They found the fortress at dawn.
Half-buried in the jagged cliffs of the southern Divide, it wasn't marked on any map. No banners. No sentries. No sound.
A place designed not to defend, but to contain.
"It's not a prison," Elyssia said from behind him, voice flat.
"It's an execution ground."
Raizel stood still, staring at the gate. The stone bore old sigils—warding glyphs used only in soul-binding. Not just to imprison bodies, but to shatter what lived inside them.
This wasn't just a trap.
It was a message.
And they knew he'd come.
"We're not going through the front," Yssandra growled behind him.
"You know that, right?"
Raizel's answer was a whisper.
"We are. They're expecting a beast. Let's show them something worse."
They entered as conquerors.
Raizel at the front, black cloak swirling like smoke. Elyssia beside him—silent, composed, her hands near the blades hidden under her coat. Behind them: elite warlocks, bone-armored revenants, and five cursed sorcerers sworn by blood oath to obey Raizel alone.
No siege engines.
No secrecy.
Only intent.
They walked into the belly of the fortress without resistance.
The doors opened for them.
The first corridor was lined with cages.
Empty.
Except one.
In the center: Vanya.
Chained at the wrists, ankles, and throat. Her once silver eyes dulled to rust. Her lips cracked. Skin blistered from restraint glyphs.
But she was alive.
And when she looked up, when she saw him—her expression didn't show fear.
It showed relief.
"Took you long enough," she croaked, voice like gravel.
Raizel's eyes narrowed.
He stepped closer—but not too close.
"Are they listening?"
Vanya smiled weakly.
"Always."
The torches flared.
And from the ceiling dropped him.
Not a Hound.
Not a soldier.
Something worse.
He wore black imperial robes lined with stitched skin, his mouth sewn into a grin, his eyes twin pits of gold flame. His hands dripped with chains—not metal, but memory—strips of thought and pain harvested from victims long dead.
He bowed low.
"Raizel Valthorr," he purred, voice muffled through the skin-threaded smile.
"I have waited so long to meet the echo of Kael's failure."
Raizel didn't blink.
"And you are?"
"No name. No soul. I am what remains when loyalty outlives humanity."
He raised one hand. The chains hissed.
"They call me the Binder."
Magic surged through the corridor.
Runes lit. Walls shifted.
The room warped around Raizel's group—twisting into a prison-plane, cutting off escape. A trap laid inside a trap.
Yssandra tried to draw her weapon.
The blade vanished from her hand.
Raizel's revenants collapsed—one by one—souls yanked from their cores.
Only he and Elyssia remained standing.
And Vanya, still shackled.
"What is this?" Elyssia growled.
The Binder laughed softly.
"You call it a battle. I call it a ritual."
He turned his gaze to Raizel.
"You've spilled so much blood to build your name. But names are delicate. Names… can be unwritten."
He extended a hand.
"Give yourself to me. Let me strip the past. You'll wake up tomorrow as a farmer's child. Free. Empty. Safe."
Raizel stepped forward.
Then another.
Elyssia's voice rose behind him.
"Raizel—don't."
But he didn't stop.
Until he stood inches from the Binder.
Then… he smiled.
"You want my name?" Raizel whispered.
"Try to take it."
He grabbed the Binder's arm.
And unleashed hell.
Blood didn't splash—it screamed.
Raizel didn't cast a spell.
He ripped one open from inside the Binder's soul.
A raw, living curse pulled from the bones of the ancient temple—etched into his veins by the voice in the mirror.
The Binder shrieked.
His mouth tore open.
His chains turned inward, wrapping around his own organs, crushing lungs, cracking ribs, splitting spine.
"My name isn't yours to erase," Raizel growled.
"My name is a weapon."
He drove his fist into the Binder's chest—no blade, just flesh—and pulled out a scroll glowing red-hot.
The Binder collapsed, twitching, leaking words from his throat like blood.
"You… you were not… meant…"
Raizel crushed the scroll in his hand.
The prison-plane shattered.
The air returned.
Magic pulsed back into the walls.
Yssandra gasped. Elyssia caught her balance. The revenants rose, trembling but intact.
And Vanya—chained, bleeding, laughing softly—looked at Raizel like she was seeing a god in a man's skin.
"I told them you'd come," she whispered.
"I just didn't think you'd be worse than they feared."
They broke her chains.
Vanya couldn't walk, so Raizel carried her.
Through the halls.
Past the cages.
Past the guards who now knelt or hid in corners.
They didn't burn the fortress.
They left it empty—a monument to failure.
But before they left, Elyssia pulled Raizel aside.
"The Binder was a guardian," she said.
"Which means… this wasn't just a trap."
"It was a gate."
She held out a torn scroll salvaged from the ritual room.
Not imperial. Not noble.
Pre-empire.
On it: a diagram of a throne—not the imperial seat, but a living construct, pulsating, shaped of muscle and bone.
The words beneath it?
"Throne of Flesh – Protocol Activation: Valthorr Lineage Confirmed."
Raizel stared at the scroll, silent.
Then he turned to the horizon.
"They're not trying to kill me anymore," he said.
"They're trying to wake something."
Far to the east, in the Imperial Sanctum, the Emperor stood before a mirror.
Not glass.
Skin—stretched and enchanted.
The reflection shimmered.
Raizel's face stared back at him.
Smiling.
"It's too late," the reflection said.
"He's begun remembering."