Dusk crept along the walls of Vorthryn like a secret.
The blackstone towers cast long shadows across the narrow streets, and the wind carried the hush of decisions already made. In the scout quarter, Reva walked with no armor and no ceremony—just travel leathers and a long cloak drawn tight across her shoulders. The curved dagger at her side caught no attention. No one stopped her.
She left nothing behind.
No note. No warning.
Only silence.
By the time the sun had risen, the gates faded behind her. She was alone now.
She traveled east, along forgotten paths and over ridges the wind had half-erased. The woods here were thicker than she remembered—older, too. Every step stirred buried memories, the ones that never left, only waited. She moved quickly, the Pulse Gate humming faintly in her veins, feeding stamina into every stride.
Hours passed in silence. Only the sound of the breeze through the leaves to greet her.
When the trees broke at last, the sky had begun to dim. The forest opened into a field of tall grass and scattered stones. A stream cut through it like a scar.
Beyond the stream: ruins.
Her village.
She didn't slow.
The buildings were gone—burned out husks of memory. The bakery, the well, the little stone wall her mother once painted with chalk.
She passed them all.
Her feet carried her to the center, to what was once her home.
Now, it was only ash and collapsed beams.
She knelt by the old hearth, brushing aside the rubble.
Something caught her eye—metal, nestled deep in the char.
A locket.
Tarnished but intact. It seemed to call her name. Reva came looking for answers, so reached out to grab it.
"Leaving without me?"
Her out-stretched hand stopped short of the locket.
She turned.
Ajax stood ten paces behind her, arms crossed, coat dusty with travel. The last flickers of the pulse gate shimmered faintly around his body.
She didn't look surprised.
"You always follow me."
"Only when it matters."
He stepped beside her and crouched. His gaze dropped to the locket.
"Where did you find that?"
"In the ashes," she said. "Buried right where the hearth used to be."
He said nothing at first, and then, " You know you're shaking."
"I'm not scared."
"I didn't say you were."
A brief silence hung in the air.
"What if when I found out what I'm looking for I don't like the answer."
"Then I'll be here to share the burden."
Reva gave him a half nod, and with a deep breath, turned back to the pendant.
It now emitted a soft blue light from where it would open.
She stretched her hands out to grab it, and opened the clasp.
Then the world changed.
The locket pulsed.
Blue light spilled out—not bright, but deep, like moonlight through water. It spiraled into the air in the shape of a flame vortex and shot down into her palm. wrapping around her fingers, her wrist, her chest.
Reva staggered back.
The light expanded.
It wasn't fire, it wasn't hot. It was the soul made visible.
It moved through her like memory uncoiling.
She gasped. Her knees buckled, and the locket slipped from her hand.
Blue fire flared around her, trailing up her arms, dancing along her spine. Her veins gave a pulsating blue glow.
Ajax stepped back, hand instinctively raised.
But she didn't burn.
The flames curled through her, around her, and into the ground. Her hair lifted slightly, like carried by static. Her breath came ragged and fast.
She looked at him.
"It's not pain," she whispered. "It's me. It's… everything that was locked away."
Her eyes glowed a faint blue.
Ajax's voice was tight. "What is it?"
"Soulfire," she said. "It doesn't burn flesh. It burns the soul. It shows what's hidden—and it breaks what shouldn't exist."
Then her legs gave out.
Ajax moved in to catch her—
When he felt a familiar presence.
A voice spoke from the tree line.
"She's awakened."
Karian stepped out from the shadows, cloak swirling behind him. His expression was unreadable.
He approached slowly, gaze locked on the flickering fire around and within Reva's body.
"I knew this day would come eventually," he murmured.
Reva looked up at him, breath shallow, still limp in Ajax's arms.
"You knew about all of this."
He nodded once.
Reva looked to her side. Her dagger radiated silver lines across its surface.
"And this dagger—" she said, touching the hilt at her hip, "— why's it reacting to my soul? To my new power?"
Karian extended a hand. "Let me see it."
She hesitated, still holding her doubts on who Karian really was.
Then handed it to him.
He quickly looked over the blade, and a pang of grief lit up his face.
"This was Tessia's," he said quietly. "She was my wife, and she was Delastra's sister. This was her weapon which she used to keep logs of the battlefield. A relic with the ability to carry memories of the past and to then relive them."
He paused, then added, "It's time to show you what really happened here the day your world stopped."
He planted the dagger in the earth.
A pulse of silver light rippled outward from the blade, lines that bent and split lit up the ground beneath them.
The air shuddered and warped around them.
And the past came alive.
A battlefield unfolded like a wound carved into time.
The sky was ash and iron. Thunderclouds churned above the dead plain. The grass was black, trampled flat. The air buzzed with suppressed power.
Reva stood at the edge of it all, watching.
Seven warriors stood across the field.
They didn't speak. They didn't need too.
Of them she recognized three, Karian, Delastra, and one other.
A woman standing over two children.
Reva's mother.
She looked up at Karian for confirmation and found him looking at a woman longingly.
"Tessia," She whispered to herself.
Across from them a rip in reality appeared. And out stepped an enemy.
It's shape resembled the features of a human, but it's body was stricken with shadows, its skin a deep flaring void. That void was etched with white lines of glyphs and its eyes were white holes.
Where he walked, the world unraveled. His steps didn't just crush the ground beneath it, but erase it.
It was like staring at the embodiment of death.
"Why are they here?" Ajax asked, looking beyond Tessia and Delastra.
Reva followed his gaze and landed on a man and a woman. Then the man opened his mouth to speak.
"Cast a barrier around the children, Jasmine!" yelled Cassian.
"My parents?" Ajax asked in a voice hushed.
Then the group moved to attack.
Delastra's winds struck first—blades of compressed air.
Jasmine laid overlapping barrier rings around the battlefield, then Reva's family.
Tessia summoned a torrent of water, riding with pressure and freezing edge.
Cassian and Karian surged forward together in a blur, a whirling pair of synchronized blades launching a twin attack of lightning hurling straight towards the creature.
The last of the seven was a man neither Ajax or Reva recognized, and he was the last to move. Without even a twitch he vanished, then reappeared directly in front of the beast. A crimson spear in his hand now piercing the beast.
The man blitzed away and detonated the spear as the rest of the attacks struck.
A cloud of dust and smoke rose from the earthy terrain. There was a brief pause, the group caught their breath, the dust settled, and out from the storm, walked death.
Their barrage had failed.
The enemy stepped through them.
Not blocking. Not resisting.
Just unaffected.
Delastra's winds had parted for it. Nothing more than a breeze reached it. Tessia's water turned to steam.
The Twin Blades attack redirected around the voids body.
But the warriors didn't retreat.
They adapted.
Delastra redirected air to slow him. Jasmine casted a wide range healing spell to replenish the warriors lost stamina. Tessia summoned a serpent of whirling ice.
The mysterious man moved again.
He blinked in.
Another spear struck center mass— But this time, rather than exploding it, he imploded it. Absorbing part of the creatures shadows.
But the figure kept moving.
Twisted.
And launched the soldier backwards like driftwood in a storm.
The others began to fall.
Delastra was slammed into the earth by her own winds, now reflected towards her.
Jasmine's barriers closed on her.
The beast went after the Twin Blades next. And with a touch of his finger, turned Cassian's blade to dust. Karian took the opportunity to swing wide, but his blade snapped against the creatures nape.
Then the creature twisted, grabbed a fragment of the blade, and stabbed Karian with it.
Karian collapsed, unmoving.
Only Tessia stood.
She hurled everything—blades of ice, walls of water.
He stepped through it all.
And with a flick of his wrist, she fell.
Hard.
She hit the ground and didn't rise.
Karian crawled to her side.
"Tessia—"
Her voice was weak. "Don't let it take the children, Karian. Go. I'll be fine.
But Karian couldn't muster any more strength.
The enemy moved toward the ridge.
Reva's mother turned.
Kneeled.
Held the girls.
"I've got you," she whispered. "It's okay."
Then the soldier of death reached her.
Touched her back.
And she turned to dust.
A tear fell.
It landed on Reva's cheek.
And the world ignited.
Soulfire erupted from the girl like a star being born.
The void creature screamed—not in anger. In fear.
The azure flames swept and surrounded the two in a tornado of light.
The flames tore at the ghosts soul ripped it apart.
He began to vanish, body, soul, glyphs, all undone.
And then he was gone.
But the fire was not.
The fire turned inward.
The girl's own soul began to shatter.
And then Tessia rose.
Barely standing.
Karian watched her go, in tears of the inevitable outcome.
She reached the child.
Whispered an ancient word.
And sealed the fire.
But when the tornado stilled, only Reva remained.
The memory faded then ended.
Karian collapsed.
He clutched the earth, shaking.
"Tessia…"
His voice broke, and even the birds stopped singing.