Dawn never came.
The world awoke beneath a colorless sky, where ash drifted like slow rain. The forest was silent — too silent. No birds, no insects, no wind. Only the faint rustle of Kael's cloak and the soft, rhythmic thud of his boots against the lifeless soil.
He had been walking for hours, following no path, guided only by the strange pull that had begun after the temple. Since he had touched that blood — thick, black, and alive — the world had changed. Or perhaps he had.
Something inside him whispered, breathed, and waited.
Sometimes he felt it move behind his ribs, like a second heart beating out of rhythm with his own. When he stopped, it stopped. When he dreamed, it watched.
The voice came again, low and familiar."Do not resist me, Kael. You sought power, and power answered."
He clenched his jaw, gripping the hilt of his sword until his knuckles ached."Get out of my head."
"Your head?" the voice laughed softly. "You still think it belongs to you? You called to the void, and it listened. It always listens."
Kael exhaled slowly, eyes scanning the skeletal trees that surrounded him. The bark was gray, and the branches reached out like arms, some still wrapped in withered moss. The air was thick with decay. It smelled like old blood and rain that would never fall.
He kept moving.
At the edge of the forest, the land dipped into a valley drowned in fog. Through the mist, Kael saw what might have once been a village — roofs collapsed, stone walls half-swallowed by vines and dust. Not even crows lingered there.
But something else did.
A rhythm. A pulse.
Kael felt it beneath his boots, faint but insistent, like the heartbeat of something vast sleeping beneath the earth.
As he descended, the whispers grew louder. Not just one voice now, but many. Layered, distant, murmuring in tongues he couldn't understand. The sound clawed at his mind until he could barely think.
Then he saw them.
Figures in the fog. Still, silent, watching. Cloaked in black veils that rippled despite the absence of wind. There were dozens — maybe more — forming a loose circle in the center of the ruins. At their feet burned pale fires, blue and thin, that gave off no warmth.
Kael drew his sword.
The nearest figure lifted her head. Beneath the hood, two eyes glimmered faintly — silver, like dying stars.
"Welcome, Ash-Born," she said, her voice quiet yet carrying through the mist. "We have been waiting."
Kael's grip tightened. "Who are you?"
"Those who listened to the same voice that found you. We are the Voidbound. The forgotten. The marked."
The word Voidbound struck something inside him — recognition, or perhaps warning.
"Why wait for me?"
"Because you heard the call and lived," she said simply. "Most do not."
The circle parted slightly, and Kael saw the ground between them: symbols drawn in ash, spirals and runes that seemed to twist when he looked too long. In the center was a stone altar, cracked and stained dark — as though something had bled upon it long ago.
The woman gestured for him to step closer.
"The world above is ending," she said. "The gods rot in their silence, and their servants devour what's left. But the void… the void remembers what they buried. And through you, it will rise again."
Kael hesitated. The whispers surged in his mind — Come closer. Remember. Become.
He took a single step forward.
The fires flickered. Shadows stretched along the ruins, reaching toward him like fingers of smoke. His sword trembled in his hand, though the air was still.
"Do you see now?" said the voice inside his head — the one that had haunted him since the temple."They are your kin. Fragments of what you are becoming."
Kael's breath caught. The cultists were kneeling now, chanting softly, their words weaving around him like invisible chains.
The woman stepped closer until the edge of her hood brushed against his armor. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Do you know why your eyes burn with gold, Kael?"
He frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"It is the mark of the Crown's heir. The one who carries both fire and shadow. You think the darkness follows you... but perhaps you were born from it."
Kael staggered back. "You're lying."
"Then why," she said, her voice rising like thunder, "does the void speak your name?"
The fog exploded outward in a spiral of black mist. The chanting stopped — replaced by a sound like a thousand wings unfolding at once.
Kael raised his sword as the earth beneath him began to crack, glowing faintly with crimson light. The cultists fell to their knees, arms outstretched toward the widening fissure.
From below, something answered.
A roar, deep and ancient, echoing through the bones of the world.
Kael felt his knees weaken. The light inside the crack poured over him, and for an instant, he saw shapes — immense, formless, shifting through the abyss. Eyes like dying suns stared back.
And among the chaos, a single word emerged from the roar.
"KAEL."
The sound tore through him, scattering thought and will alike.
When the light finally died, the cultists were gone. Only the woman remained, kneeling before the empty altar, her silver eyes watching him with reverence.
"The awakening has begun," she whispered. "You cannot run from what you are."
Kael's sword trembled in his grasp.He wanted to speak, to deny her, to silence the voice in his head. But all that escaped his lips was a whisper:
"Then let it come."
And in the silence that followed, the void answered with a heartbeat.