The Fractured Peace
Three moons had passed since the Storm's silence. The Skybreaker Kingdom thrived—its sky-roads bustling with traders, its rebuilt cities echoing with laughter instead of war horns. But in the dead of night, Kairos still woke gasping, his hand clawing at his chest where the Veil once burned.
"Another nightmare?" Anara murmured, her voice thick with sleep. She traced the new scar on his shoulder—a parting gift from the Dead Sun's final ambush.
"The same one," Kai admitted. "Isvalla's voice. Lyra's laugh. And… something else. Something hungry."
Anara's gaze hardened. "The Frostspire reports?"
"Nothing new. Just static."
Liar, he thought. The static had begun to form words last week.
The Sunsworn's Warning
Li Na returned at dawn, her airship scarred by frost and fire. The Sunsworn scouts trailed her, their porcelain masks cracked, their robes singed.
"The Dead Sun didn't regroup," she said, storming into the throne room. "They worshipped. And whatever they prayed to… answered."
She tossed a void-crystal onto the map table. Inside, a shadow pulsed—a skeletal figure with too many eyes.
"The Frostspire isn't a stronghold," Li Na said. "It's a tomb. And they've opened it."
Kai's hand hovered over the crystal. The figure's eyes snapped open.
"Kairosss…" it hissed. "We remember you."
[The crystal shattered. The map table froze, coated in black ice.]
The Ghost in the Storm
Veyra-7's hologram flickered erratically. "The Frostspire's energy signature matches the Veil's origin. 99.7% probability: it's another god. Or what's left of one."
"Another Isvalla?" Anara asked.
"Worse," Li Na said. "Isvalla was imprisoned. This one was buried. By its own kind."
Kai stared at the frozen table. "Why now?"
"Because you shattered the Veil," Li Na said. And gods… are vengeful."
[A cold wind swept the room. The hearth flames turned black.]
The Pact of Shadows
That night, Kai met the Sunsworn emissary in the Dawn's hold. The man's porcelain mask was replaced by a void-crystal visor, his voice a grating hum.
"The Forgotten God seeks a vessel," he said. "It offers power to those betrayed by the light. Your brother… he listens."
"Cassian is a farmer," Kai snapped. "He remembers nothing."
"The god remembers for him." The emissary pressed a shard of black ice into Kai's hand. "You will come to the Frostspire. Or we will peel your kingdom apart, sky by sky."
When Kai blinked, the emissary was gone. The ice shard bled dark water, forming a single rune: Come.
The Unseen War
Anara rallied the fleet—refurbished Dead Sun skiffs and Sunsworn interceptors. "We'll scorch the Frostspire to ash," she declared.
"No," Kai said. "They want me. I'll go alone."
"Like hell," Anara and Li Na said in unison.
The argument lasted hours. It ended with a compromise: a small team, a stealth ship, and a plan as flimsy as bluestar petals.
"If you die," Anara warned, strapping a plasma dagger to his thigh, "I'll drag you back from the void."
"Promises, promises," Kai smirked.
The Edge of Oblivion
The Frostspire loomed—a jagged spire of black ice, its peak vanishing into a swirling vortex of storm clouds. The stealth ship docked in silence.
"No life signs," Veyra-7 reported. "But the ice is… breathing."
Li Na adjusted her thermal cloak. "Stay close. And don't touch anything."
Too late.
Anara's boot grazed a frozen puddle. The ice shrieked, tendrils lashing around her ankle. Kai severed them with a plasma blade, but the spire trembled, walls peeling back to reveal a cavernous throat.
At its heart hung Cassian, suspended in a cocoon of black ice. His eyes opened—void-dark and glowing.
"Hello, brother," the Forgotten God crooned through Cassian's lips. "Shall we begin?"