THE EDGE OF BECOMING
The sky was gone.
In its place yawned a rift of bleeding stars, a hollow spiral carved into the heavens themselves — threads of reality spun backward, drawn toward a singularity not of gravity, but intent. The Weave screamed as it strained to hold itself together. Aamon's final seal stood half-shattered beneath the ruined arches of Veilscar Hold, pulsing with every heartbeat, every whispered memory.
At its center stood the Vessel of Aamon, flesh now barely human, towering, gleaming with sigils that spun in opposite directions across his skin. Wings of void and flame extended outward, drawing breathless wind into their folds. His voice... when it came — broke time.
"There will be no gods. Only hunger."
Riven, crouched in the blood-drenched rubble, was breathing shallow. His left arm hung broken. His werebeast form had begun to destabilize, shifting and melting with every lurch of time. Still he watched — eyes glowing gold, teeth grit, as Elara rose alone before the final seal.
She stood tall, though blood ran freely from her nose, eyes, and mouth. The Codex Nocturna hovered open behind her, its pages blazing with Nyxis script, burning away with every word uttered. She had invoked a rite forbidden even among the Deep Witches — a sacrificial recursion spell: "Veir'ha'thri — The Turning of the Hollow Thread."
A spell not to kill, but to rewrite prophecy.
Aamon's eyes narrowed.
"Foolish girl. You cannot undo me with what was stolen."
Elara trembled, her voice cracked but resolute. "I'm not unmaking you."
She raised her hand. In it, the last sliver of the Ancestral Moonstone, gifted by her mother before death — a fragment that held pure intention, before the Spiral's touch.
"I'm unmaking the path to you."
She slammed it into the earth.
---
Everything fractured.
The seal stuttered, then buckled. A pillar of inverse light erupted from the stone, striking the sky and splitting the spiral above. The glyphs in Aamon's chest flickered and dimmed. His wings tattered. His vessel screamed.
All across the ruined battlefield — silence.
The Hollow Spiral began collapsing inward, a black hole of failed divinity.
Riven struggled to his feet.
Aeron, bloodied but alive, dragged himself up the northern ridge, watching it all unfold.
And Elara stood alone in the eye of the storm.
---
But Aamon was not done.
As his form crumbled, he cast one final tether of essence — a shadow-thin thread of pure intention — and appeared.
Behind Elara.
His voice was almost gentle, fatherly. "Thank you."
Elara turned—eyes wide—
But she was too late.
His hand closed around her throat.
---
Riven roared, a sound born not from lungs but soul.
He sprinted across the collapsing battlefield. Leapt.
A burst of voidfire knocked him back.
Aeron hurled his blade — the Blade of the Between sang through the air.
Aamon caught it mid-spin.
"You forget," he said. "I am not bound to time."
Elara tried to speak. Her magic flared once more—
He twisted. The Codex fell from her hand, smoking.
And then, with a thunderous snap, the final tether of Aamon's essence vanished—
... along with Elara.
Only silence remained.
Then a whisper, low and crystalline, echoing across the ruins:
"You've handed me the key."
---
"She will crown me."