The storm broke.
Not with thunder or lightning, but with silence—a silence so total it screamed. Sylas felt it first, like a vice closing around his lungs. The energy in the air was no longer wild or chaotic. It was precise. Ancient. Measured.
The cloaked figures halted at the forest's edge, their horses eerily still, their shadows stretching unnaturally long across the mossy ground. The leader—the one who had spoken—dismounted with a fluid grace that belied the weight of the storm around him. His feet barely touched the earth, and where they did, the ground withered.
Alira stepped forward, sword in hand. Her stance was calm, balanced, but her knuckles were white. Sylas stood beside her, eyes fixed on the leader's movements, every instinct screaming caution.
"You've brought ruin with you," Alira said coldly, her voice slicing through the stillness. "And you expect us to surrender to it?"
The figure chuckled—a sound that chilled more than thunder ever could. "You misunderstand. We are not the storm. We are what the storm obeys."
Sylas felt his blood turn cold.
The man removed his hood.
He was beautiful, impossibly so. But his eyes—hollow, starless voids—bore into Sylas like spears. His face was ageless, smooth as marble, carved from the bones of forgotten gods.
"I am Malrek," he said. "First of the Keepers. Bound to the Void since before your kind discovered fire."
Sylas's mind raced. He had read about the Keepers once, in a tome so old its pages crumbled at the slightest touch. Ancient wardens of the Veil, they were said to preserve the balance between realms. But if they were here now—then something far greater than the Heart had been disturbed.
"What do you want?" Sylas asked.
"Restitution," Malrek replied, voice like gravel over frost. "You rebalanced the Heart, yes. But in doing so, you shattered the seals that held the Void at bay. You do not understand the forces you've tampered with. You've unbound the sleeping gods."
Behind him, the other cloaked figures shifted, and Sylas saw glimpses beneath their hoods. Eyes made of smoke. Skin of molten gold or bone-white porcelain. They were not human. Not entirely.
Alira's breath caught. "You're saying we made it worse?"
"No," Malrek said. "You changed the shape of fate. Now it turns... toward us."
With a gesture, he summoned a sphere of void-light—black yet glowing, like a star reversed. It hovered above his palm, pulsing with impossible gravity. Trees around them bent away. Birds fell silent. Even time seemed to hesitate.
"You've disrupted the great sleep," Malrek continued. "And now, the Dreamers stir."
Sylas stepped forward. "Then help us fix it. If we've done damage, tell us how to repair it."
Malrek's expression darkened. "There is no fixing. There is only accepting what comes. The breach cannot be closed—it can only be redirected. And for that... we need you."
The world seemed to tilt.
"Us?" Alira asked.
Malrek's eyes flared. "You touched the Heart. You survived its rebalance. That makes you anchors now—tethers between realms. The Void will follow you, unless you channel it. Unless you offer yourselves willingly."
"That's not a solution," Sylas growled. "That's a curse."
"No," Malrek whispered. "It's a covenant."
A moment of silence passed. Then, one of the Keepers raised a staff. It glowed with inverted light, and the trees around them began to twist and curl inward, roots digging up the earth, branches snapping.
Alira braced. "We fight."
But Malrek raised a hand. "Not yet. You still have a choice."
He walked closer, and with each step, the grass beneath him turned to ash. His cloak didn't sway—it clung to him like shadow made flesh.
"Join us, and guide the tide. Refuse... and be drowned by it."
Sylas didn't answer. He couldn't. His heart beat too loudly, his thoughts a storm. Alira's hand tightened on his wrist—just once. A silent question.
He looked at her. At the fear she hid behind her steady gaze. At the fire still burning in her.
"No," Sylas said finally, voice quiet but firm. "We're not your pawns. We'll find another way."
Malrek's smile faded. The other Keepers stirred, like wraiths shifting in a nightmare.
"Then the tide comes for you," Malrek said. "And for everything you love."
And with that, they vanished.
Not in a flash or a howl, but simply—gone. As though they'd never been. The air snapped back, the pressure lifting. Birds cried out. Leaves rustled again. Time resumed.
But the chill remained.
Alira released a shaky breath. "What now?"
Sylas turned, eyes hard. "Now we prepare. The Void's awake... and it knows our names."