The Duskroot Vale was not dead.
It merely slept—with one eye open.
Haraza stood alone on the wind-scoured platform of the ruined watchtower. The night here was thick, not simply with fog, but with memory—the weight of stories long buried beneath shattered stone and broken earth. Every step crunched against bones of wood, rusted iron, and things less identifiable. Every gust of wind whispered names he didn't recognize, in voices that shouldn't have remembered him.
But they did. Somehow.
The Rift had sent him here not just to face a threat, but to learn from it. That much, he knew now. This valley was not a battlefield. It was a lesson waiting to be unearthed.
Beneath his boots, the floor creaked, ancient timber groaning like it might give way. He scanned the horizon—if it could be called that. The sky was a tangle of thunderheads, blood-washed clouds, and slivers of violet moonlight that never stayed still. In the far distance, where the land fell away into the spiral crater, the storm still churned like a boiling eye.
But it was what lay closer that drew his attention.
Movement. To the west.
Something limping along the ridge—barely more than a silhouette—but tall, humanoid, dragging something metallic behind it. Haraza narrowed his eyes. He couldn't tell if it was friend or foe. The Seed in his chest pulsed once—soft, not in warning, but in curiosity.
And then… more.
To the south, at the foot of the tower, lights flickered in the trees. Not fire. Not mage-light. Something more feral—glimpses of illumination from creatures with glasslike eyes, reflecting far more than they should.
Riftspawn.
And they were circling.
Haraza took a slow breath and reached over his shoulder, drawing the glaive free. Its edge shimmered as it hummed softly with resonance—the song of the Rift still embedded in its core. He'd never used it outside the Sanctum. Not against something real. Not against something that wanted him dead.
The cold excitement filled him like liquid fire.
("Guess the lesson starts now,") he muttered.
And then he leapt from the tower.
The ground rushed up to meet him, and he rolled into a crouch on impact, rising into a full sprint toward the southern treeline. The Riftspawn were already emerging—first in pairs, then in packs.
They were grotesque, stitched-together beings with bone-jointed limbs and mouths where their eyes should be. No two were alike. Some dragged chains. Others were covered in bark and iron spikes. A few hovered just off the ground, trailing smoke that hissed in the grass.
Haraza met them head-on.
The glaive moved like it wanted to be swung. Like it knew how.
His first arc cleaved two in half—slicing through a mass of pulsing tendrils and sinew.
The second strike spun behind him and cut a hovering one in two, sending its halves spinning into the fog with a sound like tearing silk.
But they didn't stop coming.
If anything, more poured in—drawn to him like moths to blood.
Haraza moved like water through stone, unbroken, unyielding. He felt every footstep not in his legs, but in his memory. The Sanctum's training—Tarsis's rituals, the trials of the Rings—coursed through his instincts now, guiding each movement, each decision.
Until one of the Riftspawn didn't die.
He slashed—and the glaive bounced.
Sparks flew.
The creature was massive—armored in plates of obsidian and bound with runes that shimmered in jagged colors. Its hands ended in knives made of soulglass. Its "face" was a spinning wheel of glyphs, and its chest opened like a gate, revealing a hollow void that shrieked like a dying storm.
Haraza staggered back. The Seed pulsed hard now—warning, warding.
This was no mere minion.
This was a Warden.
He dodged to the side as one of its blades came down like a guillotine, carving a trench into the soil where he'd stood. The glaive met its next strike and locked—sparks flying as he was hurled backward into the dirt.
He rolled, spat blood, and planted the blade into the ground to stop his slide.
("Okay,") he growled, ("not just ugly—strong, too.")
The Warden advanced, step by step.
Haraza stood—and reached inward.
To the Seed.
To the Rift.
And opened it.
It wasn't a conscious act.
It was instinct.
Like opening a door in his chest—and letting fire rush through.
Not literal fire—memory fire. The kind of energy that burned what was false and revealed what was true. His veins lit with golden-blue light, his eyes flashed with split irises, and the glaive extended—elongating into a double-ended spiral of energy and steel.
He moved again—faster now.
This time, when he met the Warden's strike, it shattered in a flash of kinetic backlash, the rune-blades flying into the air. Haraza spun, reversed his grip, and drove the glaive through the creature's chest—into its hollow void.
A pulse.
A detonation.
The Warden collapsed with a sound like thunder underwater, dispersing into mist and fragments of crystal thought.
The forest fell silent.
Every Riftspawn still breathing—or pretending to—fled into the shadows.
Haraza fell to his knees, panting.
His skin still glowed, faintly. The Seed's echo lingered like heat after lightning.
And above him, the clouds began to part.
For the first time since he'd arrived… stars showed through.
He looked up.
One of them pulsed in response.
No. Not a star.
A beacon.
And someone else saw it too.
A figure stood just beyond the clearing—tall, cloaked, holding a staff of bone and glass.
Haraza rose, gripping the glaive again.
The figure said nothing.
Then turned—and walked into the trees.
Haraza followed.