The tower of Eidryn had fallen, but victory left no warmth in its wake.
Ash covered the streets. The city's center had collapsed into a pit of melted marble. Survivors wept without sound. And high above, the divine eye in the sky pulsed—watching, waiting.
Callan stood in the crater, breathing smoke.
"This was only one tower," he said.
Caedra nodded, her hands glowing as she healed a wounded Shadeborn scout.
"And she'll build more."
But it wasn't the destruction that haunted them.
It was the sword they found in the wreckage.
The Blade Without a Name
At the heart of the tower, where the core had once pulsed, something remained.
A sword.
Twisted and long, forged of black steel with veins of molten white running through it like blood. It floated inches above the floor, spinning slowly. And from it came whispers—words spoken in every tongue, in every tone, all at once.
Callan reached for it instinctively.
Solenne grabbed his wrist.
"Don't."
"It's calling."
"That's what cursed blades do."
Caedra narrowed her eyes. "That's not a sword. It's a key."
The whispers grew louder.
"Unseal me."
"He is not dead."
"He waits in silence."
Visions of the Flame
When Callan finally touched the sword, the world broke open.
He saw a battlefield of stars, where gods bled gold and screamed in silence. He saw a black gate at the edge of time, guarded by a man whose face mirrored his own—only older. Only colder.
He saw Draeven's final creation.
Not a weapon.
A prison.
Built to contain the last fragment of the true enemy—the god that even Lumiera feared.
The blade was forged as the lock.
And Callan was its inheritor.
When he awoke, the sword was in his hand.
And it was screaming.
The Fractured Mind
The sword's voice never stopped.
Not during sleep. Not during combat. Not even when submerged in enchanted water.
It spoke of war and peace. Of ruin and resurrection. Of betrayal and truth. It showed memories not only of Draeven, but of others—generals, kings, gods—who had once held the blade and failed.
Callan didn't fear the voice.
But he feared what it offered.
Power beyond the Heartflame.
Power that bent time and soul.
Caedra warned him. "That sword doesn't just cut. It consumes."
Seris was blunter. "One day, it'll bite back."
Still, he kept it.
Because they would need it.
The Hunt Begins
With two towers fallen, Lumiera changed tactics.
She stopped building.
She started hunting.
Reports came from the western cities: entire bloodlines extinguished. Whole villages where the soil turned to salt. Armies of light descending with no mercy.
The eye in the sky blinked for the first time.
And a voice rang across the world.
"Return the traitor's soul. Be spared."
But no one turned Callan in.
Not because they trusted him.
But because they needed him.
The Three Saints of the East
Rumors whispered of three warriors in the east—each chosen by Lumiera, each given relics of impossible power.
They called them:
Saint Merion, the Sunblade, whose sword burned through dimensions.
Saint Elasha, the Weaver of Grace, who could undo any spell with a glance.
Saint Voril, the Hollow Voice, who commanded armies of silenced dead.
They did not build towers.
They purged defiance.
And they were coming.
Preparing for Impact
Callan gathered the Pact of the Forsaken at Mount Veridan, a place shielded by ancient warding trees and deep rock veins.
Seris mapped escape routes.
Solenne summoned wind spirits to scan the skies.
Caedra, pale with exhaustion, wove a dome of flame across the entire mountain—slow-burning, subtle, but enough to hide them from divine gaze.
And Callan trained.
Not his sword.
But his will.
Because the screaming blade wanted out.
And each day, its voice grew stronger.
Assault from the Hollow
The attack didn't come from the sky.
It came from within.
A single soldier—one of the Pact's own—rose during the night, his eyes blank, his voice stolen.
He walked to the warding dome, raised his hands, and detonated in a burst of holy light.
Dozens died.
Saint Voril had arrived.
He didn't need armies.
He possessed them.
Battle of the Silenced
The next morning, warriors began falling mid-sentence.
Some clawed at their own throats. Others walked into fire. Their minds were not their own.
Callan stepped into the field alone, blade drawn.
"Voril!" he shouted. "Come face me!"
Silence answered.
Then the sky bled ash.
And the Saint stepped through.
His body was robed in torn scripture. His mouth was stitched shut. But when he raised his hand, the wind screamed in his place.
Callan raised the screaming blade.
And the world held its breath.
Sword vs. Saint
The duel was not elegant.
It was raw.
Voril attacked with curses of silence, shattering spells, and echoes of the dead. Each motion he made forced others to stop breathing. To forget how to move.
Callan countered with chaos—not wildness, but resistance.
His flames were not hot.
They were defiant.
The sword in his hand shrieked with each strike, tearing holes in reality. Stars blinked in and out of existence with each clash.
And then Voril touched the blade.
And recoiled.
It burned not with fire—but with memory.
His own.
The silence shattered.
And with a single cry, Voril fell.
The Cost of Victory
Callan collapsed.
The blade had drained him—not his mana, but something deeper.
Solenne found him shaking in the dark.
"I saw everything," he whispered. "Voril wasn't a saint. He was a prisoner."
She helped him up.
"We all are."
The blade still screamed.
But now, Callan could understand it.
Not in words.
But in intention.
It wanted something.
And he would find out what.