The broken monolith parted with a sound like stone weeping, its jagged halves peeling away into a dark, yawning maw. Mist bled from the opening, thick and cloying, heavy as oil. The forest itself recoiled. Leaves curled, branches twisted as though writhing against some unseen pressure. The earth's breath changed — no longer the cool, clean scent of damp soil, but something older, fetid, and sharp, like rusted iron left to fester in deep water.
Vaelen Morghast stood unmoving, the ancient tome clutched tight in his slender fingers. The Threnody of Broken Stars pulsed with a dim light, sigils dancing across its surface in fevered anticipation. In his veins, the old blood stirred — a hungry, writhing thing. His heartbeat slowed. His pupils contracted to fine pinpricks. The whispering came again, this time clear, a thousand voices speaking in unison from behind the veil.
"Come."
He stepped forward.
Each footfall struck the ground with unnatural weight. Soil crumbled and cracked beneath him, leaving faint impressions that steamed faintly in the cool night air. The mist clung to his skin, leaving trails like frostbite. As he crossed the threshold, the world seemed to lurch. The color bled from the trees, the stars above guttered like dying embers, and the wind fell silent.
The Gate's interior was not a place, but a wound.
A cavern of impossible geometry stretched before him. Walls of slick, black stone sloped and twisted in ways that defied the eye's understanding, edges where none should exist, corners that folded in on themselves. Faint, bioluminescent growths clung to the stone — pale blue fungi and vein-like roots that pulsed with sluggish light.
Beneath his feet, a river of liquid shadow flowed silently.
And on the far side of the chasm stood an altar of bone.
A figure waited there.
Its face was a mask of obsidian, featureless save for a single vertical slit where an eye might be. In one skeletal hand, it held a withered staff crowned by a shriveled heart, still beating with slow, deliberate pulses. The thing radiated an authority that made even Vaelen's unnatural blood run colder for a moment.
Then, somewhere far above…
The world screamed.
In the capital of Averenth,
A dozen cloaked figures burst into the high sanctum of the Choir of Pale Ash. Priests staggered to their knees, clutching at their bleeding eyes. Sigils inscribed on parchment curled and blackened as if touched by unseen fire.
Eryndor the Pale stood amidst the chaos, his hand pressed to his temple, sweat matting the strands of silver hair to his brow. He felt it — the pulse of the Gate's awakening.
"Impossible," he rasped. "He opened it… alone."
From the marble dais, the Choir Mistress — ancient and half-mummified — lifted her cracked lips in a grimace. "He is no longer just a boy." Her voice was the dry rustle of dead leaves. "Summon the Covenant. The old pacts must be broken."
The others hesitated.
"Do it," Eryndor snarled. "Or he will unmake us all."
In the distant Kingdom of Saelvarin,
Astronomers stood frozen on their towers as the western sky rippled crimson. The great Sea of Glass churned without wind. In their temples, the Nameless Saints screamed and writhed as blood poured from their mouths, chanting a single word in a tongue older than the world.
"Vael'Zhaur."
And beneath the earth,
Vaelen knelt before the altar.
The masked figure did not speak, but understanding passed between them. The boy offered the tome — The Threnody of Broken Stars — and in return, the figure raised a jagged shard of bone carved with maddening sigils.
Without hesitation, Vaelen drove it into his own chest.
A soundless cry burst from his lips as ancient power surged through him, rewriting his flesh, his mind, his essence. The Gate's cavern trembled. The shadows quivered in ecstasy.
The blood of Vael'Zhaur bloomed in full.
Vaelen rose, his eyes now like dying stars.
And the world… remembered its terror.
Cliffhanger:
Above ground, the trees shuddered, and a storm of ash began to fall.
Somewhere in the Choir's sanctum, a final, desperate message was carved into stone.
"The Heir walks."
The Shattered Gate's scream still echoed, though no mortal ear could hear it.
Vaelen Morghast stood before the jagged ruin of the stone monolith, the split surface leaking a faint, oily mist that clung to the ground like spilled shadow. The mist curled around his bare feet, cold and eager, as if tasting him.
The forest around the clearing had fallen silent. Not a branch stirred, not a crow called. Even the wind had abandoned this place, recoiling from what had been unsealed.
The air was heavy now — thick as wet cloth, tasting of iron and old rot. The trees leaned away from the clearing's edge as though repulsed, their gnarled limbs twitching like things trying to flee. And still, the earth beneath Vaelen trembled, faint pulses in time with some distant, sleeping thing.
He did not flinch.
The Threnody of Broken Stars hummed against his chest, its pages alive with shifting ink, symbols rearranging into new geometries no sane mind would map. The book had grown warmer in his grip, its pulse syncing to his own.
He felt it, deep in the marrow of his bones — the first seal broken. The first claim staked.
A voice slid into his mind then, smooth and terrible.
"One gate for each star abandoned. One mark for each god betrayed. You begin to ascend, child of Vael'Zhaur."
Vaelen's pale eyes narrowed. It wasn't a question, nor a temptation. It was truth made manifest.
And then — movement.
From the far side of the clearing, three shapes emerged. Robes like tattered parchment, flesh sunken and stretched thin over bones too long for any human frame. Eyes pale, almost luminous in the gloom.
Seers. Choir remnants.
Vaelen recognized the broken medallions around their necks — twisted symbols of the Choir of Pale Ash.
They came cautiously, the earth wilting under each step, clutching bone daggers and thin copper chains adorned with dried tongues and fingers.
One spoke, though its voice was little more than a rasp dragged across centuries.
"It wakes... The Womb Beneath All Stars will not be born again. Child, surrender the Threnody. Bind yourself, and be spared the Long Silence."
Vaelen's lips curved into a small, cold smile. The sigils in his blood stirred, lines of light tracing beneath his skin.
He spoke, his voice steady and unafraid.
"No."
And the world responded.
The mist around him surged upward, thick tendrils coiling and lashing like serpents. The ground cracked in a ring around his feet, the symbols on the shattered stone flaring one final time before sinking into the earth.
A great, distant bell tolled once.
The lead Seer's face contorted in fear.
"The bell... it's not time—"
Vaelen raised one hand, the Threnody's pages flying open of their own will. Symbols lifted from the parchment like living ink, twisting into sigil-threads.
The First Sigil Path had awakened.
A wordless, terrible command formed in Vaelen's mind — and reality obeyed.
The mist turned solid.
It struck.
The Seers barely had time to scream. Shadows plunged into their throats, through their skulls, out the backs of their heads. Their bodies convulsed, turned brittle, and shattered into ash.
Silence reclaimed the clearing.
Only Vaelen remained.
The book's glow dimmed, settling back into its quiet, ceaseless hum. He exhaled slowly, though he hadn't noticed holding his breath.
Far away, in a temple of black glass, the high cantors of the Obsidian Cabal screamed in unison as their auguries turned to blood.
In the city of Velthran, three noble houses called emergency council as their wards cracked.
And beneath the Wound-Sea, something vast opened an eye.
Vaelen turned toward the path ahead — deeper into the dead forest, where no maps reached. The Threnody's pages fluttered once more.
One gate down.
Nine remained.
He stepped into the mist.
Cliffhanger set.