The journey to Hollow Sky took seven days.
Seven days through ravaged glens and half-collapsed roads where vines crept across broken stones, where the trees bore burn marks from lightning that had no storm to call home. The world was different now, and it wore its wounds openly.
Sera walked in silence most of the way, wrapped in her borrowed cloak, head down. She barely spoke, but Lucian could feel her awareness growing—like she was listening to something no one else could hear.
Daen called it "post-possession paranoia."
Lucian didn't think it was that simple.
They reached the monastery just before dusk on the seventh day. Hollow Sky stood atop a bluff that looked like it had been carved from the spine of the world—a crescent-shaped ridge of gray stone that overlooked a glacial basin to the north. The air there was thin, the wind unkind.
But the monastery endured.
Its towers were smooth and pale, grown from seamless stone without mortar. No banners flew. No bells rang. It didn't welcome visitors; it endured them.
The woman—who had finally given her name as Mother Evarra—led them up the winding path toward the gates. As they walked, a subtle pressure began to build in Lucian's temples, like something was pressing gently against his mind. He saw Daen grimace too, clutching the haft of his axe.
Sera didn't flinch.
The gates opened before they reached them, without a single sound.
A boy no older than twelve stood on the other side. His eyes were glazed white, his head shaved, and he held a bronze staff carved with runes that moved like flowing water. He nodded once, turned, and walked inside.
"They've been expecting you," Evarra said.
No one was surprised.
The inside of the monastery was colder than the air outside. Not physically—but spiritually cold. The kind of chill that came from too many ghosts living quietly among the living.
Candles flickered inside alcoves carved from the walls, each flame floating just above the wax. The smell of incense—sweet, bitter, earthy—clung to the walls. They passed monks moving soundlessly, some levitating inches off the stone floor, others muttering to themselves in ancient tongues. Sera's eyes followed them with quiet reverence, but her hands never stopped trembling.
They were led to a chamber at the heart of the monastery. It was perfectly round, with no seams in the stone, no windows, and a ceiling that arched so high it vanished into darkness. A single dais stood at the center, upon which rested a circular basin filled with silver water.
Ten robed figures encircled it. Each bore a different mark on their brow: flame, storm, root, blood, bone, star, eye, breath, tide, and void.
Mother Evarra stepped forward. "These are the Concord Elders. They govern our order. They know of your trials, your choices. They have questions—and, perhaps, answers."
Lucian inclined his head. Daen did not.
Sera stepped forward without being asked.
The Elders didn't speak with voices. Their thoughts arrived fully formed, like messages pressed into the minds of those who stood before them.
She bears the wound of the world.
And yet she lives.
It is unnatural.
It is necessary.
Sera flinched. "I didn't ask for any of it."
None of the worthy ever do.
Lucian stepped to her side. "What is she now? You called her a gate. A seam. But to what?"
The Elder marked with the void sigil turned toward him. His voice—or rather, the sense of it—was deeper, slower.
The serpent was not merely power. It was an anchor. When it was bound, the Weave was pinned. When it was loosed, the strands frayed.
She became the thread that caught it all.
Daen scowled. "Plain words, if you have any."
Mother Evarra clarified. "She is a locus. A convergence point. Magic, memory, divine intent—they collect in her. The serpent's essence fused with her not as a prison, but a vessel. A conduit."
Lucian's heart sank. "And if she breaks?"
Then the world breaks with her.
Silence followed.
Sera looked down at her hands. "Then what am I supposed to do? Live here forever? Meditate until the end of time? I don't want to be a relic."
Evarra approached her gently. "You won't be. We brought you here because the world is changing. You're not alone. There are others, like you. People touched by the fracture. Some born with strange powers. Others changed by proximity. The Concord is gathering them."
"Gathering?" Lucian asked. "To what end?"
"To understand what's coming," Evarra said. "And to prepare. We believe a second breach is forming. Not in this world—but in another, connected by the Weave. A mirror realm. One where the serpent never slept."
Lucian felt a sudden chill. "And if that breach widens?"
Evarra met his eyes. "Then everything you've endured was just the beginning."
The Elders raised their hands, and the silver basin shimmered. Images appeared in its surface—mountains of glass, trees of bone, skies the color of ink. Creatures moved within them, half-formed, massive, watching.
And then Lucian saw himself—or something wearing his shape—walking through that realm with eyes as black as the void.
He stumbled back. Daen caught him.
"What in the nine hells was that?"
Evarra's voice was grave. "That is the world beyond the mirror. Some call it the Reverie. Others call it the Maw. It is not merely opposite—it is sentient. And it is awake."
Sera moved closer to the basin. Her reflection shimmered… then changed. The figure in the water smiled—not cruelly, but knowingly.
And it whispered.
"You are the key. Come and see."
She staggered back.
"I heard it," she said. "I heard it. It knows me."
Lucian's sword was in his hand before he realized he'd drawn it. "Tell me how we stop it."
Evarra answered: "You don't stop a wave. You ride it. Or you drown."
The words hung like frost in the air.
The Concord had no armies. No spells that could undo the damage already done. But they had knowledge. And knowledge, they claimed, could reshape the Weave itself.
Lucian turned to Sera. "You don't have to face this alone."
She looked at him—eyes wide, afraid, but no longer broken.
"I know," she said.
They would learn. They would train. They would prepare.
Because the Reverie was waiting.
And the war had only just begun.