The world had not ended. It had cracked.
Skies once stitched with stars now bore scars—ashen streaks that shimmered in the day and glowed like open wounds at night. The land had quieted after the cataclysm, not from peace, but from loss. Towns built on promises had become silent mausoleums. Magic had not vanished—it had fled. What remained was thin, erratic, and wrong.
Nyssa walked through the ruins of Vaelmir, her cloak drawn tightly against the bitter wind. Her boots crushed fragments of charred sigils and melted cobblestones—echoes of a city that once pulsed with life. Now, only the cawing of carrion birds remained, feasting on the memories of the dead.
She paused at a fountain long dry, where the statue of Elaira, goddess of stars, stood cracked and weeping soot. Once, Elaira held a bowl of light. Now her hands were empty.
A voice behind her broke the silence.
"How poetic. Tragic ruins. Broken gods. All we need now is a cursed love story."
Nyssa turned, hand on her dagger, until she saw the speaker: Marek. Thief, liar, and—unfortunately—the only one who still knew how to navigate the Fade-Touched roads, those shattered veins of magic now threading through reality like cracks in glass.
"You move like a ghost," she muttered.
"I've been called worse," Marek said, stepping into the light. He held up a half-burned scroll. "Found this near what's left of the council vault. Useless now."
She ignored it. Her eyes drifted east, to the collapsed remains of the Council Spire. Beneath it, Auren had whispered with his dying breath, was a Vault of Celestial Binding. A place of old secrets. Of seals. Of gods long silenced.
"I need to find the Ashen Compass," she said at last.
Marek frowned. "That's a myth. A relic from before the First Sundering. Used to chart the bleed between worlds—if it even existed."
"It existed," Nyssa said. "And if it still does, it might show me where he is."
Marek folded his arms. "You mean Jack."
She nodded. Her fingers brushed the Shattered Sigil, still hanging at her belt, dim now, its light drained. Next to it, a shard of the Heart of Elandir pulsed faintly, like a dying star.
"He's not dead," Nyssa whispered. "He's trapped. Somewhere between."
Marek sighed. "You saved the world by losing him. Don't undo that."
Nyssa's eyes burned. "The world is still unraveling."
Before Marek could reply, a wind rolled through the ruins, unnatural and reeking of sulfur. Both turned, weapons ready.
From the mist, shadows moved—low, fast, and silent. Voidborn. Shaped like beasts, faceless and star-eyed. They didn't walk. They drifted.
Nyssa hissed, "Run."
They darted through broken alleys, past shattered statues and melted gates. Nyssa's magic sputtered at her fingertips—fractured and fading. She flung a flare behind them. It burst in a howl of light, burning one creature, but the others kept coming.
"There's a sanctum under the library!" she called.
They ducked through an arched entrance, down crumbling stairs into darkness. At the base, Nyssa whispered a sealing spell, pressing blood into the stone. The door sealed with a sigh.
They collapsed, gasping.
Marek groaned. "Are you sure you're not cursed?"
Nyssa didn't answer. Instead, she crossed the room to an old mural coated in soot. She brushed it away, revealing a vision: a massive tree, roots spiraling through the earth. At the center of the roots stood a lone boy—Jack.
"He told me of this once," she said. "A dream he had. A tree in the hollow of the world."
Marek's brow furrowed. "You think that's where he is?"
"I think…" Nyssa looked at the pulsing shard of the Heart. "The breach didn't kill him. It pulled him in."
Suddenly, the ceiling began to glow—runes flickering violet.
"That's not the door seal," Marek said, standing slowly.
A ripple spread through the air. Then a figure descended—not through the stairway, but through the air itself.
It was cloaked in living flame, its face a void of stars.
Its voice was not heard—it was felt.
"The heir has awakened. The seal is thinning. He calls to you, Hollow Key."
Nyssa drew her dagger. Marek vanished into a corner.
The being stepped closer, untouched by light or shadow.
"You cannot save him. But you can follow."
Nyssa's voice shook. "What are you?"
"I am a Herald. Of the One Who Waits."
Then it vanished, leaving behind a single phrase scorched into the wall:
"The Second Sundering has begun."