Throneforge — The Emberhold
The mountain groaned.
The roar had long since passed, but its echo still haunted the stone. Forges deeper than memory had flared back to life, their hammers striking as if stirred by unseen hands. The flames were no longer cold. The air no longer still.
King Rurik stood in the Hall of Echoes, where the throne had been carved into living basalt. He faced the great stone heart of the Emberhold—an obsidian wall veined with molten sigils. Behind it, the soul of the mountain pulsed. Not with magma. With will.
He placed one gloved hand upon the wall.
It was warm now.
Alive.
He did not smile.
He did not fear.
He listened.
The Gem had spoken.
The Forge had remembered its master.
And now, it was time.
"Summon the Deepguard," he commanded, voice low and steady.
His generals bowed. One hesitated. "My King… the Deep Divers are descending now, the Riftborn still walks the Old Vein. With the gem. If he—"
Rurik turned, slow and sharp.
"If he what?"
The general fell silent.
Rurik descended from the throne, each step ringing across stone. He moved like a storm wrapped in armor.
"I have no quarrel with the boy," he said. "But the gem he carries is no trinket. It is the core of Skarnveil. The crystallized will of Mongrim himself. The last divine ember forged by sacrifice."
He stood before them now, flame dancing in the reflection of his eyes.
"With it, the Wyrm of the Forge can be tamed. Without it…" he paused, "...we are but ash waiting to scatter."
A Runepriest stepped forward, voice wary. "And the Riftborn?"
Rurik's gaze narrowed.
"He will come willingly. Or he will be brought."
"The prophecy—"
"Is mine to fulfill."
Rurik raised his fist, and the room darkened, lit only by the veins of flame in the stone.
"We have waited long enough in ruin. The Wyrm stirs. The Forge lives. The fire is ours by right."
He turned his gaze to the mountain above, where smoke now curled like a crown.
"And I will not allow a lost boy and elven fearmongers to decide the fate of my people."
He breathed deep.
"Tell the Deep Divers. Find the Riftborn. Secure the gem."
A final order fell like a sword drawn in silence.
"Let none take what belongs to the mountain."
**
Thornevale — The Moonward Glade
The forest did not tremble. It listened.
Leaves whispered in silence. Roots stirred, but made no sound. The wind passed gently, like a hand over the face of a sleeping god.
And the High Matriarch of Thornevale stood beneath the silver boughs of the Moonward Glade, eyes closed to the world—and open to what lay beneath it.
Her name was Lethalia Thornveil, third of her line, and last of the Seers who remembered the First Rift.
When the vision came, it did not speak in words.
It spoke in fractures.
She saw the mountain.
The roaring Wyrm, rising from the coals of time.
The flame—alive.
But then she saw him.
The Riftborn.
And behind his eyes… the Void.
Alive, too.
Not a place. A hunger.
A place that remembers its prey.
Lethalia opened her eyes.
"The dwarves will come for him," she said.
The other Seers, standing in the shadows, said nothing.
"They believe the Gem is the key to taming the Wyrm," she continued. "They do not understand. It is not the Wyrm we must fear…"
Her voice turned quiet.
"It is the thing that the Wyrm was made to guard against."
A younger priestess stepped forward, voice steady but uncertain. "Baphomette."
The name clung to the air like mildew to cloth.
Lethalia nodded.
"The gem is not just flame," she said. "It is a lock. A memory. Skarnveil was not forged to control the Wyrm."
She looked toward the mountain range rising in the east—its peaks now rimmed with unnatural fire.
"It was forged to seal him."
She stepped forward into the grove's light, her cloak of bark-silk dragging over leaves that curled away from her touch.
"And the Riftborn is the last thread tied to that seal. If the dwarves bind him to their will, they will not just unchain a beast…"
"They will unchain the dark."
**
By moon's crest, the elves were already moving.
Not in force.
Not in war.
But in silence.
Scouts slipped through the wild paths beneath root and mist. Their passage did not wake a single bird. Their blades did not glint.
They bore no banners.
Only purpose.
The elders rode in woven howdahs upon the backs of duskstags, cloaked in green-veil armor that hummed faintly in the presence of magic. At the front, a small contingent of seer-knights walked—each bearing a stave crowned in silver flame.
They did not ride to claim.
They rode to reach him.
The Riftborn.
And to keep him from forgetting himself.
One of the young acolytes rode beside her master. "Why do we not strike the dwarves first, if they mean to bind him?"
Lethalia did not glance away from the road.
"Because dwarves do not listen to warnings," she said.
She closed her eyes briefly, feeling the pull again—the deep tug in her soul, where the Rift once cracked open.
"Only to consequence."
**
Somewhere Between Flame and Root
In the deep beneath Druvadir, where old roads wound like veins and silence watched from behind stone, a boy walked.
He did not know where he was going.
But everything was following him.