- Kaia's Perspective -
They came for him before sunrise.
No whips. No warning. No parade of chains like they gave the others.
Just a silent gesture from the Overseer's dog… two guards cloaked in dust and fear.
Their spears weren't pointed at the Riftborn.
They were pointed at his shadow.
Kaia watched from the dark.
Back against stone. Blade hidden beneath old straw.
Her ears twitched as the cell door creaked — not just at the sound, but at the ripple that followed.
A shift in the aether.
Like something holding its breath beneath the skin of the world.
He didn't resist.
Didn't speak.
He walked like he already knew the path beneath his feet would change everything.
That was what unsettled her most.
Not the brand glowing faint beneath his collar.
Not even the hunger she scented on him — the whisper of rot laced with something older.
It was the calm.
That quiet, dangerous stillness of someone standing at the edge of their own abyss.
When they dragged him down below, the air changed.
Not colder.
Not heavier.
Quieter — like the silence had grown teeth.
She sat cross-legged in her corner, let her breath slow, and listened.
The way her mother had taught her — beneath the snow-kissed boughs of the World Tree's reach, where spirits walked in wind and memory.
She listened deeper than sound.
To threads. To the tremor in stone.
And she felt it —
A crack in the weave.
A tear where none should be.
"He's not meant for chains," she whispered, voice nearly lost in the dark.
And for the first time in years, Kaia felt it again.
Not fear.
Not hope.
Foresight.
If he unraveled down there…
No one in Blackstone would survive it.
Not the guards.
Not the slavers.
Not even her.