Eryndor descended through darkness with the weight of Sylven and Maren clutched close. His ears thundered, his vision clouded, and the boundary of the rift burned like ice across his skin. Dropping through memory itself echoes of life intertwined with hurt and ash.
And then it ceased.
He hit something—
—or nothing."
A heartbeat, and he swallowed, and his lungs clamped shut with cold. Sylven whimpered. Maren hacked beside him. There was a moment of nothing: no sky, no ground, only hanging nothingness where he couldn't find up or down.
He strained forward. The world came back tattered at the edges but alive. They lay on a meadow of pale grass, bone-colored and as delicate as frost. Hills rolled away in silver hues; there was no wind. The world was stifled like life had been drawn out of it but could return.
Maren huffed out, sitting up. Sylven licked Eryndor's cheek as though to anchor him.
"Where… where are we?" Eryndor panted, chest rising.
Maren's eyes went blank, staring out to the horizon. "We crossed into the Wyrdveil," they said with cautious awe. "Between living and nothing on the Fringe of Spiral memory."
Sylven raked the ground. For a single beat, the grass appeared to glow beneath him. Then it was gone.
The silence was crushing.
"Did the hunter follow us?" Eryndor asked, strangled voice.
Maren shook their head. "Not across the rift. He can't walk void roads not yet. But he'll find us."
The word was bitter on his tongue.
Eryndor placed a hand on his chest, still aching. "What became of my link after I bound that hunter?"
Their face hardened into a resolve. "You didn't just bind you severed. And that gash stops the Spiral's stream. You have power both to heal and kill."
Against the white line, a faint glimmer showed a ripple of static on the empty horizon. Maren's jaw clenched.
"That's reality warping," they said. "He's tearing Spiral apart to reach us."
Eryndor could feel Sylven's tension next to him, ears flattened. A ripple of red cut across the white plain—veined like the leaf.
Abruptly, the hunter emerged striding across the ridge of grass-less light as if engulfed by it and reborn. His staff hummed with energy; the life-thread he had pulled snapped like black flame.
Maren stumbled to their feet. "Back from me," they whispered.
Eryndor scooped Sylven onto his lap, curling protectively. But he couldn't look away, even as the hunter dragged a ragged life-thread of the Spiral across the void field toward them.
"You're fractured," the hunter said, voice layered with cold resonance. "Untempered. The Spiral must be closed."
Eryndor pressed Sylven tighter, heart pounding. Maren raised their staff, glyph-light flickering to fight back the darkness.
Then, something else shook the void.
A flush of heat—a wave born of roots deep, living, and soft. The earth beneath trembled, sending out a light in faltering waves of gold and green that echoed in Eryndor's heart.
Sylven was a shriek, and the hunter took a step back eyes widening as the life-force spilled.
Maren's runes flared, old magic glinting off carvings on bone-staffs.
Eryndor swallowed centuries of fear, bowed his head and walked into that trembling light.
He rewound the Spiral tying Sylven's lifeline into his own heart thread, to make a loop of green-gold moving round them. The life thread of the hunter retracted, snapping loose from the nothing, falling back into the earth.
The nothing under them cracked.
The hunter gulped out, stumbling. Then sank down on one knee in the bright grass.
"You thread too deeply," he spat, agony flickering across him. "This will not hold."
Eryndor felt the rhythm in his chest stronger, steadier. His breathing was labored, but possibility stirred in the ruined terrain.
He stood and confronted the hunter, Sylven steady at his shoulder.
"I'm learning," he breathed. "But I will preserve this Spiral intact."
The hunter grasped his staff tightly, tension shattering the air. But he didn't raise it.
"Fool," he snarled. "This is not your thread to spin."
Behind the hunter, reality trembled—waves of nothing gasping, then collapsing, then reforming like a mislaid heartbeat.
"Fate is older than you," said the hunter.
Slivers of fear breathed Eryndor. He looked at Sylven, at Maren, at the ghostly horizon before them.
"I choose life," he spoke, voice echoing across the void.
In affirmation, the hunter nodded.
Not in peace but recognition.
And he turned, walking back the direction he'd come across the field. His steps loosening into the cadenced thrum of lives
"Lifeweaver… you are not alone."
The words weren't said in any sound, but in sensation etched upon Eryndor's marrow, humming along the fibers of his soul. Sylven's body tensed beside him, twitching ears as if he'd heard it, too.
Maren whirled around. "Who said that?"
The earth trembled beneath them, a breeze stirring for the first time within this desolate world. It moved along the green grass in waves undulating to glimmer green, then blue, then gold; life bursting in flashes.
"Another one attuned to the Spiral?" Eryndor breathed.
"Something," Maren told him, eyes clenching.
Before them, the horizon began to ripple like agitated water. The rent that had led them here flowed once again—enlarging, warping. This was no gate of death, however. It flowed with life.
From out of the radiance emerged a figure—hooded, draped in robes woven out of light and bark. Their visage was concealed behind a mask of mist and vines. Green flame blazed where they walked.
"Who are you?" Eryndor asked, standing in Sylven's path with an outstretched arm.
"I am the Verdant Warden," the figure replied, voice as gentle as the whisper of leaves carried on ancient breeze. "Guardian of what remains. You have extended to what was lost. You've roused the Weave."
Maren dropped to one knee, bowing his head. "They are Spiral-forged," they whispered. "From the time before fire."
The Warden stepped nearer, eyes falling to Eryndor. "You bear the heartseed. It blooms in the broken."
"I don't know…" The voice was dry. "I wasn't supposed to have magic. But I feel things. Sense living. See threads that others do not."
The Warden held out a hand and vines burst forth about it, forming a pattern in the air—a pretty one of roots and rivers, veins and stars.
"Others were selected by The Flame. You were selected by Life. There is more than one current running in the world. The Spiral flows deeper than element or arcane—it is ancient memory in motion."
Eryndor stared, Sylven against his leg. He wanted to believe. It was some kind of dreadful, beautiful feeling. And yet…
"Then why did I get exiled?" he snapped. "If this is power, if this is real, then why hide it?"
The Warden shifted, lifting a vine-entwined hand. Images formed in the air; ethereal outbursts of spires shattering, cities engulfed by void fire, monstrous creatures summoned of dead hunger. A searing severance ran through them all; a tear in the world's soul.
"They were afraid of what they could not control," the Warden said. "The Spiral broke once. The Lifeweavers vanished. But now, it begins again."
Eryndor stepped forward. "What do I do?"
The Warden looked at him with moss-green eyes. "You must repair what was frayed. Re-enter the Spiral over a world of death."
A laugh—muted, bitter—escaped Eryndor. "I'm eighteen. I lived in a hut. Barely make it through I could not."
The Warden's face smoothed, but their power surged more intensely. "And yet here you are. You created a connection. You distorted the Spiral by nature. That is enough. The rest will follow."
At his shoulder, Sylven growled low.
Maren stood, words taut. "The hunter returns. That tear in reality wasn't his. Something greater is coming."
The Warden nodded. "You must leave the Wyrdveil. Locate the Convergence Grove. There, others wait—those who recall."
"Others?" Eryndor echoed.
"The surviving members of the Awakened. A Circle once guarding the Spiral. They are broken, dispersed. But you can find them. Together, you may yet be able to resist the unraveling."
A thorn of fear pushed into Eryndor's ribs. "If I go away… may I return?"
"Not here," the Warden replied. "This place is dying. But its roots will remain in you."
They retreated, and the vines between them coiled to form a gateway of green-gold light.
Maren looked at Eryndor. "This door might not be opened again."
Eryndor looked over his shoulder at Sylven, who whined before standing tall.
He took a final glance out across the voidfield. "Let's go."
They stepped through.
The world that met them on the other side was not like the Wyrdveil.
Gone were the white fields and open sky. In their place hung heavy forest all around—stone-colored bark on thick-trunked trees, branches knotted together into a ceiling so dense only slivers of light reached to the mossy ground below. The air was heavy, full of ancient rot and flowering things.
Eryndor stumbled as his boots fell into a tangle of ferns and roots. Sylven fell back, already alert. Maren followed last, exhaling a rough breath as the vine gateway creaked shut behind them with a soft whisper and dissolved like it never existed.
"Welcome to the Deepgrove," said Maren, brushing leaves off their cloak.
Eryndor's breath stopped. The forest pulsed around him; not just sound, but presence. A heaviness that seeped into his marrow.
"What is this place?" he demanded.
"Where life sings loudest," Maren replied. "The Convergence Grove at its heart. If the Awakened live still… that's where they'll be."
They pressed on, shoving through thorn and creeper that filled the underbrush. The forest was alive in some way that Eryndor couldn't understand. With each step, waves spread through the life around him. He sensed the beat of trees, the weak visions of mushrooms, even the muted hum of insects against bark.
It was too much, frightening and beauty.
But there was something else on the edge of his senses. A wrongness. A spark of fire. A shadow.
He paused, looking over his shoulder.
Nothing.
Sylven whimpered quietly.
"Feel that too?" he breathed.
Maren turned. "Something's behind us?"
"I don't know… maybe." Eryndor stumbled. "The Warden's last words—'Beware the False Flame'."
Maren's expression darkened. "That was no figure of speech."
They went deeper, quicker now. The forest darkened around them—colors merged, and the air was charged with power. Life here was ancient. Feral.
And they heard it.
Not the sounds of animals or birdsong.
Not the screech of branches.
Screaming.
It cut through the air—raw, human, and close.
Eryndor sprinted towards the noise before his thoughts had a chance to keep pace. Maren swore behind him, taking pursuit. Sylven shot ahead, dodging roots and underbrush. They entered a clearing as a flash of motion zoomed across overhead.
A girl on the ground, her arm twisted at an unnatural angle, caught in roots. Above her, something half-human emerged—tall, thin-limbed, with ember-cracked skin and cold fire-burning eyes.
It turned to meet Eryndor, mouth opening in a hiss.
The False Flame.
He did not think. He reached.
The ground trembled under his feet as he touched the Spiral—energy seeped from the trees, from Sylven, from the beat of his heart.
He raised a hand—and the vines obeyed.
They erupted from the earth, ensnaring the creature's arms and legs like living cords, dragging it back with a demented scream.
"Take her!" Maren shouted.
Eryndor rushed to the girl's side. She looked barely older than him—wild red curls, dirt streaked across her freckled face, eyes wide with pain and fury.
"Don't touch me!" she hissed.
"I'm helping," Eryndor said. "You're caught—"
The creature shrieked, tearing free of the vines.
Sylven lunged, jaws snapping. The beast swiped back, sending the wolf sprawling. Eryndor felt the blow as if it struck his own ribs.
"Maren!" he cried.
"Cover me!" they shouted, spinning their staff.
Blue light flashed off its tip, striking the creature's chest. It screamed, falling backward.
Eryndor reached out again—further. He felt the roots of the entire glade shifting beneath his feet.
Answer me.
The ground obeyed.
With a roar, a great tree root tore upward from beneath the beast, spearing it through the chest. The creature's scream died into a sputter of flame as its body collapsed into ash.
Silence followed.
Only the girl's ragged breathing filled the air.
Eryndor dropped beside her. "You're safe. I'm Eryndor."
She looked at him, pain softening to disbelief. "You… you're the one. The Spiral has chosen again."
Eryndor blinked. "You know of the Spiral?"
She nodded. "Name's Kiva. I'm an Echo-Warden. I was headed to the Convergence Grove before… that thing attacked me."
Maren stepped closer, face unreadable. "Then we were meant to meet. Three Awakened now move in numbers. And if that monster is here, more will follow."
Kiva grinned. "Then we'd best run faster."