Two days passed since the ambush.
The skies had turned red over Vel'Thera—sign of an ancient omen: The Bloodwind.
It meant war was coming.
But Lyrius had no army.
No kingdom.
Only whispers of one name, passed in dying breath from the last Crow assassin:
"Kaelria."
She found him first.
In the ruins of a shattered watchtower, Lyrius knelt by a dying tree, carving the Archivist's feather into a blade-shaped talisman.
A voice broke the silence behind him—sharp, amused.
"You're making trinkets while the world burns?"
Lyrius didn't turn. "You're Kaelria?"
"I was," she said. "Then I was something worse. Now I'm something useful."
He stood.
She was wrapped in scarlet leather armor, mismatched vambraces, and a cloak stitched from stolen banners. Her eyes shimmered with fire—not literal flames, but a heat that saw through things. A fire-forged truth.
"I'm not looking for help," he said.
"Good," she replied. "I'm not here to help."
That caught him off-guard.
"I'm here because you're going to start a war," she continued, stepping close. "And I want a front-row seat."
They traveled together through the Ashreach Canyons—a place carved by dragon fire and old regrets. Kaelria spoke rarely, but when she did, her words had weight.
"Your mark is unstable," she said once, casually.
Lyrius glanced at it. "It's growing."
"No," she corrected. "It's waking. There's a difference. Growth is a choice. Waking is a consequence."
She taught him things the Order hadn't—how to feel the shift of Essence through stone, how to hear the echo of thoughts in places where blood had been spilled.
By nightfall on the third day, they reached a hidden camp in the shattered city of Varn's Hollow.
An outlaw sanctuary. Black market for powers banned by kings and gods.
Kaelria brought him to a man named Thorne—scarred, silver-haired, half-machine.
"I want you to hear what he knows," she told Lyrius. "Then you decide whether you still want to be the one who breaks the world."
Thorne revealed the truth:
The Seals weren't built to protect the world.
They were built to contain it.
To trap something ancient beneath the layers of reality—something not of this world.
The moment Lyrius touched the first Seal, the others began to weaken.
One had already broken.
In the drowned kingdom of Myrrn.
Another trembled beneath the throne of Queen Virel.
And the last… the last had no location.
Because it had taken human form.
Lyrius paled. "A person?"
Thorne nodded. "And they don't even know it yet."
A storm of silence followed.
Kaelria broke it.
"If we move now, we reach Myrrn before the next collapse."
Lyrius stood slowly. "Then we go to the drowned kingdom."
As they left the camp, Kaelria looked at him and said:
"You're not a hero, you know."
"I'm not trying to be."
She smirked. "Good. Heroes get remembered. Monsters get feared. And right now, fear is the only language this world understands."
Lyrius said nothing.
But the fire in his eyes told her—
He was done waiting.