There was no sound in the Rift.
Not silence—this was different. Silence was the absence of sound. The Rift devoured it. It warped sound, bent light, pulled memory apart. Rael stepped cautiously into the corridor of shattered air and flickering runes, Elara close behind, and the world behind them—the crumbling ruins of Orvannis—disappeared like smoke.
Only the pulse remained.
It throbbed under the floor and along the walls, a rhythm of power and language, like the place itself was breathing.
Rael's skin itched.
Glyphs began to surface on his forearms—thin, curling symbols of light that hovered just above his skin like living tattoos. They rearranged themselves constantly, never resting in a single pattern. He flexed his hand. The air hummed around him.
"Don't touch anything," Elara said behind him. She was already adjusting the dial on her gauntlet, a faint glow rising in her left eye.
Rael raised an eyebrow. "You seriously brought your HUD in here?"
"It still works," she replied. "Mostly."
He scoffed. "Dominion HUDs are old Solmaria tech. They weren't designed for Rifts."
"They weren't designed for this level of instability," she corrected, tapping the side of her temple. "But the interface still syncs with ambient Code if you dampen scan mode. It gives me spatial overlays, energy flows, and warnings when something tries to rewrite my bones."
"Charming," Rael muttered.
The HUD—the Heads-Up Display—was Empire-issue gear, a wearable interface for navigating Dominion-heavy zones. It could detect Code signatures, mark threats, map unstable terrain. Primitive by Nexaran standards, but still useful.
The corridor widened as they advanced. Stone twisted upward into arches that defied logic—grown more than built—and all of it was marked in glyphs.
The runes weren't decorative. They pulsed faintly as Rael passed, like living veins.
He stopped, staring at one.
Elara noticed. "What is it?"
"These glyphs," he said, reaching out without touching. "They're… old."
"How old?"
"Nexaran."
Elara stiffened. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
The language of glyphs was universal now—taught in every academy, used in every spell—but Nexaran glyphs were different. Their syntax was deeper, layered, recursive. You didn't just cast with them—you spoke to the world.
Most mages used simplified Dominion Code like a tool.
The Nexarans? They wrote poetry into reality.
Rael's own glyphs flickered again—stronger, sharper. His Dominion Signature was reacting. He could feel it, like a second heartbeat under his ribs.
Everyone had a Signature—a unique magical imprint that let them access Dominion Code. Most were stable. Predictable.
Rael's was… not.
His Signature didn't just respond to Code. It spoke back. Reacted to old glyphs. Sometimes before he did.
It was part of why he'd been exiled.
"It's flaring again," Elara said, glancing at his arms. "You need to contain that."
"I'm trying."
"You're glowing like a beacon."
"Not my fault the language likes me."
"The language wants to eat you."
He shrugged. "Semantics."
They stepped into a larger chamber—and all humor died.
At the center hovered a polyhedral structure, spinning slowly above a sunken platform. Lines of energy wove around it like threads pulled through time. Its surface was covered in glyphs that didn't glow so much as radiate memory.
Elara froze. "That's—"
"A Root Beacon," Rael whispered.
She nodded. "Like the one in the Temple Archives."
"No," he said. "This one's older."
Beacons were remnants—nodes of ancient Code left behind by the Dominion civilization. Some were archives. Some were power sources. Some were traps. But Root Beacons? They predated even the known Dominion eras.
They were anchors to the original Code—the Root Syntax, the first language used to shape Velgrath itself.
Rael stepped closer. The air thickened. The glyphs on his skin began rearranging again, faster, more urgent.
The Beacon thrummed.
And then—without touching—it reached into him.
A vision cracked across his mind like lightning:
—
A city of light and logic, spires humming with thought. Nexara. Alive. Breathing.
A woman cloaked in silver, glyphs dancing in her eyes. She weeps as the world tears open.
A monstrous form—no shape, no face—emerging from a fracture in the sky. It speaks in pure Syntax.
The Root Beacon activating, codes spiraling outward like neural fire.
—
Rael staggered back. Elara caught him.
"You okay?"
"I saw it," he gasped. "Nexara. The Beacon showed me." He paused. "No… it remembered. It remembered through me."
"That's not possible," Elara said, but her voice wavered.
He raised his forearm. The glyphs there were no longer random. They mirrored the patterns on the Beacon.
"I think my Signature is more than irregular," Rael said. "It's… Nexaran."
Elara's eyes widened. "That's why the Beacon reacted. You're compatible."
Rael nodded. "Which means the Empire might've been wrong about me after all."
Before she could answer, the floor shook.
A cold wind swept through the chamber—not from air, but from Code.
Elara turned fast, hand already on her blade.
From the far side of the chamber, something stepped through the wall—like it phased in from somewhere else.
Tall. Human-shaped. Wrapped in black armor veined with corrupted glyphs. Its face was a porcelain mask with a single red sigil burning at the center of its forehead.
Rael swore. "Choirless."
A Hollow Legion soldier.
But not just any. The Choirless were the Legion's elite: stripped of Dominion Signatures, rebuilt to operate without Code interference. Immune to logic-based magic. Ghosts with knives.
Elara's voice dropped. "It shouldn't be able to enter the Rift."
"Well," Rael muttered, "it did."
It lunged.
Fast.
Elara intercepted with a blade slash, glyphs sparking along the metal. The Choirless ducked, twisted, countered. Rael dove left, rolled, and flung out his hand.
Glyphs flared from his palm.
"Fractur Relos!"
The ground beneath the Choirless broke. Not shattered—rewrote. Like a stone glitch, the floor turned liquid, surged upward, and hurled the enemy backward.
Rael's vision blurred.
Elara didn't hesitate. Her blade carved downward, slicing through armor, splitting Code.
The Choirless dropped. Hard.
It twitched once. Then stopped.
Rael was gasping.
"You cast that without a weave," Elara said. "No prep, no circle."
"I didn't cast," he replied. "I rewrote."
Her voice went quiet. "You used Root Syntax."
"I didn't mean to."
"You're not a Coder, Rael. You're something else."
He looked down at his glowing arms, and whispered, "I'm starting to think I was never meant to be anything else."
They left the chamber behind. Down a spiral tunnel, deeper into the Rift.
At the bottom waited a gate. Ancient. Circular. Covered in layered glyphs that shimmered like oil on glass.
As they approached, the gate's glyphs responded—rearranged.
Rael didn't touch them.
They opened anyway.
He and Elara stepped through.
And the world—again—changed.