The valley reeked of burnt flesh and rotting magic. The wind howled over the ridges of the Black Hollow, carrying the scent of smoke and sorrow, where Liora knelt among the bodies of her undead, their bones cracked and scattered like brittle glass. Her fingers trembled over the cold earth, clawing at it as if the answers lay just beneath the surface.
They were ambushed.
Not by beasts, or bandits, or rival necromancers—but by the White Circle itself. And not the cloaked puppets she'd toyed with before. These were different. Trained. Ruthless. Silent. They came at dawn, masked by a blinding white mist that stripped her army of their senses. Her wardens were slaughtered before they could utter a spell.
Three names kept pulsing in her head.
Bran. Elin. Marek.
All dead.
She remembered Bran's laugh, the way he used to joke even in the middle of bloodshed. His head had been pinned to a tree with a silver stake through each eye. Elin—the quiet, gentle girl who whispered to bones as though they were friends—was torn apart, her limbs used as sigils in some unholy reverse-ritual. Marek had fought to the last breath, casting one final bone storm so violent it shredded four enemy mages before his chest caved in under a white hammer.
Liora had survived—but barely.
And she wasn't sure she deserved to.
A pale figure stepped through the mist now dissipating across the blood-slicked battlefield. Veiled in cloth like mourning robes, they moved with elegance, with purpose. In their hand was a staff forged from whitewood, humming with runes that shimmered between light and something more dangerous.
"You didn't die," the figure said softly.
Liora stood. Her body was cracked inside and out. Her soul fusion technique had shielded her in the first seconds of the ambush, letting her split her essence into the bones of a fallen golem nearby—but it had cost her a fragment of identity. She still wasn't whole. And now… she wasn't sure who she was anymore.
"Neither did you," she replied. Her voice was dry smoke.
The figure removed their hood.
A woman.
Tall, silver-eyed, with white hair that flowed like liquid silk. Her skin bore marks—white tattoos in the shape of ancient trees, serpents, and tears. Her presence didn't scream power.
It whispered it.
"I'm Lysera. Archon of the White Circle," she said. "And I've come to offer you a gift."
Liora laughed bitterly, the sound hollow. "You just murdered three of the only people I trusted. What kind of gift bleeds that much?"
Lysera raised a hand, and to Liora's horror, the corpses of Bran, Elin, and Marek floated upward, suspended in white magic, their eyes glowing dimly with artificial light.
"They're not yours anymore," Lysera said, almost gently. "But I can give you something better than grief."
Liora's hand twitched toward her bone dagger, but her limbs wouldn't respond. Magic. A paralyzing aura soaked through her skin like frostbite.
"You've touched the Veil," Lysera continued. "You've peeked beyond what necromancy was meant to be. But you still don't understand what lies beneath it."
She walked closer, her voice a lullaby of danger.
"There's a level of magic where death isn't a state—it's a currency. And we are the only ones who know how to spend it properly."
Liora gritted her teeth. Her anger built like a storm behind her ribs. But Lysera wasn't finished.
"Alric knew. Your grandfather. Before he went mad. He glimpsed it too. The Echo Rites, the Soul-Forges, the Black Equation buried beneath the Living World. He tried to warn us. But he failed."
That name hit harder than any spell.
Alric.
The memory flickered. Her mother's terrified whispers. Her father's silence. A name never spoken after dusk.
Liora could feel something awakening inside her—some latent connection the Soul Fusion had unearthed. Alric's soul fragment was in her. Hidden. Breathing.
"You don't have to walk the rest of this path alone," Lysera said. "But you'll have to choose: power… or pain. The White Circle is not your enemy. Not yet."
She dropped a small white shard at Liora's feet. It pulsed once, then dissolved into the earth like it had never existed.
"Come to the Pale Citadel when the moon dies," Lysera whispered. "If you want to understand who you really are."
Then she vanished into mist.
Liora collapsed again.
Bran. Elin. Marek.
Gone.
No resurrection spell could fix what had been done. Lysera had taken their souls. That was the true message.
This was no longer about survival. Or vengeance. Or even redemption.
It was war.
And Liora knew one thing now with bitter, brutal clarity:
The world was made of ash and ghosts—and she was going to burn it down to the bone to learn the truth