Joe came to with blood in his mouth and ash in his lungs.
His vision swam. Light flickered above him—firelight, not lightning. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest as he tried to move, but the ground beneath him was soft, not stone. Moss? Cloth?
No. A bedroll.
Something warm cracked nearby. Wood, burning.
He forced his eyes open.
The sky was still violet, but dimmer now—nightfall? Time had no weight here. The forest canopy loomed above, thorned and skeletal, silhouetted in the orange glow of a campfire.
He wasn't alone.
A figure sat nearby, armor dulled by soot and age, one knee up, staring silently into the flames. A sword lay across their lap—broad, chipped, and stained black with old blood. A heavy cloak obscured their face, but he could see the shine of metal beneath the hood. Not polished. Scarred.
Joe's body instinctively sparked—his fingers twitching with a surge of static.
The figure didn't flinch.
"You try anything, I fry you," Joe rasped. It came out weaker than he wanted. Pathetic, even.
The figure chuckled—a dry, bitter sound. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have let the Bloom finish digesting your brain."
Joe struggled to sit up. "Who the hell are you?"
The stranger tilted their head just slightly, revealing half of a face lit by firelight—scarred, weathered, with a single eye glowing faint blue beneath the shadow of a cracked helm.
"Name's Riven," he said simply. "Paladin. Or what's left of one."
Joe's stomach twisted. "Paladin? Like… holy knight? You're not exactly radiating divine warmth."
"No gods here worth praying to," Riven muttered. "Only monsters, dead things, and the ones pretending to be both."
Joe coughed and sat up fully, wincing. "Why help me?"
Riven poked the fire with a length of twisted metal. "Because I was like you once. Dropped here. Lost. Stupid. Didn't even know what a Mimic Bloom was before it sang my squad to death."
That sent a chill through Joe, sharper than the cold night air.
"Then why save me?" he asked again.
Riven finally turned, meeting his gaze. This time, the eye beneath the cracked helm looked almost human.
"Because something's watching you. Has been since you landed."
Joe's skin crawled. "Something?"
"You don't get a Stormborn title without drawing attention." Riven's voice dropped. "Especially not in Torn."
Joe looked at his hands. The lightning was still there—coiled beneath his skin, eager, volatile. It felt less like a gift and more like a predator waiting for a reason to feed.
Riven stood with a grunt, tossing a cloth bundle toward Joe. "Eat. Drink. You're gonna need both."
Joe caught it. Hard bread. Bitter fruit. Water that smelled faintly metallic—but he didn't care.
As he chewed, Riven turned and stared into the dark woods.
"There's a place. Not far. A ruin the old knights used to call Hollowrest. Might still be a shrine there. Might not. Either way, it's better than dying out here like an idiot."
Joe swallowed and stood, swaying slightly. "Why go with me?"
Riven's glowing eye narrowed.
"Because if you lose control of that storm and it spreads, I'll be the one to put you down."
Joe stared at him.
And Riven smiled—cold, tired, and deadly.
"Welcome to Torn."