The road south twisted like a scar across the land—old, worn, and wound through valleys choked in frost and shadow. Even this far from the capital, the Reachstone Road bore the scars of conflict: splintered pikes buried in earth, watchtowers burned hollow, and stone markers inscribed with names long forgotten.
Auren rode near the back of the caravan, the cold wind stinging his face. He kept his eyes ahead, even as his fingers went numb through the worn gloves. His brother Darien led the expedition, clad in ceremonial battlecloth marked with the twin ravens of House Rivenhart. Caelen flanked the supply carts, ever alert, while Lys had vanished into the scout patrols that slipped through the woods like ghosts.
Thirty men marched under the Rivenhart banner—Knights, shardbearers, spell-guides, and war-trained hounds. It was less an army, more a message.
The Crown had asked for strength.House Rivenhart had sent warning.
Auren's breath misted as he watched the pale mountains rise to the east. The Southern Marches were near—lands that bordered the Descent Ridge, beyond which lay the Fractured Plains. It was said those plains once held cities of light before the world cracked open. Now, they were barren and shunned.
As they passed a ruined village on the third day, Auren slowed his horse. Burned out homes, frozen wells. No sign of recent life.
"Void-touched?" he asked quietly, to no one in particular.
A voice behind him answered.
"Maybe. But not all ruins are caused by magic."
It was Lys, riding without armor, her cloak drawn tightly.
"Then what?" he asked.
She looked out at the ruins. "Fear. Sometimes that's enough."
That night, the campfire circles were quieter than usual.
Word had reached them via hawkscroll—the neighboring House Veylan had suffered an attack. A border outpost, mostly peasants and shard-keepers. Torn open. Survivors muttered of shadow-walkers, beasts without eyes, things that screamed without mouths.
"Old tales," Darien said grimly. "Used to scare field hands."
But Auren heard something else in his voice.
Doubt.
As he sat outside his tent later, carving lines into the ice with a stick, he noticed something strange. The snowflakes falling around him... weren't melting.
They hovered. Paused mid-air.
And then, a breath.
Soft. Cold. Not wind.
He turned sharply, but saw nothing.
Only the woods.
Then, from far off—so far it could have been imagined—a whisper:
"Broken ones take."
His pulse quickened.
That same phrase. The one from the crypt. Again.
He stood quickly, but the moment had passed. The snow fell normally now.
A trick of the mind, maybe.
Or not.
Two nights later, they arrived at a fortified village on the edge of the Marches—Kellen's Hollow.
Or what remained of it.
The gate was broken. The walls scorched in places. Not by flame. By something colder.
Bodies were still being counted.
Darien met with the local warden, a grim woman named Jessa who bore three shardmarks on her throat—one for each of her lost children.
"We found them like this," she said, kneeling beside a statue.
A boy, maybe twelve. Frozen. Mid-run.
His eyes wide in terror. His mouth open, lips cracked mid-scream.
No signs of battle. No blood. Just... stopped.
Caelen knelt beside the figure. "Frost magic?"
Jessa shook her head. "Worse. This is Shardburn."
Auren frowned. "Shardburn?"
Lys answered, her voice distant. "It's rare. A reaction between corrupted Shards and certain forbidden runes. Only known to occur in ancient wars. Or... when something breaks the boundary between power and will."
A long silence followed.
Darien stood. "We head east. To the Riftline. If something's coming through, we'll find it."
That evening, Auren sat near the edges of camp again, clutching a piece of scrap parchment. He'd started to sketch the glyph from the crypt door. Just from memory.
A circle. Broken.
He didn't know why he was doing it. Only that it felt right.
He'd begun seeing things, too. Out of the corner of his eye. Shapes in snow. Movement in stillness.
"Some Shards don't hum. They whisper."
He didn't know what was whispering now. But it was louder than ever.
Lys sat beside him without a word.
She looked at the drawing.
"You should burn that," she said softly.
"Why?"
"Because if someone sees it and recognizes it, you'll be hunted."
He looked at her, expecting fear or mockery.
But all he saw was quiet worry.
"Do you know what it is?" he asked.
"No. And that makes it worse," she replied.
The next day, they crossed into the Southern Ridge proper.
The landscape shifted. Forests thinned. The ground cracked. Shardspikes—jagged black crystals—jutted from the earth like ancient bones. The land felt sick. As if something had bled into it long ago and never left.
And in the distance, rising like a wound in the earth—
The Hollow Rift.
A jagged canyon, pulsing faintly with blue light. The source of the rumors. The heart of the threat.
And somewhere near it, hiding behind frost and silence…
Something waited.
Watching.
Calling.
[End of Chapter 6]