It was cold here.
Not the kind of cold that kissed the skin.
This was marrow-deep — a silence so vast it crushed thought.
Each breath left Rei in pale clouds…
but they vanished before they reached his eyes.
Time felt brittle.
Thin.
As if the world had forgotten how to turn.
He stood alone on the ritual dais.
The chains were gone, yet he could not move.
His body wasn't bound — his will was.
Around him, the chamber wavered.
Blurred.
And then—
It bled.
Stone peeled away like scorched parchment, curling into nothingness.
The walls dissolved, and the void unfolded —
a sea of stars, flickering in violet,
stretching beyond eternity.
He wasn't in Blackstone anymore.
He was in it.
The Rift.
A voice called out.
Not the whisper that fed hunger.
Not the devouring need.
This voice was softer.
Older.
Worn smooth by memory.
"You're not ready, boy."
He turned.
A figure stood across the endless dark.
Not man.
Not monster.
Not other.
A silhouette of himself — cloaked in violet flame,
eyes burning like eclipses devouring suns.
"I'm you," it said.
"The part you buried. The one that remembers."
Rei stepped back, pulse thudding in his ears.
"What are you?"
The figure tilted its head — a mirror echo.
It didn't answer.
It stepped forward.
And with each step —
Rei remembered.
Flashes.
Rain on pavement.
Monitor light dancing on pale walls.
A soulless job. A cat that never came back.
A birthday without candles.
The moment before headlights consumed the world.
I was no one.
"You still are," said the echo.
Then it lunged.
It struck with memory made into blade.
The punch of his foster father's silence.
The cut of forgotten friendships.
The weight of every "You'll never matter."
Rei staggered but stood.
He didn't fight with power.
He didn't summon the Rift.
He fought with will.
With choice.
He ducked. Rolled.
Locked its wrist and slammed it into the obsidian floor.
Violet sparks exploded.
Pain lanced through him.
Still — he held on.
"You're not me," he growled.
"You're what I left behind."
The figure shrieked.
Its face cracked.
Flames sputtered.
It collapsed into ash, torn apart by defiance.
The void receded.
When Rei opened his eyes, he was kneeling on the dais once more.
Sweat clung to him like frost.
His breaths were shallow — but steady.
The Overseer watched from the shadows, eyes wide with a hint of fear.
"You… resisted it."
Rei met his gaze — and this time, his eyes didn't wander.
They burned.
"I'm not here to feed it," he said softly.
"I'm here to master it."
**
Meanwhile, above…
Kaia moved.
A whisper through the cold halls of Blackstone.
Knife at her thigh. Heart sharp. Breath low.
She could feel it — in the stone. In the dust.
Something had changed in the deep.
She didn't know what the Overseer had done.
Didn't care.
But if they broke him —
Like they'd broken others.
Like they'd tried to break her—
Then they would learn.
What a Frostfang huntress was.
And what happened
when you cornered a tiger.