The fire from the feast still smoldered by dawn, the fortress reeking of smoke and spilled wine. Soldiers slept where they'd fallen, sprawled among overturned cups and half-gnawed bones.
Caden couldn't sleep. He sat on the cold stone steps, arms wrapped tight around his knees, eyes fixed on the horizon. The sky was pale, washed of stars, but still he thought he saw them, shifting black pinpricks swirling like dust caught in water.
Hungry, the void whispered, ever patient.
He clenched his fists until his nails dug into his skin. "Not now," he muttered. "Not ever again."
But he wasn't alone.
From the treeline beyond the fortress, figures watched. Cloaked, hooded, their faces veiled. They moved without a sound, shadows gliding across the ruined earth. One raised a hand, tracing the air where Caden had torn open reality the day before. The space shivered, as though remembering.
The figure lowered its hood. Eyes black as oil gleamed. "The child bears the maw," she whispered. "The vessel we've sought."
Another hissed behind her. "The warlord will not release him."
"He doesn't need to," the woman said. "The void calls him. It will lead him to us."
Inside the fortress, Ravel woke to unease. He strapped his sword across his back and moved through the sleeping soldiers, instincts sharp. Something was wrong. The air itself felt… thinner.
He found Caden still on the steps, shivering against the dawn.
"You didn't sleep," Ravel said.
Caden shook his head. His voice was hollow. "I saw them. In the dark. Watching me."
Ravel's eyes narrowed. "Soldiers?"
"No," Caden whispered. "Something worse."
---
That night, the cult struck.
The fortress walls echoed with a sudden scream. Torches flared as soldiers scrambled to arms. But the attackers weren't like any army they'd faced before. They moved like smoke, robed and chanting, voices rising in languages that made the air ache.
Where their chants fell, the ground cracked. Shadows split from their casters, clawing at soldiers with inky hands.
Caden stumbled back, heart hammering. He could feel them, the cultists, not just in his ears but in his bones. Their chants resonated with the hunger inside him, tugging, pulling.
One of them stepped forward, a woman with hair like spider silk, her eyes bottomless voids. She raised a hand toward him.
"Child of the Maw," she called. Her voice was both a whisper and a scream. "Come. You are ours."
Caden's breath froze. His stomach lurched. For a moment, one terrible, endless moment, the void inside him answered.
Home, it breathed.
"No!" Caden shouted, staggering back. He clenched his fists, fighting the pull, but his knees buckled under the weight of it.
The cultist smiled, reaching. The soldiers' blades couldn't touch her, steel passed through her form like mist.
And then Ravel was there, dragging Caden back, sword flashing as he barked orders. "Guards! Protect the boy!"
Steel clashed, shadows writhed. The fortress was chaos. And at its center, Caden trembled, the cult's words coiling around his mind like chains.
"You cannot resist forever," the woman's voice whispered inside his head as her form melted back into the dark. "The void devours all. Even you."
When it was over, the fortress held, barely. Dozens lay dead, their bodies twisted in ways that made the stomach turn. The cult had vanished into the night, leaving only whispers and blood.
The warlord stood over the carnage, fury blazing. "They dared trespass here," he snarled. "For him." His gaze locked on Caden. "You've brought wolves to my gate, boy."
Caden's throat was dry. He wanted to speak, to deny it, but the words wouldn't come. Because deep down, he knew the warlord was right.
The void had called them.
And they had answered.