The purple light didn't burn, but it felt like stepping into a current of cold water that flowed backward through time.
Gray had expected resistance—walls of force, waves of corruption, maybe even a creature made of raw mana that would try to tear him apart the moment he crossed the threshold. Instead, he found himself standing on nothing at all, surrounded by a vast expanse of swirling violet and silver that stretched in every direction without end. There was no floor beneath his feet, no ceiling above his head—only endless space, filled with what looked like frozen stars and threads of light that twisted and wove together like spider silk.
He swayed slightly, feeling the strange pull of a place with no gravity to speak of. It was disorienting, and for a moment, he missed the solid weight of the dungeon floor. At least stone stays where you put it, he thought, sighing as he drifted slowly forward. The sword at his hip hummed louder now, its silver glow casting a faint circle of light around him.
He'd known the vault door led somewhere else—the runes on the walls had whispered of it in fragments, though he'd never bothered to listen closely enough to understand. Now, floating in this impossible space, he could feel why the first mages had sealed it away. This wasn't just another room in the dungeon. It was a wound in reality itself—a gap between the world he'd been napping in and something older, wilder, and far more dangerous.
Threads of light brushed against his face like cobwebs, and he reached out to touch one. The moment his fingers made contact, a flood of images washed over him—visions of a world that had existed before his own, where magic wasn't a tool to be wielded but the very fabric of life. He saw cities built from crystal and starlight, beings who could shape reality with a thought, and a great work that they'd been building for thousands of years—a device that would connect all worlds into one.
Then came the fall.
He saw greed twist into madness, saw the great work turn into a weapon, saw worlds collide and shatter like glass. He saw the beings who'd built this place fight and fall, their magic tearing holes in everything they'd tried to create. And he saw one last act of desperation—a group of survivors who'd sealed the wound they'd made, trapping the remains of their world and their failure in the space between.
Gray pulled his hand back sharply, the thread of light dissolving into silver dust in his wake. The images faded, but the weight of them lingered—heavy, cold, and familiar.
"Of course," he muttered, drifting through the sea of stars and threads. "Someone always has to try and build something too big. Never occurs to them that some spaces are empty for a reason."
A sound like singing echoed through the void—soft at first, then growing louder until it filled every corner of the space. It was beautiful and terrible all at once, like the cry of a bird that had lost its way home. Gray followed the sound without thinking, his body moving through the endless space as if pulled by an invisible string.
As he drew closer, he saw it: a structure that looked like a tree grown from crystal and shadow, its branches reaching out to touch threads of light that sparkled like dewdrops. At its base sat a figure wrapped in robes the color of deep space, their head bowed as they traced patterns in the air with long, slender fingers. The singing was coming from them—notes that weren't meant for human ears, that made the sword at Gray's hip vibrate so hard he had to hold it steady.
The figure looked up as he approached, and Gray felt a jolt of recognition that made his chest tight.
They had his face.
Not exactly—the cheekbones were sharper, the eyes were the color of pure silver, and their hair flowed like liquid starlight. But the shape of the jaw, the set of the brow, the way they held their head—it was him. Or what he might have been, if he'd been born in this broken world instead of his own.
The singing stopped. The figure stood, and though they had no feet to stand on, they remained perfectly still in the void.
"Gray Ashbourne," they said, their voice like wind through crystals. "We have been waiting for you."
"I doubt that," Gray said, stopping a few feet away. He crossed his arms over his chest—an old habit he'd picked up when he wanted to look like he was paying attention without actually having to do anything. "I've been napping for thousands of years. Hard to plan around that."
The figure tilted their head, and their silver eyes seemed to see right through him. "You have always been lazy. It is your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness. You sleep while worlds turn, while empires fall, while wounds fester and grow. But you also wake when you must." They gestured to the crystal tree behind them. "This is the Heart of the Weave—the device that was meant to unite all realms. It broke when our world fell, and now it leaks chaos into yours. The vault door was never meant to hold forever."
Gray glanced at the tree. Even from here, he could feel the raw power radiating from it—enough to level mountains, to rewrite continents, to turn the world he'd left behind into dust. It was the kind of power that would make kings and mages go mad with desire. The kind of power he'd spent his life avoiding.
"So what do you want me to do about it?" he asked. "Fix it? I'm not much of a handyman. Never have been."
"We want you to finish it," the figure said, stepping closer. They reached out a hand, and a thread of silver light unspooled from their fingers, floating toward Gray's chest. "You carry the blood of the Weavers—the last of our line to be born in your world. Only you can reactivate the Heart and complete what we started. With it, you could build a new world—one where magic flows freely, where there is no pain or war or loss."
Gray watched the thread of light drift toward him, its glow warm and inviting. He could feel its pull—promises of peace, of power, of a place where he'd never have to be woken up by adventurers again. It would be so easy to reach out and take it. So easy to let someone else do the work of building a perfect world while he slept in the middle of it.
But he'd seen what happened when people tried to build perfect worlds. He'd felt the weight of their failure in the visions from the thread of light.
"Let me guess," he said, not moving to take the thread. "Finishing it would mean destroying my world first. Or merging it with this broken place. Either way, a lot of people would die. Am I right?"
The figure's silver eyes darkened. "Collateral damage is inevitable when building something greater. The few must be sacrificed for the many."
"Funny," Gray said, shifting his weight—though there was nowhere to shift to. "I've heard that one before. Usually from people who plan to be the ones doing the sacrificing, not the ones being sacrificed." He drew the strange sword at his hip, and its silver glow flared bright enough to push back the violet darkness around them. "Here's the thing—I don't care about building a new world. I don't care about uniting realms or finishing your great work. I just want to go back to sleep somewhere quiet. But I also know that if I let this thing keep leaking chaos into my world, there won't be any quiet left to find."
The figure's expression hardened, and their robes began to swirl like a storm cloud. "Then you leave us no choice. We will take what we need from you, whether you will it or not. The Heart must be completed."
Threads of shadow and light shot forward from the crystal tree, wrapping around Gray's arms and legs like chains. They were cold as ice and strong as steel, pulling him toward the Heart with a force that would have torn apart any ordinary man. But Gray had never been ordinary—even if he'd spent most of his life pretending to be.
He sighed again, this time with real annoyance. "I really didn't want to do this. I was having such a nice nap before that knight showed up."
He let his power unfurl—not the small, lazy bursts he'd used to move dust or quiet traps, but the full weight of what he was. Silver light exploded from him, shattering the chains of shadow and light like glass. The sword in his hand blazed with power, its blade extending until it was longer than he was tall, glowing with the light of a thousand stars.
The figure stumbled backward, their silver eyes wide with shock. "You've been hiding your strength. All this time, you've been hiding—"
"Not hiding," Gray said, moving forward with a speed that defied the void's lack of gravity. "Just… conserving energy. It's tiring being powerful. You should try being lazy sometime. Saves a lot of trouble."
He swung the sword, and a wave of silver light cut through the air, slicing through the threads of the Weave that connected the Heart to the broken worlds around it. The crystal tree shuddered, and the singing returned—this time not beautiful or terrible, but sad, like a child crying for a home it could never return to.
The figure fell to their knees, their robes fading like mist. "You don't understand what you're doing. Without the Heart, this space will collapse. It will take your world with it."
"Then we'll fix it the right way," Gray said, stopping before the Heart. He placed his free hand on its crystal surface, and warm light spread from his fingers into the tree. "Not by building something new on top of broken things, but by mending what's already there. It'll take time. It'll take work. And I'll probably have to stay awake for most of it." He grimaced at the thought. "But at least when it's done, I might finally be able to find a quiet spot to sleep."
The figure looked up at him, their silver eyes softening with something that might have been hope. "You would help us? After what we tried to do?"
"Like I said," Gray said, closing his eyes as he focused his power into the Heart. "I just want things to be quiet. And you can't have quiet when the world is falling apart around you."
Power flowed from him into the crystal tree—slowly at first, then faster, until the entire space was filled with warm silver light. The broken threads of the Weave began to reknit themselves, not into the device that had once threatened to destroy everything, but into something simpler, something gentler—a seal that would mend the wound between worlds instead of tearing it wider.
As the last thread fell into place, the figure stood and placed a hand on Gray's shoulder. "Thank you," they said. "We will guard this place now. We will make sure it never threatens your world again."
Gray opened his eyes, feeling exhausted. His power had been stretched thin, and all he wanted was to lie down and sleep for another thousand years. "Good," he said. "That means I don't have to. Now… can you send me back? I think I left a knight waiting outside the vault door, and I'd rather not have him sending more people down to bother me."
The figure smiled—a small, sad smile that looked so much like his own it was almost uncanny. "We will send you back. But know this—the space between worlds has no time. When you return, your world may have changed more than you can imagine."
Gray shrugged as the silver light began to wrap around him, pulling him back toward the vault door he'd come through. "As long as there's still a quiet spot to sleep, I'll manage."
The last thing he saw before the light swallowed him was the figure standing before the mended Heart, their silver eyes watching him go. Then the purple light returned, and he was falling—though this time, he knew exactly where he was going.
When he landed, it was on solid stone. The vault door was closed behind him, and the runes on the walls were glowing with a warm silver light instead of their old faint pulse. The dust was still thick on everything, but it felt different now—like the quiet of a place that had finally found peace, not the stillness of something forgotten.
He sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall as he let his head fall back. The sword in his hand had shrunk back to its normal size, its glow fading to a faint shimmer. He was tired—more tired than he'd been in centuries—but there was a lightness in his chest he hadn't felt in a long time.
How long was I in there? he wondered, closing his eyes. A few hours? A few days?
The sound of footsteps approached, steady and confident now—nothing like the frantic clatter he'd heard from the young knight all those years ago. Gray cracked one eye open, expecting to see another adventurer, another fool looking to make a name for himself.
Instead, he saw a man in his prime.
He was still wearing silver armor, but it was forged from finer metal now—polished until it shone like a mirror, with only a few faint dents from old battles. His crimson cloak was thick and well-cared for, draped over broad shoulders that had clearly seen their share of combat. His hair was dark brown with threads of gray at the temples, tied back in a neat braid, and his face was sharp and weathered—lines around his eyes that spoke of both laughter and loss. He was 48, maybe 49, and he moved with the easy grace of someone who knew exactly how dangerous he was.
But his eyes. They were the same eyes Gray had seen all those years ago—bright, brave, and full of awe.
"Sir Aldric?" Gray said, sitting up straighter. The name felt like a memory, but the man before him was anything but faded.
The man stopped, his breath catching for just a moment. He stared at Gray for a long moment, then smiled—a slow, wide smile that lit up his face. He didn't kneel—Gray noticed that—but he bowed his head in a gesture of respect that was deeper than any knee bend.
"You're back," he said, his voice strong and clear. "Thirty years to the day. I knew you'd come back to finish what you started."
Gray pushed himself up slowly, wincing as his muscles protested. "Thirty years? But… I was only in there for a few hours."
"The figure was right," Aldric said, stepping forward. "Time doesn't work the same way in the space between. I never doubted you were still in there, working on whatever needed to be fixed. That's why I came back here every week—not just to keep watch, but to wait for you to finish your work. To make sure when you finally came out, you didn't have to face a crowd of adventurers or mages trying to hunt you down."
He gestured to the runes on the walls, their silver glow dancing across his face. "Those runes—they're still lost magic. No one above ground can read them, no one can replicate them. Magic has flourished a little, sure—people can now cast simple spells, light fires, heal small wounds. But nothing like this. Nothing like what you can do."
"And you kept my secret all this time?" Gray asked.
Aldric grinned. "Helps that I became one of the Sixteen Greatest Swordsmen of Aethermoor five years ago. When the Silver Lion Order disbanded, the king called for a tournament to name the finest warriors in the realm. I won my place fair and square. It gave me the power to keep people away from this dungeon—to tell them it's still sacred ground, off-limits to everyone. I made sure your peace was protected while you worked."
He walked closer, his eyes scanning Gray's face—still the same as it had been thirty years ago, unmarked by time. "The world above has changed. The Duchy of Westmoor is now the Crown Province of Westmoor, and the king is a good man who cares about his people. The stories of Gray Ashbourne still spread, but they're just stories—tales of a Legendary mage who sleeps in the dark to guard the world. No one knows what you look like, no one knows where to find you. Just the way you wanted it."
Gray sighed, running a hand through his silver hair. "Great. Even after thirty years, I'm still a Legend to them."
"Better a Legend than a target," Aldric said, a twinkle in his eye. "But there are still places where even mysteries can rest in peace."
He pointed toward the exit. "There's a valley in the North—beyond the Whispering Mountains. I found it ten years ago, while on a mission to hunt a griffin. It's so quiet you can hear the stars moving. No roads, no villages, no one to stumble across you. Just grass, trees, and a stream that runs cold from the mountain snow. The perfect place to sleep now that your work is done."
Gray looked out at the dark corridor leading to the surface, then back at Aldric. The man standing before him was nothing like the young, trembling knight who'd burst into the dungeon thirty years ago—but the loyalty in his eyes was the same.
"Really?" Gray asked.
"Really," Aldric said. "I can show you the way. It'll take us a month or so—faster than it would have been back then, now that I know all the back paths. And don't worry—I'll make sure we avoid any tournaments or royal summons. The Sixteen can get along without me for a while. Your peace is still my priority."
Gray smiled—really smiled, for the first time in what felt like millennia. "A month. That's… manageable. As long as we don't stop too often for you to show off your 'Greatest Swordsman' moves. I'll even try to stay awake for the parts where you tell me about the griffin you hunted."
Aldric laughed—a warm, full sound that echoed through the peaceful chamber. "Deal. But fair warning—I tell a pretty good story. You might not be able to stay asleep even if you try."