't thank me," she said. "You saved me, back there. From the wolves. From that… thing."
He frowned. "I don't remember all of it."
Kaia leaned forward slightly. "Then tell me what you do remember."
Rei stared at the floor for a long moment.
Then he closed his eyes.
Darkness.
It wasn't like sleep. Or death. Or shadow.
It was void.
A world with no ground. No sky. No breath. Only sensation—floating, sinking, bleeding.
He drifted.
Something ancient circled him. Not a beast. Not a man. A will.
"Feed me," it had whispered. Over and over. "Feed me, Riftborn."
It fed on despair. He felt it then—memories not just his own. The cries of every chained soul. The sorrow of the grove. The betrayal of the Order. The weeping of Kaia's mother, burned among her trees. The screams beneath the keep.
The void drank it all.
"Do you want power?" it hissed. "Do you want to win?"
And for a moment…
He said yes.
Power flooded him.
Not warmth. Not strength.
Absence.
The power to erase. To unmake. He felt it rush through his bones. The mark on his chest pulsed. He saw shapes in the dark—faces of Rift Spawns—waiting to serve. Waiting to feed.
He was falling.
Sinking into that truth.
And then…
A hand.
Soft. Warm. Clawed.
Pulled him up.
He looked.
He saw her.
Kaia.
Not the Kaia of blades and fangs. But the Kaia who had knelt beside him in that chair. Who had said—I feel it inside, that I need to get you out of here.
He reached back.
Then—another image.
A room.
A small desk.
A flickering screen.
A controller in his hands.
An RPG bossfight. Wolves circling him. Timed dodges. Combos. Strategizing.
He remembered how he had won. How he had kept trying. How he never quit.
He remembered being himself.
And suddenly—
He had control.
Rei opened his eyes.
Kaia was still watching.
"I fell," he whispered. "Into the Rift. Into something deeper. It wanted to consume me. To turn me into…"
He stopped.
Kaia finished for him.
"A weapon."
He nodded.
"But you brought me back."
She didn't speak.
Didn't know what to say.
Instead, she reached across the space between them. Placed a single hand over his.
Rough. Calloused. Steady.
Rei looked at her.
And for a long time, they sat like that—beneath the sky, in the watchtower of a world that had broken them both.
But the fire in Blackstone was distant now.
The Grove lay ahead.
And tomorrow, they would walk into it.
Together.