Arasha stirred, her breath shallow and body aching, the sharp scent of old herbs and cave moss thick in her nostrils.
Her eyes fluttered open, greeted by the flickering orange of a small campfire casting shadows across the cavern walls.
Rewald sat beside her, cross-legged, hands glowing faintly as he gently pressed a patch of cloth soaked in medicinal salve to her arm.
"You're awake," he said, voice soft but edged with relief. "Good. I was starting to think I'd have to drag you all the way back up the mountain."
Arasha grimaced. "I feel like something did drag me. Over rocks. Repeatedly."
Rewald chuckled, but his smile didn't reach his eyes.
"Lie still. Let me finish treating your ribs. You nearly cracked the last good one you had left."
She obeyed, albeit with a scowl. "How long was I out?"
"Half a day. You needed it," he said, then paused. "And more."
Arasha blinked. "More?"
Rewald didn't answer at first. He rinsed the cloth in a basin of melting cave ice and began wrapping fresh bandages around her middle. "While you slept, the crest flared. Loudly. Not just in light—but in voice."
Her breath caught. "Voices?"
"Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Men. Women. Children. Dead languages. Prayers. Declarations." Rewald's voice lowered. "All of them speaking of you."
Arasha sat up slightly despite his protests, the movement making her wince. "What did they say?"
Rewald met her gaze evenly. "That you were chosen by the Primordials. That your fate threads through countless versions of yourself. That no one—not you, not even the ancient spirits—can sever the brand you carry."
Arasha's throat tightened. "So it's true. My mark isn't just… mine."
Rewald nodded solemnly. "They called you the hinge and the blade. The one who opens doors... but cannot close them. The one through whom the ripples will echo." He sighed. "I hoped it wasn't you they spoke of. But... well, here we are."
A long silence stretched between them. Arasha stared at the crackling fire, her hand resting over the faint glow of the crest on her palm.
Finally, she said, "What do we do now?"
Rewald leaned back against the stone, fatigue lining his face. "We go back. But not through the core. Not yet. We circle it—study the periphery. Look for signs of old sage paths, or remnants of rift cult movement. The place was once called the Black Hollow Vein, a conduit for communion. That means something. And it's our best chance to find out what the cult is after... or what the Primordials are waiting for."
Arasha nodded slowly. "And if I flare again? If the voices return?"
Rewald smirked faintly. "Then we'll make sure I'm close enough to slap you back to sleep."
She barked a tired laugh and laid back down, the ache in her bones dulled by exhaustion and clarity alike. "Fine. But next time, I'm slapping you if you cough up blood."
"Deal."
As the fire dimmed into embers, Arasha stared up at the jagged ceiling of the cavern, the shape of her mark softly glowing like starlight across her chest.
At least this time, they had a direction. A purpose.
And she would meet it head on.
****
What began as a tactical retreat from a clever, illusion-casting monster ended in chaos.
The beast had driven them down a shimmering, shifting corridor of fractured light and false terrain.
But Arasha, with grit thrumming in her veins and a sense of wrongness she couldn't shake, had stabbed her sword into the ground.
A pulse of divine light surged through the illusion, warping it—and the floor beneath them cracked like ancient glass.
They fell.
Not for long, but the landing jarred bones and rattled lungs. Dust swirled in the dim, ancient air.
Rewald grumbled beside her, coughing, and Arasha pressed her palm to the cold, stone floor—feeling its age.
They had stumbled into something buried. Something older.
"Rewald…" Arasha whispered, rising to her feet.
His gaze was already locked on the stone walls around them—massive murals etched into obsidian and silver, some glowing faintly with residual enchantments.
Time and battle had scarred many of the scenes: jagged gouges, scorch marks, intentional defacements.
But what they could see chilled them both.
Murals of rifts opening over burning cities.
Inhuman shapes looming above golden spires. Titans wrapped in flame and shadow. Winged figures of blinding light clashing with horrors of a thousand eyes.
And in the background of many: a woman with a blade. The same woman—repeated in pose after pose.
She bore Arasha's face.
Rewald muttered a string of old words under his breath, dragging out parchment and charcoal to sketch what he could. "These are no ordinary murals. They're shamanic prophecy carvings… and battle records. From before recorded history."
Arasha approached one partially intact section where a city stood in twilight, with a towering god descending from a burning sky.
Around the god stood several radiant figures—shining like suns—and one stood apart, clutching a blade plunged into the earth. Her expression mournful.
And beneath her feet were the etched words, barely legible, written in the ancient shamanic tongue:
"Seraphine and the Anchor."
Both Arasha and Rewald froze.
"The Anchor?" Arasha echoed, eyes narrowing. "What does that mean?"
Rewald shook his head. "In some primal myths, an anchor is the soul or object that prevents the unraveling of fate or time. But here… It could be metaphor. Or literal."
His gaze swept the murals again. "Whatever it means, someone—something—wanted this forgotten."
As if summoned by that very knowledge, the ground shook.
The ceiling cracked with a groan of ancient stone splitting under weight.
Dust and gravel rained down—and from the shattered hole above, a mass of snarling, mutated monsters tumbled through, followed by chanting voices.
Rift cultists.
Their eyes gleamed with fervent madness, robes torn, flesh partly transformed with corruption.
They shrieked and surged forward, cutting through the ruins like a tide.
"The Anchor must awaken!" one cultist howled. "Break the seal! Let the Rifts rise anew!"
They sprinted not at Arasha or Rewald—but toward the statue that stood tall at the center of the chamber.
A marble monument carved in the likeness of Arasha—yet dressed in different armor, holding a different weapon, one hand open as if waiting.
It stood atop a circular dais, lines of ancient magic humming beneath it.
And now… it was cracking.
Light poured from beneath its feet—blinding, pulsing, and rhythmic like a heartbeat.
Rewald shoved a fresh talisman into Arasha's hand. "We cannot let that statue fall into their hands. If it's tied to your crest, your soul, or fate itself—we don't know what will awaken."
"Then we stop them," Arasha said, drawing her blade despite the fatigue in her bones, the ache of rituals long endured.
They fought.
Monsters lunged with fanged maws and armored limbs, rift cultists hurled corrupted spells and shrieked with voices not wholly human.
Rewald conjured flame sigils and barriers, his magic flaring to keep Arasha from being overwhelmed.
But the statue cracked again—this time along the chest, and the pulse of energy intensified, a thrum that echoed in Arasha's crest and in her skull like a drumbeat.
"Rewald," she shouted over the chaos, slashing through a mutated cultist, "if that thing breaks and releases something—what do we do?"
Rewald's eyes were wild, but his voice was calm.
"We survive. And we contain. Whatever the cost."
Arasha backed toward the statue, guarding its base as the cultists screamed and pushed forward in droves.
She planted her sword into the marble base, breath ragged.
The cracks were glowing now.
And deep within the statue... something began to move.
****
The cracks spiderwebbed violently across the statue's chest—and Arasha felt her knees give out just as a burst of unseen pressure slammed into her mind.
She gasped, falling hard to the ground. Her vision wavered.
Then the voices began.
Not from outside, but from within—whispers, murmurs, shouts, screams—layered like echoes spiraling through eternity.
They spoke in ancient tongues, in languages she'd never learned yet understood. Each word scraped across her mind like glass, carrying fragments of emotion—grief, rage, hope, despair.
And through it all came a memory.
A memory Arasha was certain was not hers.
She stood before a great cocoon, shimmering with shifting energy. Her blade was raised, her eyes hollow with sorrow.
"I'm sorry," her voice—another her—whispered, before striking the cocoon with divine flame.
The memory shattered like a mirror, and pain howled through her skull.
"Arasha!" Rewald's voice rang faintly through the roar.
Then the statue erupted.
A blinding white light exploded outward, so intense that even Rewald, ancient and wise, fell to one knee with a cry, throwing up a shield to protect them both.
His magic flickered, barely containing the raw, searing energy that poured out in waves.
The cultists around them shrieked in ecstasy, crying out:
"The rifts have awoken!"
They melted—flesh peeling, bones turning to ash, their joy undiminished even in death.
The twisted monsters shriveled and were vaporized in an instant, disintegrated in the storm of light that cleansed everything indiscriminately.
And then—
Silence.
Ash and dust drifted in the air like snow. The broken remnants of the statue had crumbled away, leaving only one thing in its place:
A young man, unconscious, lying in the center of the dais.
His clothes were simple, torn by the eruption. His chest rose and fell, barely.
Arasha, trembling, forced herself forward. Her crest burned brightly on her hand, reacting to something it recognized.
The closer she got, the more real it felt. The more her memories—impossible, forbidden—rose like tidewater through her thoughts.
She knelt beside him, brushing dirt and soot from his face.
And then—
Her breath caught.
His face.
His face.
The one from her dreams.
The one who held her while she bled in his arms, eyes red with grief. The one who whispered, "Please wait for me."
The man who always appeared at the edge of memory, who danced with her in flickers of warmth she never understood.
Who wept when she died and smiled when she reached for him. The man who told her to lean on him when the burden grew too heavy.
"Kane..." she whispered, voice breaking.
She didn't know how she remembered his name. But now... she did.
The veil over her soul had been lifted.
Tender memories of her and Kane resurfaced, and the vivid image of him holding her with such grief as she disappears breaks her. Tears unbidden flowed down her cheeks.
And now... he was here.
But with his return came a question more chilling than any nightmare:
What price had she just paid to remember him?
And what had been awakened in the process?