He didn't sleep.
Not anymore.
But when the Warden closed his eyes after reclaiming Nocturne, he felt the kind of stillness that used to resemble rest — before dreams were replaced by memories, and memories by consequences.
The fog had lifted. The echoes had calmed.
And yet… he felt watched.
The cane, resting at his side, clicked softly. Its razorbill head slowly turned, not in alarm — in warning.
He opened his eyes.
The sky above was wrong.
Not black. Not gray. But hollow — a spiraling dome of negative color, like a wound in the fabric of the world. Stars blinked in and out, inconsistent and untrustworthy.
The ground beneath him cracked with every step — not from weight, but from pressure being pushed out of the world.
He was not alone.
And this was not his world.
"This isn't a dream," he muttered.
"No," came the reply. "It's an invitation."
The voice was neither male nor female.
Not even human.
It scratched the ears like silk over bone.
From the darkness ahead, a figure emerged — tall, robed, faceless. Its cowl was wide and rippling, stitched from scrolls, its hands long and jointless, holding nothing — and somehow, everything.
Around its neck hung a pendant in the shape of an open mouth.
The Warden stood still, cane in hand.
"You're early," he said.
"We're late," the figure answered.
"You're one of the Court."
"A Whisper. Nothing more."
"Then speak."
"You've stirred the balance. Reclaimed what was sealed. The Echoes were fragmented for a reason."
The Warden's grip tightened.
"They were stolen."
"They were freed."
The Whisper moved without walking. Its form glided over the broken terrain, leaving no marks, making no sound. Shadows clung to it not as light's opposite, but as part of it.
"The Crimson Warden... protector of thresholds. Slayer of memory. Binder of sin. Your name still echoes in the tombs between stars."
"I didn't come here to be praised."
"Then let us mourn."
Suddenly, the sky split open — not with lightning, but with teeth. A gaping maw formed above them, wide enough to swallow cities. It screamed without sound.
From it descended images — moments torn from the Warden's past:
A child caught in a collapsing tower he failed to hold.
His own hand dripping blood after executing a man he wasn't sure was guilty.
Alira, again — not dying this time, but turning away.
"You are not whole. And yet you think yourself worthy."
"I'm not here to be worthy."
"Then you are nothing."
The cane began to hum — deep, metallic. It shifted into a crescent blade, edge glowing with all four Echo colors: gold, violet, green, and blue.
The Warden stepped forward.
"You want something."
"No," the Whisper said. "We want what's left."
"What's left of what?"
"You."
The Whisper raised a hand.
Reality shattered.
Dozens of figures emerged — mockeries of him, each bearing twisted forms of his cane: blades made of bone, vines, sorrow, fire, and silence.
"We offer this: abandon your burden. Let your pieces scatter again. Join the Court, and be more than a Warden."
"I've been more than a Warden," he said. "And I became less than human."
The Warden slammed the cane into the ground.
The earth ruptured. Crimson glyphs ignited in every direction.
From them burst eleven razorbill spirits, shrieking, tearing into the approaching mock-Wardens. Their beaks slashed through illusions, through memory-constructs, through space itself — rending the ground open in black ribbons that refused to mend.
The Warden lunged into the chaos.
His cane twisted into a new form — a chain-edged glaive with rotating rings of glyphs orbiting its head. Every swing tore holes in the battlefield, bending the reach of each attack beyond normal space.
He fought not to win.
But to warn.
Within moments, the battlefield lay shattered.
Mock-Wardens collapsed into smoke and teeth.
The Whisper remained.
"You've chosen the path of fire."
"No," the Warden said. "I've chosen to finish what I started."
"Then you'll see us again," the Whisper said. "Not as a shadow... but as a council."
The figure bent backward at an impossible angle — mouth opening wide from chin to stomach.
It screamed.
Then vanished into static.
The Warden stood alone again.
But the sky had not returned to normal.
It had learned his name.
He turned, breathing slowly.
"The Crimson Warden..." he said aloud.
"Not because I guard blood."
"Because I bled first. So others didn't have to."
He walked forward — not through a path.
Through a rift — cut by his cane.
The power now strong enough to slice through realms.
The next stage waited.
A city once under his protection — now rotting from within.
And the first member of the Hollowed Court would be waiting there.
Not a Whisper.
A Judge.
End of Chapter Six
Next: Chapter Seven – The Rot in Glaivenreach