A week had passed since Mary cast the Mirror's shards into the Aether Vault's pit. The Crimson Alliance's camp had grown into a small city of rebuilding—a tapestry of tents, workshops, healing wards, and training grounds. The wicked patterns of cultist scars being burned or charmed from the land's wounds. The days hummed with purpose—but the nights grew uneasy beneath the empty constellations, with that violet tome ever tucked against Mary's chest.
At twilight, Lela found her standing at the edge of the rebuilt ward wall, staring at the distant forest shadows. A single candle in her hand, she barely noticed when Lela approached.
"She's calling," Mary said softly, her voice a blend of longing and dread. She tucked the candle into a wall sconce. "Again."
"The tome?" Lela asked, voice gentle.
Mary closed her eyes. "I tried to ignore it. But tonight…"
She withdrew the pale violet book. It trembled against her fingers. Under moonlight, the intricate sigils glowed, as though alive.
Lela watched. "You don't have to do this."
Mary opened the book to a clean page—the spot where she'd pledged her words as Author. Six runes were etched faintly into the page. Above them hovered a single unetched spot.
The void.
Mary swallowed. "There are six that remain unwritten. Tonight… I think I must carve the seventh."
Lela reached to touch her arm, but Mary stepped back.
"My blood binds the Codex. My words shape it. If I pour more of myself onto these pages…"
Lela held her breath.
Mary pressed her palm to the top rune—familiar to her by memory. It pulsed, then sucked a swirl of glowing mist into its pattern. Light flared in her eyes.
She gasped.
Vision: The Rift
Red lightning cracked across the sky of a land stretched thin between worlds—stone bridges hanging over abysses, islands drifting like scales, everything fractured. A woman's scream cut through the expanse. She ran through shattered city ruins, clutching a blade carved of starlight. Faces flickered at doorways—echoes, echoes, echoes.
Mary watched it on the open page as if it were a window. She saw herself chasing down that figure—the Crimson Sovereign—who held the last link in his hand. A key. A name. The pulse of worlds.
The blade wept starlight as she slashed, but the Sovereign stepped through the final rift-blade, leaving Mary to watch the spaces close behind him—before the world fractured merely at contact.
—
The vision ended. Mary collapsed to her knees, tapping the rune until it cracked across the page, sealed.
She stared at the single rune etched with trembling precision—the seventh.
Lela knelt beside her. "What did you see?"
Mary's eyes were glazed. "The Rift we fought to close… it opens again. And someone—something—walks between."
Lela's voice wavered. "Not him."
Mary shook her head. "Yes."
The world bit at her throat.
That night, the camp's fires burned lower than usual, a simmer of worry in every ember. Loosie made an appearance, armor lost under dark cloak, hood drawn low.
"Mary," she whispered above the embers. "They're worried. You're—well, you've gone cold."
Mary didn't look up. "It was always cold."
Loosie shook her head. "Not you. You came back… warmer. But now…" she swallowed. "This book," she lifted her hood slightly. "It's tying you to things you can't see."
Mary closed the tome, stacking it against the embers. "I didn't choose to see them. But I will. I have to. If the Sovereign returns through the rift, we'll need the full Codex."
Loosie exhaled. "Just don't disappear inside it."
Mary looked at her daughter, tired and fierce. "I promise."
They ascended the eastern road the next dawn with Lela, stepping beyond wards onto deep moorland. They were hunting cult survivors—but both knew they were hunting foreshadowing.
Something made the ground pulse.
From Lela's horse's hooves to the gravel's dust, continents felt off-balance. Trees leaned toward the horizon. The fog shimmered.
Something shifted at the sky's edge.
"There," Loosie pointed, voice taut.
Mary looked up.
Shapes.
Blots drifting against the dawn-blue. Not birds… kites… more like shadows.
They approached cautiously.
A warlock's trap lay hidden in the broken grass ahead. A circle of ash. Runed stones.
Mary knelt to examine it: the same sigil that laced the crimson banner of the Alliance—broken fang.
"Echo," Mary whispered. "Someone's calling us back."
A voice boomed across the moor: "Mistblade!"
Loosie's arrow flew—but the shadow twisted around itself, coalescing into smoke that bellowed shape. A figure formed: neither solid nor spectral—someone wronged by time's fracture. A hook-handed man whose voice boomed from everywhere.
"Return the sigil," he demanded.
Mary shook her head. "We cannot."
He staggered forward, a scream on his lips. "Then die."
The trap ignited beneath him—fiery tendrils of magic rushing into his bones. He yelped, staggered—then dispelled into ashes that scattered into the wind.
Loosie bit her lip. "That could've been a hunter. A friend."
Mary stepped away. "He was a host. For it."
Lela studied her. "Host for what?"
Mary lifted her gaze to the dark sky. "Something still understands the broken Codex. It's waiting."
Night came at the moor's edge. The three sat by an empty fire. Silence curled around them until Mary finally spoke.
"They sent him here," she said simply.
"Why?" Lela asked after a moment.
Mary shrugged. "To test. To bait."
Loosie leaned forward. "So what now? We're backtracking the cult?"
"No," Mary said. She reached into her cloak and pulled the violet tome. "We stay ahead."
She opened the book to her first page—the one sealed by her vow. Ink glowed faintly.
Lela braced. "You're going to—?"
Mary placed her hand on the page.
"Yes."
The rune began to bleed onto the parchment.
Past midnight, beyond the ward circle—Mary wrote again.
Through trembling glyphs, she carved:
"I am bearer of broken doors. My scars stand testament. I carve the path, even as it fractures beneath me."
Rune of the Rift.
The cavern went still.
Outside, thunder rolled.
Mary closed the tome.
She held it against her chest, as if it were both crown and burden.
Loosie fingered her wrist. "Now it binds you."
Mary nodded. "Yes."
The dawn will bring them new enemies.
But tonight—they have a name inscribed.
A new path.
A new promise.