Nethyra—The Demon Realm
Seven days before the Rift opened.
The throne room was cold.
Not from temperature—the air shimmered with heat from the molten rivers flowing beneath the obsidian floor—but from the presence that filled it. Silence clung thick as burial cloth. Dozens of Nethyra's highest commanders knelt, heads bowed, wings tucked, and tails still. Not one dared meet his eyes as he entered.
Jake strode through them like a scythe through wheat, his long coat billowing behind him in a wake of undisturbed shadow.
He looked nothing like the monstrous generals flanking the hall. That was what unsettled them most. His form was perfectly, painfully human—sharp-jawed, clear-eyed, with the kind of careless grace that felt more insulting than any claw or fang. Beneath his open coat, against the dark fabric of his tunic, a half-pendant glowed with a light the color of a fresh bruise.
Violet. Cold. Cruel.
He made it to the dais but didn't ascend onto it. The throne—a grotesque masterwork carved from the petrified ribs and fused spines of Nethyra's first emperor—loomed above him. He ignored it.
"Stand," he said. His voice was quiet. It was all he needed.
The only sound was the rustle of armor and scale as they obeyed.
The general, standing more than a head taller than three men put together, with skin like cracked onyx and eyes as smoldering pits, took a single hesitant step forward. "My liege," the demon rumbled, the words like grinding stone. "The western anchor point… the Rift attempt failed."
Jake's gaze, which had until now been idly tracing the jagged lines of the ceiling, slid down to meet the general's. He didn't raise his voice.
"The Rift didn't fail," he corrected softly, tugging a glove tighter over his knuckles. "You did."
He lifted a hand, fingers curling slightly.
The general choked, his massive feet lifting from the floor. An invisible, crushing force wrapped around his throat and his torso. The sound of splintering onyx cut through the silent hall. The demon thrashed, a guttural gasp tearing from him, but no scream could form.
Jake watched, his expression one of detached curiosity.
"I do not tolerate incompetence," he said, his voice still calm. "You have served your purpose."
He snapped his fingers.
The general did not explode. He did not turn to dust. He simply unwrote. One moment, a struggling, powerful form. The next, a void in the air, a silent pop of extinguished existence. No ash, no echo. Just… gone.
Jake lowered his hand. The assembly remained frozen, a gallery of terror.
He turned from them, his attention caught by the massive stained-glass window behind the throne: a twisted, glorious history in colored glass of demonic triumph. Beyond the colored glass, the real Nethyra sprawled: a realm of bleeding earth, a sky swirled with eternal red and violet, and mountains like broken teeth that bit at heavens forever torn by lightning.
The realm was dying, fracturing.
Just as the old texts foretold.
Just as he had planned.
A figure approached from the side, steps silent on the polished stone. His steward. A demoness with skin of cracked porcelain and eyes that wept slow inky tears. She bowed deeply, her voice a hushed whisper.
"My Lord," she breathed. "A surge. From the mortal plane. Stronger than any before."
Jake froze.
"The resonance?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
She shivered. "The pendant reacted."
For the first time, a slow, genuine smile touched Jake's lips. It did not reach his eyes.
"So," he whispered, his hand closing over the cold violet crystal at his chest. It thrummed, warm and electric, a sympathetic vibration with a heartbeat an entire dimension away. "He's finally stopped hiding."
"You are sure it is him?" the steward dared to ask.
Jake's fist clenched on the pendant until its edges bit into his palm.
"My brother is alive," he said, and the throne room seemed to drink in the light at his words, shadows deepening. He looked back toward the window, toward the chaotic sky, as if he could see through the veil of worlds themselves.
"And I will tear open every single one of them until I find him."
Back in Aetheris—Present
Riven stared at the warm, red glow of the pendant in his own hand, his world shattered, completely unaware that somewhere beyond the fabric of space, another heart was now beating in sync with his. The same blood. The same legacy. Two heirs. Two worlds. One inevitable war.