The Void was no longer silent.
It breathed.
Each pulse of the Black Sun above me throbbed through the world like a dying heart, sending ripples of pressure through every inch of the realm. The air, usually still and absolute, now trembled in slow waves — as if the fabric of existence itself had been struck by a distant, divine bell.
I stood at the center of the scar the Mirror Sun had left behind. The ground was fractured obsidian, slick with what looked like black blood — though I knew it was not blood, but condensed voidlight leaking from reality's wound. The echoes of that brief celestial transformation had not faded; they clung to the air like smoke that refused to disperse.
My body remained motionless, but my mind was… not.
A sound lingered. Not sound, exactly — more like the faint ringing that follows a blade striking stone. It existed somewhere behind thought, thrumming inside the marrow of my bones.
The Void Codex responded before I even summoned it.
The glyphs that usually lay dormant within my soul stirred awake, glowing faintly beneath my skin. I felt them rearranging themselves, like constellations shifting in the night sky.
Then the Codex opened.
Not in my hands. Not as a book.
Inside me.
A spiral of dark light unfolded in the air above my palm — lines of shifting black script orbiting one another like living runes. It moved with a will of its own, pages of invisible law turning soundlessly.
[Zhæl'thur iren'nath vaen-tir, dael'thir a'roth Vael'tarus.]
(The pulse of the Void falters, the echo of the Second trembles beyond the veil.)
The words were ancient, heavier than anything the Codex had ever spoken. Each syllable pressed against my skull like a hammer, but beneath that weight… there was a warmth I did not recognize.
Something was calling.
No — someone.
And it was not the Watcher.
The air around me began to distort. A current of power, faint but undeniable, coiled around my limbs. My left forearm burned — not as if wounded, but as if etched from within.
I looked down.
Beneath my skin, a spiral glyph formed, black and silver intertwining like twin serpents. It rose to the surface, burning outward until it glowed against my flesh like living starlight. The shape was unlike any glyph I had ever seen in the Codex. It was neither wholly Void nor wholly alien. It was… both.
The moment it completed, the Void reacted.
The obsidian plain beneath my feet shivered. Shadows bent slightly toward me, as though acknowledging the glyph. Even the air itself seemed to lean closer, as if reality were listening.
And then came the resonance.
The distant ringing intensified, becoming clearer — directional. I could feel it now, like a thread stretched between my chest and some unfathomable point far beyond the Void's horizon.
The Codex whispered again.
[Vael'tarus drien'hal… Azael'ith dra'mor… zhaen'rith kor'nath.]
(The Second remembers… The First must rise… the silence cannot hold.)
My jaw clenched.
I did not like being summoned.
But the pull was undeniable. Something lay beyond the silent starfields, past the edges of this fractured realm — a place where even voidlight thinned to near nothing.
I began to walk.
The farther I moved from the Black Sun's light, the stranger the Void became.
The obsidian plains gave way to floating fragments of dead stars, suspended in endless dark. There was no gravity here, only direction — and I followed the resonance like a predator stalking the heartbeat of prey.
The silence deepened the further I went. It was not peaceful. It was watchful.
Shapes floated in the dark — ancient ruins carved into meteor husks, remnants of civilizations that had vanished before time began. Some bore glyphs I recognized; others were covered in silver patterns that felt foreign, wrong, too alive.
The thread of resonance led me deeper still.
My aura flared unconsciously as I advanced, the new glyph on my arm pulsing faintly with each step. Space warped around me. Shadows trembled. The very fabric of the Void seemed to hesitate, as though aware that something within me had changed.
Somewhere deep inside, a flicker of emotion stirred — not fear. Something older.
Recognition.
I reached the Edge.
It was not a wall. It was a fold.
Imagine reality bending inward on itself, like a mirror collapsing into infinite reflections. The stars here had no light; they were outlines in nothingness, forming the shape of a colossal spiral that seemed to breathe.
At its center, the resonance pulsed — slow, steady, powerful.
I floated closer, the Codex opening fully within me now. Pages of invisible language cascaded through my mind like a storm of black feathers.
[Vael'tarus kaen'drel Azael'ith, thae'nir volth drien'thal vaen.]
(The Second watches the First, through the wound where silence bleeds.)
The words struck something inside me. My pulse faltered. My breath caught, though I had no need for air.
I stared into the spiral, and for the first time in a long time… I felt something shift beneath my cold composure.
A presence was there. Watching. Silent. Patient.
And it was his.
The spiral widened as I approached. Light — or something pretending to be light — began to seep through the fractures in the darkness. It wasn't golden. It wasn't holy. It was silver, cold and alive, curling outward like breath on frozen glass.
For a heartbeat, it illuminated me.
And the Void listened.
The pulse within the spiral intensified, vibrating through my bones. My new glyph burned against my forearm, the black and silver lines spinning like a slow wheel. I felt reality flex, folding closer, until even thought itself felt heavier.
Then the voice came.
Not a sound. A resonance. It moved through the air like the low rumble of distant stars collapsing.
[Vael'tarus thren'val iren'aeth… Azael'ith drae'nir volth… zhaen'thor kael'nath viren'tir.]
(The Second whispers through the old wound… The First's silence cannot endure… the stars will tremble as memory returns.)
The Codex translated but the voice did not belong to it. The Codex was merely a conduit, not the source.
I knew that voice.
Not through recognition of sound — but through the echo buried deep in the marrow of my being.
It was his.
Vael'tarus.
I felt something beneath my usual cold detachment — a pressure, a subtle stirring. It wasn't weakness. It was something older, heavier.
For a moment, my thoughts faltered.
The spiral shifted.
A single eye formed at its center — not human, not beast, but a vast sphere of shifting silver flame. It opened slowly, and when its gaze fell upon me, the Void bent. Stars that had long since died flickered faintly, as if the act of being observed reignited them for a heartbeat.
My aura surged in answer. The shadows that had leaned toward me earlier now knelt.
My voice, unused for too long, emerged — calm, regal, with something beneath it I did not name.
"Watching from afar…" I said, the sound echoing like metal dragged across stone. "Do you seek to challenge, or merely to remember?"
The Codex stirred violently. Pages turned of their own accord, and another line of alien scripture carved itself into the air between us.
[Vael'tarus kaen'drel Azael'ith… zhaen'thal drae'kor ven'ael.]
(The Second watches the First… the forgotten bond stirs within the void.)
The words were heavy. Ancient.
Forgotten bond.
I narrowed my eyes. "Then remember carefully."
My aura flared. The spiral shuddered. For the briefest instant, I sensed resistance — not hostility, but acknowledgment.
The glyph on my arm pulsed, releasing faint waves of energy that bent the surrounding space like ripples through liquid shadow. It was subtle but real. The connection was no longer passive.
Somewhere beyond the spiral, Vael'tarus was awake.
Watching.
Listening.
The resonance cut off abruptly.
The spiral collapsed into itself, folding like a mirror snapping shut. The silver light withdrew, leaving only the breathless dark.
For a moment, the silence that followed was so deep it felt like standing inside a held breath.
The Black Sun pulsed once above me.
The Codex closed inside my soul with a sound like distant thunder.
I looked down at my arm. The spiral glyph still glowed faintly — a living mark, burning with quiet promise. I could feel the thread now, stretched across unimaginable distance, binding me to the one who had whispered.
My lips curved, not in warmth, but in acknowledgment.
"If he watches…" I whispered, my voice low and regal. "Then let him see."
The shadows answered with silence.
And the Void, ever hungry, listened.