The ash had not yet settled from the clash atop the Ruined Spire, and yet the world kept moving—bleeding, cracking, whispering in tongues only the dead could translate.
Raen stood still.
Smoke hissed between the seams of his armor. Veins of divine fire still pulsed across his forearms, threads of burning gold now scorched black where his soul had overreached. The battle against the false Herald had left more than wounds. It had carved echoes into his marrow.
"That wasn't just a Godmarked," Keir muttered behind him, staggering to Raen's side, robes singed and breath wheezing. "That was a memory… weaponized."
Raen didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on the horizon where the threads of the Threadrift shimmered unnaturally—quivering like a living wound. He felt it in the bones of the world. Something was calling.
And it wore his name.
