SFX: WHUUUUM…
The black sun never truly set over the Fractured Marches.
It only sank lower—bleeding through layers of cloud and ash—turning the sky from bruised violet to a suffocating indigo. Shadows stretched long and liquid across the land, clinging to jagged basalt cliffs, petrified forests of once-lightning-tall giants, and rivers of cooled lava that still breathed faint heat into the air.
The world smelled of ash.
And old thunder.
We moved single-file along what had once been a royal trade road—now a scar of fractured flagstones half-buried in dust and bone-grit. I walked first.
Not because I had claimed command.
But because the threads demanded it.
They tugged at my chest with quiet insistence, tightening whenever I hesitated, loosening only when I moved forward. The bindings knew where the next piece waited.
They always did.
Sylvara followed three paces behind.
Her moonlight blade remained sheathed, but her hand never strayed far from the hilt. Silver hair caught the dying light in a way she clearly despised—too visible, too radiant. Every so often I felt her gaze on my back.
Measuring.
Judging.
Calculating the exact moment she might bury that blade in my spine—if the bindings ever allowed it.
Nyxara drifted along the left flank, half-real, half-shadow. She didn't walk so much as flow, slipping between patches of darkness with unnerving grace. Twice she vanished completely, only to reappear ahead, perched atop shattered stone, watching us approach with that same crooked smile.
She hadn't spoken since the ruins.
She didn't need to.
Elara brought up the rear.
Her heavy boots ground stone into powder with every step. The greataxes across her back clinked in a slow, rhythmic cadence—almost musical, if you ignored the fury packed into each impact. She never once looked at me.
She didn't have to.
The heat rolling off her was constant, like standing too close to an open forge.
No one asked where we were going.
They already knew.
The threads made sure of that.
We walked for hours beneath the bleeding sky. The Marches were quiet in that dangerous way battlefields get just before the next volley—when even the wind seems to hesitate.
It came low and mournful, carrying the ghosts of war-horns that had rusted into silence centuries ago.
Then—
SFX: SKREEEE—
Hooves scraped stone.
Six riders crested the eastern ridge.
Skeletal war-mounts bred from starvation and nightmare hissed steam through exposed ribs. Black iron armor etched with glowing crimson runes caught the dying light. Torn banners snapped in the wind—Nocturne crimson, soaked so deeply it looked black.
Soul-feeders.
The kind of soldiers who collected screams like trophies.
Their leader reined in fifty paces away. Spiked helm. Broad shoulders. Discipline etched into every motion.
"State your business in the Marches," he called, voice warped by the helm.
"These lands belong to the Sovereign of Eternal Night."
Nyxara appeared beside me without sound.
"Old friend?" I murmured.
She tilted her head. "Different cohort. Same appetites."
The leader's gaze swept over us—paused on Nyxara's violet flame, lingered on Elara's scales, measured Sylvara's elven armor.
Then it settled on me.
"You," he said. "The one who reeks of serpent-death. The Sovereign has questions."
I smiled.
Slowly.
Fangs bared.
"Tell your Sovereign," I replied, "that questions are a luxury I no longer afford."
The reaver lifted a gauntleted hand.
His riders fanned out—controlled, flanking rather than charging.
Smart.
"Last chance," he said. "Kneel. Or be harvested."
Elara laughed—short and ugly.
"Harvest this."
Her axes came free.
SFX: FWOOOOM—
Crimson flame roared to life.
The reavers moved.
Fast.
Too fast for mortals.
Soul-shards embedded in their armor flared, stolen vitality screaming through veins. Mounts lunged forward in near silence, lances leveling as runes ignited.
I exhaled.
Eclipse Aether answered.
The world dimmed—not darkness, but distortion. Edges blurred. Light bent wrong. Shadows thickened beneath hooves and boots.
I stepped forward.
The first rider reached me—lance aimed for my heart.
I caught the shaft mid-thrust.
SFX: CRACK—
Wood splintered. Iron warped.
His momentum carried him forward. My elbow met his helm.
SFX: KRRUNCH—
Metal collapsed.
Bone gave way faster.
He dropped without a sound.
The second came from the side, glaive whistling.
I didn't dodge.
I absorbed.
The blade struck my shoulder and sank—slow, like pushing through tar. Violet-black mist coiled around the metal.
The reaver tried to pull back.
Too late.
The glaive dissolved into smoke and flowed up my arm, into my chest.
His soul-shard flickered once.
Then went dark.
He screamed as his body crumpled, armor suddenly too heavy for dead limbs.
Three down in heartbeats.
"FLANK!" the leader roared.
The remaining riders split wider.
Sylvara moved.
Moonlight flashed.
SFX: SHIIIING—
She didn't charge—she flowed. One step carried her ten paces. The blade sang a pure, ringing note as it severed a mount's front legs. Rider and beast crashed.
She spun, drove the point through the visor before he could rise.
Clean.
Efficient.
Nyxara vanished.
Reappeared behind another rider.
Her daggers didn't flash—they simply were in his ribs. In. Out. Shadow flooded the wounds like ink in water.
The reaver convulsed once.
Then went still.
Violet flame leaked from his mouth.
Elara didn't bother with finesse.
She met the last rider head-on.
Axes crossed.
Sparks exploded.
She drove one blade into the mount's chest, vaulted upward with brutal grace, and brought the second axe down through helm and skull.
SFX: THUD—
Rider and beast collapsed together.
Silence fell again.
Sharper now.
Only the leader remained.
He hadn't moved.
His mount stamped nervously. Runes along his armor pulsed erratically.
"You…" he rasped. "You're not human."
"Observant," I said.
He raised one hand, slow, palms open.
"I yield. Take what you will. But know this—"
His voice tightened.
"The Sovereign already knows you walk these lands. She sends her regards."
Nyxara appeared at his stirrup.
"Regards?" she purred. "How quaint."
She hooked two fingers beneath his helm and lifted.
A woman's face stared back—pale, sharp, eyes widening with recognition.
"Lieutenant Veyra," Nyxara said softly. "You always had terrible timing."
"Thorne," Veyra whispered. "You're supposed to be dead."
"Rumors," Nyxara said lightly, "are unreliable."
I stepped closer.
Veyra's gaze snapped to me.
Fear finally cracked discipline.
"What are you?" she whispered.
I leaned in.
"Opportunity."
My palm pressed against her chest plate.
Eclipse Aether flowed—gentle. Probing.
Images flooded my mind.
Black spires beneath storm clouds.
Soul-lanterns burning.
A throne of fused bone and shadow.
A woman wearing a crown of violet thorns.
The Sovereign.
Her head snapped up.
Her lips moved.
One word.
Mine.
I pulled away.
Veyra gasped.
"She knows," I said.
Nyxara smiled wider. "Then we should hurry."
I turned west.
"The threads pull that way," I said. "There's a ruin in the Ashen Veil. Another key waits."
Sylvara nodded once. "And this key?"
"A fragment of the serpent's core," I answered. "Without it, the throne stays silent. With it…"
I smiled.
"We get louder."
Elara wiped her axe clean. "Louder brings enemies."
"Good," I said. "I'm in the mood."
Veyra swallowed. "If you go west, you'll cross Hollow Pass. Void-touched beasts. Old god remnants."
I looked at her.
"Then you'll guide us."
She stiffened. "I—what?"
"You yielded," I said calmly. "Earn it."
Nyxara laughed softly. "He really does learn fast."
Veyra bowed her head.
"As you command… eclipse."
We moved west.
The black sun bled lower.
The threads in my chest tightened—eager.
Behind me walked three women and one unwilling guide.
Not a warband.
Not yet.
But the beginning of one.
And somewhere ahead, in the starving dark of the Marches, the next piece waited.
Hungry.
Just like me.