The wind howled around them, stirring ash and blood as they stood—battered, bruised, drained.
Every breath felt like a battle.
Every heartbeat, a grim reminder that they were still alive.
Barely.
Above, the sky churned—clouds blackened and heavy, rumbling with a storm that never quite broke. And the rift still loomed overhead.
Open. Pulsing.
Bleeding dark aether into the world like a wound refusing to close.
Ezra stared up at it, chest rising in ragged gasps.
How many were left?
How many had survived?
Would the academy send help… or had they already been written off?
His muscles ached. His mind blurred. He swayed where he stood, adrenaline bleeding from him like warmth from an open wound.
What he needed—what they all needed—was rest.
A bath. A bed. A single day without blood.
He wiped the grime from his cheek, exhaling.
Gods, he thought, I need a shower.
And maybe ten years of sleep.
Then—he saw it.
A figure.
Distant. Blurred. Silhouetted at the forest's edge.
Ezra squinted, shielding his eyes.
A survivor?
Hope kindled—fragile, flickering.
"Oh, thank the gods," he breathed.
Then louder, "Hey!"
His voice cracked. He flailed an arm, waving. "Over here!"
The figure shifted.
And began to walk.
But not like someone wounded. Not like someone relieved.
Not like someone human.
It moved too fluidly. Too evenly.
Each step deliberate. Unhurried.
Wrong.
Ezra's arm dropped.
Something cold coiled in his gut.
The figure came closer.
Not stumbling.
Not reacting to the wind.
Not leaving footprints in the blood-soaked earth.
Its body shimmered at the edges, like it wasn't entirely real.
Like it hadn't fully decided whether it belonged here at all.
Beside him, Nora stirred, voice hoarse.
"…Who is that?"
The figure stepped into view.
Its face was hidden beneath a smooth, spectral mask—featureless, save for a single vertical slit where eyes should have been.
From its back trailed long, blackened cords of aether, writhing like tendrils of smoke… tethered to something beyond the rift.
Then—it spoke.
No, not with a voice.
The words didn't echo in the air.
They bloomed inside Ezra's mind.
Cold. Vast. Final.
"She was the first to burn—Pride, the brightest of the Seven.
Banishment was mercy, not judgment.
In her fall, she created the Sin of Light."
"And so the pact was broken.
One sin gave rise to the rest.
Seven names. Seven thrones.
Seven wounds in the world."
Ezra's knees buckled.
The words kept repeating—twisting inside his skull like thorns.
She was the first to burn… the Sin of Light…
He clutched his head, a groan breaking from his throat.
His vision swam.
His ears rang.
The world tilted—fracturing beneath him.
The meaning in the words tore through him like glass.
Too vast. Too ancient.
Too true.
He hit the ground hard, choking on breath, eyes wide.
It felt like his mind was being split open.
And above him…
The Rift Guardian kept walking—slow, inevitable.
Its masked face stared forward.
Silent.
But the voice continued—etched now into the marrow of Ezra's being.
"Seven sins. Seven wounds.
Her flame still burns beneath your skin.
You will carry her ruin."
Ezra gasped, clutching the dirt. The world pulsed beneath his hands. Or was it his heartbeat? Or—
—the rift itself?
"Asli—" Nora's voice trembled behind him. "What is that thing?"
Asli stood now. Unsteady.
His shadow twitched—restless. Wrong.
Like something else was moving within it.
"I don't know," Asli murmured.
His voice low, unreadable.
"But it's not here for us."
The Rift Guardian paused.
Its faceless mask turned.
And for a moment—it faced Ezra directly.
Stillness. Eternal. Inevitable.
And then it spoke again.
"The Sin of Light remembers."
"The Hollow Flame wakes."
Asli's breath caught. He whispered something under his breath—old words, forgotten by most.
And then—his blade appeared.
A flash of shadow-forged steel materializing into his hand as he stepped forward, muscles coiled, shadow flickering around his ankles like smoke come alive.
The Guardian stood unmoving.
The rift still pulsed above.
And the world, again, held its breath.