The network trembled. Sigils flickered, glowing threads stretched thin across nations, straining to hold the rifts at bay.
Reports flooded in faster than Kane or Arasha could answer—seals breaking, battle lines collapsing, monsters breaching cities.
Then the warnings cut off.
Not because the danger eased. But because, before Kane's eyes, the rift they had been fighting warped, churned, and suddenly lashed outward.
Tendrils of light and shadow spiraled like claws, and in one terrible heartbeat—
"Arasha!" Kane's voice tore through the din as she was pulled into the maw.
He lunged, reaching, grasping at nothing but air.
****
Arasha expected teeth, claws, the roar of monsters waiting to rip her apart. But instead—silence.
An endless white expanse. Eerie, unbroken. So quiet that her own breathing rasped like a thunderclap in her ears.
She drew her weapon, every muscle taut, sweat prickling her brow.
This isn't right.
Her instincts screamed, but there was nothing to fight. Nothing to see. Only the emptiness pressing down on her.
Then, all at once, voices—thousands, overlapping, neither male nor female but all-consuming—spoke within her skull.
She staggered, clutching her head with both hands as the sound of them thundered inside her, too vast, too heavy.
"Arasha. Our Seraphine."
Her pulse raced. Her breath broke.
"Your thread has unraveled. What you were, what we bound you to be… is undone."
Her eyes widened. "What—?"
"Another thread of you… has climbed beyond. The impossible, made possible. Ascension."
"We are Primordials. We meddled, wove, guided your fate for our amusement. But now, our hand withdraws. You have entertained us long enough."
The voices layered, harmonized, splintered into a cacophony of countless selves speaking as one.
"Take your reward. Your fates shall never again be bound to the rifts. They will trouble you no more."
Her knees buckled. The world itself seemed to turn inside out, reality fraying.
"Farewell, Arasha. Our Seraphine, Our Anchor unbound. Our Piece that made impossible possible."
And then the voices ceased. The silence returned.
Arasha barely had time to scream before she fell.
The sky ripped open above the battlefield.
Kane's head snapped up, eyes wide, heart in his throat. He ran, arms outstretched as Arasha plummeted.
"Arasha!"
He caught her against his chest with a force that nearly toppled him. For a breathless moment he only clung to her, shaking, his face buried against her hair.
Tears streaked down his face unchecked, raw, unrestrained.
"You're alive—you're alive," he choked, his grip desperate, trembling.
Blinking, dazed, Arasha stirred. The clarity of Kane's arms around her snapped her back, and instinctively she held him just as fiercely.
Then she noticed—
The battlefield was quiet.
The rift was gone.
Not sealed, not closed with strain—but simply erased. Vanished as if it had never been.
Across the bloodied field, weary soldiers blinked, lifted their heads, and one by one voices rose—disbelieving cheers, cries of relief, shouts of victory.
The cheering spread like wildfire.
And far away, voices crackled through the sigil comm link—Linalee's breathless, incredulous tones.
"Arasha! Kane! Do you hear us? The rifts—they're gone! Every last one, across the continent—they've vanished!"
King Alight's voice followed, stern but shaking. "It's true. All fronts are reporting the same. No more rifts. The tide has ended."
The battlefield thundered with cries of triumph. Hope blazed like dawn.
Kane held Arasha tighter, his tears still falling as he laughed a raw, broken laugh of relief.
"It's over, Arasha. It's over."
But Arasha… felt no triumph.
As she clung to Kane, as her ears rang with the cheers of their soldiers, she felt something hollow gnawing in her chest. Something deep within her—something vital—was gone.
Her soul… shifted. Altered.
Changed.
And though she could not name it, though no one else could see it, she knew with a bone-deep certainty that victory had taken something from her.
Something she might never get back.
****
Once again, Arasha looked around her.
The battlefield trembled with relief. Shouts of victory rolled across the broken land, raw voices cracking as soldiers laughed and cried, clutching each other as though afraid they'd wake from a dream.
Kane's arms were still around her, strong, steady, trembling. He leaned back just enough to look at her, his face streaked with sweat and tears, his smile so open, so unguarded it hurt to look at.
"Arasha," he breathed, her name falling from his lips as though it was the only word that mattered. His eyes searched her face with a desperation that turned heartbreakingly tender.
She should have smiled back. She should have laughed, cried, thrown herself into his arms with the same joy.
But her chest felt tight.
Hollow.
As though something had been stripped away, leaving only silence where a heartbeat should be.
Around her, the soldiers lifted their weapons high, voices cracking from cheering, tears carving paths down dirt-smeared faces. Hope pulsed through them like lifeblood.
And yet—Arasha felt none of it.
The memory of that white void, the cacophony of voices, pressed down on her.
The words echoed still: Another thread of you… ascends. A thread severed, a fate undone.
The thought gnawed at her. Somewhere, somehow, some version of her had sacrificed—had paid the price for this peace.
And she couldn't shake the guilt. Couldn't force herself to believe this victory was clean, untainted.
So she did the only thing she could.
She buried it.
Pulling Kane close, she pressed her face against his shoulder, so he wouldn't see the unease shadowing her eyes.
She held him tightly, fiercely, masking her fear with the warmth of her embrace. If he noticed the trembling in her hands, he said nothing.
I should be happy, she told herself. For their sake. For his sake.
But the hollow ache only deepened.
Arasha drew in a slow, deliberate breath, steadying her racing thoughts. She forced her gaze outward, beyond the tears and triumph, fixing on the horizon, on what must come next.
There were policies to enforce. The alliance must not fracture now, not when their people needed unity more than ever.
There were death rites to oversee—the fallen deserved more than a number in a ledger. She would stand at the pyres herself, give them honor with her own hands.
Stability first. Grief and confusion later.
She could not afford to unravel now.
Arasha pressed a final, firm squeeze to Kane's shoulder, grounding herself in his warmth before stepping back slightly.
Her smile was faint, but it was enough for the moment, enough for those around her who needed to believe their Commander stood whole and unshaken.
Inside, though, she knew: something had changed in her very soul. Something vital was gone.
And until she could name it, until she could face it—she would carry the mask.
For now, the world demanded her strength.
The rest… would have to wait.