Riven woke up drooling on his own arm.
"Ugh…" he groaned, lifting his head, hair plastered to his forehead.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, grimaced, and fumbled around until his fingers brushed something cold, heavy, and familiar.
The compass.
Black as ever.
He raised it, squinting.
"What time is it…?"
The dial stared back at him — empty. Still no needle. Still that blank, silent void.
He sighed.
"You're just as useless as last night."
Kicking off his tangled blanket of ropes and old cloth, he swung his legs off the bed. His boots hit the ground with a dull slap.
He frowned down at them.
"I swear, if I dreamt I was wrestling a wall, that would explain how my back feels."
Outside, dawn hovered between gray and gold.
He ducked under the torn canvas hanging from his doorway, climbed down the rickety ladder, and crouched by the sluggish stream under the bridge.
He splashed his face.
The water was icy, almost oily.
When he lifted his head again, his hair clung to his cheeks, dripping.
"Ah, Scendhal," he muttered. "Still smells like rotten eel and broken dreams."
More awake now, he trudged back toward his shack, pulled on his shirt, and stared down at his boots.
They were… done for.
The left sole hung open like a loose tongue.
"Wonderful," he said flatly. "You're not boots anymore. You're open wounds with laces."
He tied them anyway and set off toward the forge.
The morning haze was thick. Above the port, white smoke curled from the iron chimneys of docked ships. The air was heavy with salt, oil, and burnt coal.
The forge was already awake when he arrived.
Old Mael, the blacksmith, was hunched over his anvil, his beard streaked with soot.
"Today," the man said without looking up, "no hammering. You clean the shop. Polish the blades."
Riven sighed.
"How glamorous."
He grabbed a rag, wiped soot off the walls, polished rusted swords no one had bought in years, and complained out loud at every speck of dust that got in his nose.
After a while, Mael tossed him a small leather pouch.
Riven caught it midair.
"A coin more than usual," the old man said.
Riven blinked. "Why?"
"For talking too much. Consider it hazard pay."
Riven laughed.
"I didn't know my voice had a price tag. I'll raise it next week."
The old man grunted and went back to work.
Riven pocketed the coins and stepped outside.
He opened the pouch — just a few pieces. Barely enough.
But enough.
"Alright," he murmured, "priority number one… new boots."
He glanced down.
The left one had cracked further. He could see his toe through the gap.
"At this point, I'm not walking," he said. "I'm surviving war zones."
He followed the narrow streets to the craftsman's quarter — where the air smelled of dye and leather instead of smoke.
He stopped in front of a small shop.
Inside, everything gleamed.
Cured hides, polished buckles, boots hanging from hooks like trophies.
He stepped in.
Then froze at the prices.
"They're selling the boots or the whole damn building?"
The shopkeeper, a round man with a quick eye, looked up from his bench.
"Looking for something, boy?"
Riven smiled, sheepish.
"Yeah. A pair of boots. But I think I left my fortune at home."
The man chuckled.
"Show me what you've got."
Riven blinked. "These?"
"Those."
He took them off, reluctantly, and handed them over.
The man turned them in his hands, inspecting every seam.
"One coin."
Riven frowned. "You serious?"
"You look like you skip meals," the man said. "I won't rob you for a bit of thread."
Riven dug into his pouch, fished out a single coin, and placed it on the counter.
"You're a saint. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
While the man stitched and patched, Riven talked.
About the port, the forges, the noble brats who threw away coats after a single stain.
The cobbler laughed. The ice melted.
When the boots were done, they looked almost new.
"There," the man said. "Good as you'll ever get."
Riven slipped them on. They fit perfectly.
He stood, stamped his feet, grinning.
"Feels like walking on clouds. You, sir, are a wizard. A wizard of leather."
He thanked him again and stepped outside.
The streets of Scendhal shimmered under the late morning light.
Then—
Something pulsed.
Under his shirt.
A slow, heavy thud.
He stopped.
The feeling came again.
A rhythm.
Like a second heartbeat, deep and foreign.
His fingers slid under the fabric.
The compass.
It was trembling.
He pulled it out.
And for the first time…
at the center of that endless black dial,
a golden needle had appeared.
***
Riven stood still, eyes fixed on the compass.
The golden needle trembled faintly, spinning once, twice—then stopped.
Not abruptly. Not sharply.
It simply… decided.
A quiet, deliberate certainty.
He frowned.
"Oh, now you decide to work. Took you what, a whole night to warm up?"
The compass didn't answer. It just pointed west, unwavering.
Riven sighed.
"Alright. Fine. Let's see where you're dragging me. But if this ends up being another nightmare with glowing demons, I'm throwing you into the sea."
He started walking.
The alleys of Scendhal closed around him, narrow and damp, the air heavy with iron and salt.
The shouts of the port faded behind him, swallowed by the maze of stone and shadow.
At each corner, the needle quivered slightly, then straightened again.
Always forward.
He passed the old craftsmen's district, walls slick with moss and forgotten carvings.
The pavement grew uneven. The sound of the city dimmed until there was nothing left but the soft thud of his boots—and something else.
A pulse.
A faint rhythm, deep beneath his ribs.
He kept going.
He didn't know for how long.
Time here felt strange, stretched thin, slow like smoke.
Then, without warning, the city opened up.
A garden.
Hidden high above the docks, walled in by the broken columns of an ancient shrine.
White stone reflected the noon light; in the center, a fountain murmured gently, its water spilling in silver threads.
Around it grew flowers—real flowers, impossibly alive for this place.
Their scent carried through the air, soft and wrong.
Riven stared.
"…Okay. You win. This isn't a nightmare."
The breeze smelled of the ocean.
Beyond the terrace, the sea stretched out, infinite and gleaming, dotted with the slow movement of steamships belching white smoke into the sky.
He followed the compass toward the fountain.
The needle vibrated more violently now, its golden glow pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
It was pointing to something near the base of the stone rim.
Right there, between two mossy cracks.
He crouched.
And saw it.
A ring.
Small. Golden. Perfect.
As if time itself had forgotten to touch it.
He reached out his hand.
But before his fingers brushed the surface—
another hand appeared.
Slender. Pale.
Too smooth, too flawless to belong to this city.
Riven froze.
Then lifted his gaze.
And saw her.
She was kneeling on the other side of the fountain, her silhouette outlined by light.
Her presence didn't fill the space—it erased it.
Her hair was long, a silken gold, divided by three delicate braids that met behind her neck.
Her skin was pale, almost translucent, her eyes a deep, crystalline blue that looked like they remembered another world.
And her ears—slightly pointed. Not human.
She wore a short black dress with an open back, overlaid with white, flowing layers held by a high golden collar.
Golden fleur-de-lys patterns shimmered on the ends of the fabric that hung from her shoulders like wings.
Thin blue vines wrapped around her arms and chest, glowing faintly when the light touched them.
Her open sleeves fluttered with each breath of wind, fading from white to vivid blue, traced by twin golden spirals.
At her neck hung a small golden pendant in the shape of a fleur-de-lys.
Three blue teardrop gems shimmered from each ear.
White heels gleamed at her feet, their straps like threads of glass.
She held the ring between two fingers, lightly, almost carelessly—
as if she already knew it belonged to her.
Silence stretched.
Too long.
Too sharp.
Riven opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Words failed him.
She didn't move.
Her gaze held him, unreadable.
Then, softly, her lips parted.
"It's not yours."
Her voice was gentle—
but it carried through the air like a crack in crystal.
Riven blinked.
"I didn't touch it," he said quickly. "Just… looking."
She tilted her head slightly, her eyes piercing through him, calm and cold.
The breeze toyed with her hair, the white cloth of her outfit fluttering like wings.
Sunlight slid across her skin, across the golden ring she held.
And for a moment,
Riven felt as if the entire world had stopped breathing.
***
Riven did not move.
The girl held the ring between her fingers a moment longer, studying it in silence before closing her hand around it. The gold shimmered once, then vanished against her skin as if it had never existed.
She rose with a slow, fluid grace. Her hair, pale as sunlight through frost, brushed her shoulders. The water in the fountain broke her reflection apart, scattering her into fragments of light and shadow.
Riven finally spoke.
"I was just looking at it," he said, awkwardly. "Pretty thing. And I'm not a thief. Not today, anyway."
A faint smile touched her lips.
"I know."
Her voice was soft enough to vanish as soon as it was born. The sound of it seemed to dissolve before it reached the air. She looked at him quietly, her eyes still and impossibly calm.
"You're not from here, are you?"
Riven frowned. "Yeah, I am. Totally. I live under a bridge. Two streets from misery. Pretty local."
The girl's expression changed, the faintest flicker of something warm passing through her eyes. A short laugh escaped her, bright and crystalline, like glass catching light.
"You're strange."
"I get that a lot. And you? Do strangers get names?"
She hesitated before answering. "Lisa."
He repeated it, softer. "Lisa."
The name lingered in the air like a breath of dust and light.
She looked at him one last time, a single glance that seemed to reach somewhere beyond his skin, and then she turned away. Her steps made no sound. Each movement felt too light, too perfect, as if she were only pretending to belong to this world. The white fabric of her robe swayed behind her like a ripple of wind, and then she was gone.
The garden grew quiet again. Only the sound of the fountain remained.
Riven stood there for a long time. Then he sighed.
"Figures."
He looked back at the water. His reflection was broken into waves, pieces of himself sliding apart with every ripple. The silence pressed down, thick and heavy.
Something moved against his chest.
The compass.
He pulled it out. The black metal was ice-cold, and the golden needle was spinning wildly, trembling like a trapped insect.
"What now?" he murmured.
Nothing answered. The garden was still. The air was too still.
He frowned. The silence had changed. It wasn't absence anymore. It was a heartbeat. Slow. Distant. Trembling through the ground.
He crouched beside the fountain. The water's surface quivered, not from wind but from something below. His reflection stared back at him, dark and wrong. The eyes didn't move when he did.
He felt his stomach tighten.
"No way."
He knew what was coming even before his fingers brushed the surface.
The moment he touched the water, the world folded.
The air twisted. The stone shuddered. The garden bent in on itself like a dying flame. Light scattered into shards, the sky collapsing inward, the horizon bleeding into black. The sound of the sea vanished. Even his breath was stolen from him.
The fountain cracked open. The water spiraled downward, drawn into a deep whirl of shadow and glass. The ground split beneath it. From that abyss, something vast stirred.
Riven stumbled back, heart hammering.
Where the fountain had been, there was now an opening.
A staircase of darkness, coiling down into infinity. Each step swallowed the light, carved from no material he recognized. It looked ancient, but alive.
He stared at it, unable to breathe.
"Oh, hell no," he whispered.
The compass in his hand pulsed once, twice, like a heartbeat. The golden needle had stopped spinning. It pointed straight down.
The air around him trembled. The edges of the world wavered.
Then, from the depths below, a voice came. Soft. Old. Endless.
It spoke his name.
Riven.
***
The staircase had no end.
Each step devoured the light, each echo sank deeper into silence.
The air grew heavier with every breath, until there was no sound, no warmth, no time.
Only the rhythm of his own heartbeat.
At last, Riven reached the bottom.
A small chamber waited for him.
Perfectly round.
Carved from smooth black stone.
No doors. No cracks. No way out.
Only stillness.
At its center stood a monolith.
Tall.
Split.
Covered in golden glyphs that shifted and shimmered like molten lines of language.
They moved slowly, rearranging themselves in patterns he could not grasp.
He stepped closer.
The air around it pulsed with a faint vibration, a breath that didn't belong to this world.
The glyphs glowed with their own light, sliding across the stone like living veins of gold.
He frowned.
"This is supposed to mean something?"
The symbols trembled slightly.
He could have sworn they were listening.
He laughed under his breath.
"Alright, don't tell me you're actually alive."
Silence answered.
It was too complete, too deliberate.
He approached again.
The symbols began to twist faster, reacting to his presence, forming spirals and circles that pulsed with rhythm.
They felt wrong.
Not written. Born.
Riven exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Come on, do something. Anything."
He paused, smirked faintly, and muttered to the stone, his tone dripping with mockery.
"Come on then. Open up, bargain-bin destiny."
The words left his mouth like a joke tossed into the void.
And the void listened.
The monolith trembled.
Once. Then again.
The golden glyphs blazed, flooding the chamber in a blinding light.
The sound was low at first, then deep enough to shake his bones.
Riven stepped back.
"Wait, hold on, that was sarcasm!"
Cracks spread across the monolith like lightning.
Golden light spilled out, crawling up the walls, reflecting in his wide eyes.
A low hum filled the room, building until it became a single, vibrating note.
The air burst.
Every glyph tore free from the stone, swirling upward in a storm of gold.
They converged above him, merging, forming something solid, radiant, alive.
A symbol.
Golden. Floating.
Alive with meaning his mind couldn't hold.
He raised an arm to shield his face.
"No, no, no, I didn't mean it!"
The symbol pulsed once.
Then again.
And vanished.
Silence crashed down, deafening.
The monolith was gone.
Nothing remained but dust, faintly glowing in the dark.
Riven stood there, heart racing, eyes wide.
He swallowed hard.
"Perfect. I insulted a rock and triggered the apocalypse."
He took a shaky step back. The air rippled, bending around him.
The edges of the world began to blur.
The walls liquefied.
And before he could understand what was happening, the chamber folded in on itself.
A single breath later, he was standing outside.
The garden.
The fountain.
The sea.
Everything exactly as before.
The sun warm on his face.
He blinked, disoriented.
No more glyphs. No symbol. No light.
He exhaled slowly, half a laugh escaping his lips.
"Right. I'm alive. That's enough magic for one lifetime."
He looked around one last time, muttered something about quitting magic entirely, and walked away toward the noise of Scendhal.
Behind him, the air shimmered faintly.
Where the monolith had stood, a pulse of gold flickered.
Two figures appeared within the haze.
The first sat casually on the remains of the stone, blond hair catching faint light, crimson eyes gleaming with amusement.
The second stood beside him, taller, armored in black, his eyes hidden behind a gray band of cloth.
His right arm was wrapped in bandages.
His left arm was bare, marked by a black tattoo that seemed to move under his skin like a living thing.
The blond one smiled, almost lazily.
His voice was calm, velvet, soaked in irony.
"The kid just mocked destiny," he said softly.
"And destiny answered."
The armored man tilted his head slightly, but said nothing.
The blond looked up toward the ceiling that wasn't there, still smiling.
"Good," he murmured.
"Maybe the world's finally getting interesting again."
And then the air stilled,
and the silence returned,
as if nothing had ever happened at all.
***
Riven walked through the narrow streets of Scendhal, his new boots striking softly against the wet stones.
The scent of salt and smoke drifted through the air, mixing with the faint perfume of spice and iron.
The sun was sinking behind the harbor, painting the roofs with bronze light.
He stopped in front of a small bakery.
Steam clouded the glass, and inside, golden loaves lined the shelves like relics.
The smell hit him so suddenly that his stomach growled out loud.
He laughed under his breath.
"You and me both."
The door creaked as he stepped inside.
Warm air wrapped around him, heavy with the scent of bread and butter.
Behind the counter, an older woman looked up, smiling despite the soot on his face and the tired gleam in his eyes.
"One loaf, please," he said quickly.
She nodded, slicing off a thick piece.
"Still warm," she said.
He placed two coins on the counter, nearly all he had left.
When she handed him the bread, he held it carefully, reverently, as if it were gold.
"Thank you. You're saving a life tonight," he said with mock gravity.
He stepped outside again, biting into the crust as he walked.
The warmth spread through his chest like light.
He passed the vendors closing their stalls, the waves murmuring behind the walls of the city.
Everything smelled alive.
By the time he reached the bridge, night had begun to fall.
The water shimmered below, dark and calm.
He crouched, slipped beneath the beams, and found his small shack waiting for him.
Crooked. Rusted. But his.
Inside, he placed the bread on the table and unwrapped the leftover fish.
The air filled with the scent of salt and spice.
He tore the loaf in half, pressed the fish between the halves, and smiled.
"A masterpiece," he said proudly.
He bit into it.
The crust cracked beneath his teeth, the fish melted with heat and pepper.
For a moment, the world vanished.
The noise of the city, the fatigue in his bones, the strangeness of the day—none of it mattered.
He ate like someone who had never eaten before.
When it was gone, he sat back and sighed.
"Perfection. I should open a restaurant under this bridge."
He laughed softly, stretched, and fell backward onto his bed of cloth and straw.
Outside, the waves lapped at the supports.
The shack swayed gently, as if cradling him.
Beside him, on the small table, the black compass rested.
It glowed faintly, gold light pulsing like a heartbeat.
He turned his head toward it.
"Still trying to show off, huh?" he murmured.
His voice was fading.
A tired grin crossed his face.
Within moments, he was asleep.
The room fell silent.
Only the pulse of the compass remained, steady and alive.
Far away, beyond the reach of Scendhal's lights, the world was no longer silent.
The southernmost island of the Archipelago burned beneath a crimson sky.
Ash drifted like snow.
Flames rose in waves, devouring trees, devouring homes, devouring screams.
The sea boiled around the shores.
A red mist swirled over the waves, thick with the stench of blood and smoke.
The ground split open, black veins spreading through the earth.
In the heart of that chaos, something moved.
A swarm of twisted creatures crawled across the broken land.
Their bodies gleamed like molten iron, their mouths dripping with fire.
The sound of them was like bone grinding against bone.
Among the ruins, a man still stood.
A hero of light.
His wings, once golden, now hung in tatters.
His blade flickered with dying radiance.
He raised it one last time.
Then the shadow came.
It moved without sound.
A vast shape stepped through the smoke, darker than night itself.
The hero barely turned before the jaws closed over him.
The noise was wet and final.
The creature chewed slowly, as if savoring the taste.
Fragments of golden feathers fell from its mouth and vanished in the dirt.
It raised its head toward the horizon, toward the north, toward Scendhal.
Its eyes opened.
Red light burned within them.
Around it, the island began to rot.
The trees blackened.
The rivers thickened.
The sky tore itself apart.
Lines of crimson light spread across the clouds like veins.
A corruption seeped through the land.
Slow. Patient.
Alive.
And deep within that spreading sickness,
something ancient stirred.
The Umbra was moving.