The city pulsed.
Not with life. Not with the breath of its people.
But with something deeper.
Aelthar sat upon his throne, his fingers resting against the cold obsidian armrests, feeling the slow, deliberate beat of something beneath the stone.
The Rift.
It had not spoken since the moment he had reclaimed his throne since he had accepted his name.
But now—it stirred.
Aelthar exhaled slowly.
It wasn't a whisper.
It wasn't the Rift's usual hum of hunger, of endless pulling, of the ever-present call to take, conquer, and consume.
This was different.
This was watching.
Something in the Rift was looking at him.
He could feel it.
Like a presence just beyond sight.
Not hostile.
Not demanding.
But waiting.
And Aelthar had learned long ago—anything that waited inside the Rift was never truly patient.
----
Vaelthas stepped forward.
The Riftmarked general had been kneeling in silence, head bowed, waiting for the moment Aelthar acknowledged him.
Aelthar lifted a hand—just a slight movement.
Vaelthas rose.
"There is dissent among the Riftmarked," Vaelthas said, his voice even, but edged with something harder. "Not all who swore loyalty to you swore it to you alone."
Aelthar's fingers tapped against the armrest.
"Explain."
Vaelthas's expression did not shift.
"The Rift speaks to all of us," he said. "But some hear it differently. Some believe its will is absolute. That its whispers matter more than yours. And some…" He hesitated for the first time.
"Some believe you are not yet worthy of the throne."
The words settled between them like a knife on the edge of a table.
Aelthar did not move.
Did not speak.
But the Rift did.
Just a pulse. Just a slow curling in the air.
Aelthar saw Vaelthas feel it, too. The man's shoulders tensed just slightly.
And that was all Aelthar needed to know.
He stood.
And Vaelthas immediately dropped to one knee.
"You have my loyalty, my king," Vaelthas murmured.
Aelthar studied him. "But not all of them do."
Vaelthas's jaw tensed.
"No," he admitted. "Not all."
Silence.
Then—
"Find them."
Vaelthas did not hesitate.
He bowed lower. "As you command."
Then he vanished into the shadows.
Aelthar watched him go, then turned his gaze back to the Riftlight flickering across the throne hall.
The Rift had waited for him.
But something else was still waiting.
And it was not Vaelthas that concerned him.
It was whatever was watching from inside the Rift itself.
----
The noble lords had not left.
They should have.
The moment the Rift had unleashed its full power, the moment Velmiris had risen from the ruins, they should have turned their armies and fled.
But they hadn't.
Because fear was not enough.
Because hate ran deeper.
Because they knew what Aelthar's existence meant.
And they refused to let history repeat itself.
Inside a candlelit war tent, Lord Darius Valcroix studied the map before him, his expression unreadable.
"The Riftmarked have solidified their control," one of his commanders said, voice tight. "They do not venture beyond Velmiris, but the Rift protects them."
Valcroix remained silent.
Another noble lord—**Lady Ysolde Marst—**stepped forward.
"This cannot stand," she said sharply. "We cannot allow this to continue. We—"
"You speak as if we are not already at war," Valcroix interrupted.
His voice was calm. Unshaken.
But there was something underneath it.
Something colder.
"We do not need to decide if we march," Valcroix continued, his eyes never leaving the map. "We need to decide how."
Silence.
Then, slowly—another voice entered the tent.
"You march," the voice rasped, "by understanding your enemy."
The nobles turned sharply.
A figure stood just beyond the candlelight, cloaked in deep black, their face obscured.
But the presence they carried—
It was unnatural.
Lady Ysolde's hand went to her dagger. "Who let this filth in?"
The figure tilted its head.
And then—
A whisper curled through the tent.
Not from the figure's lips.
Not from anything human.
"The Rift is watching him."
The air turned cold.
The fire shrank into itself.
And Valcroix—for the first time since this war began—hesitated.
----
Aelthar sat upon his throne, but he was no longer in Velmiris.
The walls of the throne room faded. The obsidian pillars, the Riftmarked kneeling in the distance, the echoes of war that had once raged—all of it melted away.
And in its place—
Mist.
A vast, endless expanse of gray mist that stretched beyond sight, shifting in unnatural patterns, thick as a rolling storm cloud but silent. So silent.
Aelthar inhaled. The air felt wrong. It tasted like static, like old blood, like memory.
He was not dreaming.
He was being pulled.
The Rift had brought him somewhere.
But it was not showing him the past.
This was something else.
Then—he saw it.
A figure stood in the mist.
Not Vaelthas. Not Kael. Not Lira.
It was him.
Aelthar—himself, yet not.
The figure's posture was rigid, its features blurred, shifting between his old face and something unfamiliar.
It felt like looking into a memory he had forgotten.
Or worse—a future that had not yet come to pass.
Aelthar took a step forward. "Who are you?"
The figure did not answer.
Instead, it lifted its hand.
And the Rift roared.
----
When Aelthar returned to himself, he was not alone.
The throne hall still stood, the Riftmarked still knelt in reverence, the night sky above Velmiris still split by the Riftstorm.
But something had changed.
Something felt wrong.
Aelthar slowly turned his gaze, his mind still caught in the haze of the vision. The Rift's hum vibrated in his chest like a second heartbeat, uneven, uncertain.
And then—
A whisper.
Not from the Rift.
Not from his mind.
From the shadows.
Aelthar's eyes narrowed.
He did not need to turn fully to know.
Someone was watching him.
Someone who should not be here.
Vaelthas had already begun his hunt for the disloyal Riftmarked—but was he too late?
Aelthar exhaled slowly.
He would not give them the pleasure of seeing doubt in his expression.
If they wanted to play in the dark, let them.
He had always been better at hunting ghosts than waiting for them to reveal themselves.
----
Aelthar closed his eyes.
He let the Rift's hum settle in his mind, its whispers threading through his thoughts like an old companion humming a forgotten song.
But this time—the song had changed.
This was not his name.
This was something else.
Something older.
The Rift did not whisper Aelthar.
It whispered another name.
A name Aelthar had never heard before.
But the moment it echoed in his mind—
His blood ran cold.
Because the Rift did not speak without reason.
It did not give names without meaning.
And if it had spoken this one—
It meant that something had already begun.
The storm outside darkened.
The Rift pulsed.
And Aelthar stood from his throne.
Because whatever this name meant—he would find out.
And if it was a threat—
He would destroy it.