The Hollow Garden bloomed only in silence.Not the silence of emptiness or death—but the hush that comes when memory grows so thick it cannot bear to speak. Hidden deep beneath the Dustborn citadel, it curled through catacombs that no longer had names. Its roots drank the bones of kings, its air thick with the perfume of grief and secrets. The world above—war councils, shifting allegiances, the endless politics of power—forgot about this place. Only one ever returned.Sirelia descended alone. No crown, no veil, no guards. Here, the Dreamcloak’s dustlight faded to the dullest shimmer, more like a memory than armour. She breathed in the cold air, feeling each inhale scrape her throat raw. Her fingers traced the stone walls, soft now with moss and the passing of centuries. Here and there, bone fragments peeked through the roots—reminders of oaths kept and broken.She wondered, as she walked, if she was trespassing on her own heart.At the bottom, the path widened into a quiet chamber, li
No one expected her to rise from the crater.Not the Ashborn, their faces streaked with the soot of defeat, their howls fractured on the night air. Not the Dustborn warlord who’d shattered the ravine with war-chants older than any living memory, who’d worn bone from dead gods and bathed in the dust of crumbled empires. Not Vessa, her jaw split and bloody, sword snapped, hope winnowed to a single breath. Least of all, not Seren herself.The battlefield was a scar, ripped open beneath a red sky that refused to heal. Smoke wound up from the broken earth like the breath of someone dying, curling around battered bodies and broken sigils. The land hissed where blood had soaked too deep; it was as if the world itself rejected what had happened here, refusing even to keep the dead warm.For hours, the wolves had retreated, their line shattered. Ashborn banners, so bright at dawn, now hung limp and scorched. The Dustborn pressed on, relentless, an army trained not to win but to erase. With spe
The third night after the siege, the wind shifted.It wasn’t the usual howling breath of the storm, nor the bitter bite of war’s fury. This wind came quietly, rolling in from the north with a chill so ancient it seemed to suck warmth from the very air itself. It was a wind older than memory, older than the stones of Emberhold. It whispered of things forgotten, things better left undisturbed.The wolves of Emberhold were the first to feel it. They rose silently from their dens, fur bristling like dark waves under the moonlight. Their heads lifted, noses turned skyward, eyes reflecting the cold stars above. No call was sounded. No commands given. But something primal, something deeper than any spoken word, stirred inside them. A summons that no man had sent, but one that demanded obedience.Saphira stood motionless beside the inner fireline, fingers wrapped tight around the haft of her spear. The warmth of the fire did little to thaw the chill climbing up her spine.“That wind,” she mur
Dust clung to the sanctum walls like the last memory of breath, a weight that never eased, a presence felt even in darkness. Here, under Iskhar’s bone-palace, where the light of day was forbidden and the faith of the Dustborn ran deeper than bone, Sirelia and Venn descended into a silence thick enough to bruise.Few in living memory had entered this passage. Fewer still returned unchanged. For centuries, even the blood-priests, who revered agony as the surest teacher, had forbidden its mention. Not from terror of some hex, but for what it might awaken: memory older and more vengeful than any spell. For in Iskhar, memory was not a comfort. It was a weapon, and weapons, left unattended, learned how to hunt.But Sirelia hunted memory with purpose.Her steps made no sound, but Venn’s boots sent echoes crawling ahead, as if warning whatever waited in the reliquary’s heart. The passage tightened, the air growing heavier, laced with scents of dry rot and scorched marrow. Runes curled up the
The vampire lands began where the soil turned red with memory.There were no borders marked, no flags, no stones. Only the earth’s color, the thickened air, and the pulse of unseen power humming beneath each step. These lands did not slumber. They breathed. They waited. They fed.Seren crossed their threshold, her cloak heavy with stormlight, her chest still echoing the seer’s final words. Around her, the Ashborn kept silent, weapons sheathed, eyes watchful. Lucien walked close, expression masked, his presence thinned as if something in him already understood what he would lose.At the pass’s summit, thorns like obsidian barbs twisted skyward, framing a gate of black stone streaked with slow, glowing crimson. It did not swing open.It inhaled.And in that single breath, the gate split apart, as if stirred by the soul it had long awaited.Lucien’s.The Bloodstone Court was no palace.It was a scar.Hollowed from cliffside, sealed with enchantments older than any Lycan line. The walls b
The land changed first in colour, then in heart. Where Eldoria’s green gave way to the borders of the vampire lands, the earth itself bore testimony, red and rich, a tapestry woven from centuries of blood. Not simply spilled, but harvested, absorbed, and returned. Not clay, not iron, not the slow leeching of mineral time, but the quick, insistent pulse of sacrifice.There were no gates. No ramparts. The border was a silence that swallowed breath and echoed with a hunger older than language. The wind that carried storm scents elsewhere stopped, leaving air so still that even the smallest motion felt blasphemous.Seren crossed into that hush, boots sinking into soil that tried to remember every trespasser. Her cloak was heavy with the scent of storm, runes on her wrists smudged from the last binding ritual, her thoughts scattered by the seer’s warning that still clung to her ribs: The cost will bleed. The cost will always bleed.Her companions, the Ashborn escort, rode in tight formatio