The next day, Thale was silent—but not in peace.
The hybrid's arrival hadn't been officially reported. Mira insisted on keeping it quiet, for now. "Mass panic won't help," she said, but her constant pacing betrayed the weight of her concern. Behind the walls, scouts and seers were dispatched to comb the nearby forests. Nothing turned up.
Amine couldn't rest. The memory of Riven's gaze—so calm, so sure—lingered in his mind like a thorn. That confidence came from something more than power.
It came from purpose.
He needed to understand his own.
That night, Amine returned to the summoning ring alone. The stone was still cracked from Thanor's last emergence. He knelt in the center, placed his palms against the ground, and whispered:
"Thanor. Come."
At first—silence.
Then, a deep hum through the bones of the earth. The air pulsed.
And Thanor emerged again—this time more stable. His form coalesced in smoke and dark fire, still massive, but less... fractured. His head lowered, but his eyes held that old pain.
Amine reached forward, braver now.
"Why do I see chains when I summon you?"
Thanor did not speak—but in the depths of his flames, something shifted. And then Amine saw through him.
For just a moment, he stood inside a memory not his own:
Chains stretching across an endless black plain. A burning cage made of names—Toku, Regret, Failure, Anger—each word a shackle around a limb. Thanor howling not as a monster, but as a child, caged and forgotten.
Amine fell backward, gasping.
Then the chains snapped back into shadow.
Mira was waiting for him at the top of the tower.
She didn't look surprised.
"You saw them, didn't you?" she said.
Amine nodded slowly. "He's... not just my summon. He's me."
"More than that. He's the part of you you buried. That's what Eidolons are—echoes, made manifest. Mages don't create them. They're born from your pain, from your truth."
Amine whispered, "Then what happens if I accept him fully?"
Mira met his gaze.
"Then he stops being your weapon… and becomes your soul."
Before he could answer, an explosion rocked the west wall.
A wave of fire lit up the night. Screams echoed. The sky cracked—not from a rift this time, but from sheer force.
Mira's head snapped toward the sound. "No…"
From the tower, Amine saw it:
A figure floating in the air above the breach.
Riven.
But he wasn't alone.
Behind him hovered something massive—a serpentine shape wrapped in magic-laced iron. A dragon, bound and willing, coiled like a crown around him.
And as his voice echoed across the city, it came with a terrifying clarity.
"Your world is already dying," Riven called out. "I'm just speeding it up."
He raised a hand.
And the dragon obeyed.