IV

The suns hung low in the bleeding sky, their light casting long shadows across the dry land. The air was still and heavy with the weight of day’s end when the messenger stumbled forth, breathless, his face drawn with the kind of fear that comes from carrying bad news too far. “Sir,” the man said, his voice quaking. “A Marek, they call him The Vulture. He’s sent word to one of our Navigators out of Galesend. He’s holding her there. Says he’ll trade her for a price.” Dorian turned, his eyes cutting through the man like a blade, his face unreadable beneath the dying light. “Who is this Marek?” he said. “A trader, sir. A buyer. He’s with the Crimson Talons.” For a moment, the silence stretched between them, thick as oil. Then Dorian’s lips curved, slow and deliberate, into a grin that held no warmth. “Tell this Vulture I’ll come to him,” he said. “Tell him I’ll bring his ransom.” The messenger hesitated, shuffling like a man too frightened to stay and too fearful to leave. “But sir,” he ventured, “Galesend’s beyond the border, and we’ve no word on what his price might be—” “Go,” Dorian said, his voice low, steady as the tide, “I’d like very much for this to all be over before the Obsidian Veil.”

The messenger fled, his footsteps fading into the approaching dark. Dorian stood there, his gaze lingering on the fading sky as the light waned, the heavens awash in the hues of fire and blood. He thought of The Weaver, The Great Loom spinning out the threads of their lives, and of the dark veil that would soon cover them all. Then he smiled again, a brief, sharp thing, and turned toward the horizon.

Moonlight spilled through the sky windows, pale beams fractured into broken latticework across the stone floor. The room held its breath in a stillness so deep it felt alive, every shadow listening. She lay curled in the cage, her blanket little more than a threadbare shield against the cold. She stared at the iron bars that encased her, the air heavy with unease, when she heard it—a grunt, low and guttural, followed by the creak of a cot. Marek was awake.

Her body stiffened as he rose, his movements slow, deliberate. His shadow stretched toward her as he approached, his steps uneven but determined. She pressed herself deeper into the corner of the cage, her pulse hammering in her ears. “Marek…” she started, her voice cracking. He didn’t answer. His hand clutched the bars, rattling them once, the metallic sound echoing in the cavernous space. His breath was heavy, hot with liquor and something far darker. She saw his eyes, glassy and animalistic, fixed on her like a predator cornering its prey. Lysandra scrambled backward, her hand clutching the edge of her blanket as if it could shield her from what was coming. “Don’t,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “The ransom, remember? This isn’t—” The cage door groaned. He had the key. He always had the key. Panic surged through her as the door swung open. She lunged for the nearest object—a tin plate left from her meager meal—and hurled it at him. It struck his shoulder, but he barely flinched. “Stay away!” she cried, her voice high and wild. She crawled backward on her hands and knees, but there was nowhere to go. The cage was too small, and he was already inside. Marek lunged, his hand grabbing her ankle. She kicked with all the force she could muster, her foot connecting with his jaw. He grunted, his grip loosening for a precious second, and she scrambled to her feet, pressing her back against the bars. His face twisted in rage. He wiped at his mouth, his hand coming away smeared with blood. Lysandra’s hands fumbled along the bars, searching desperately for something—anything—to defend herself. Her fingers closed around a shard of stone, jagged and cold, lying forgotten in the corner. She gripped it tightly, her knuckles white.

He lunged again, his bulk filling the cage, and she struck out wildly. The shard scraped against his arm, drawing a thin line of blood. He howled in pain, recoiling just enough for her to duck under his arm and bolt for the cage door. She didn’t make it. His hand closed around her wrist, yanking her back with a force that sent her sprawling to the floor. The shard slipped from her grasp, clattering out of reach. “No!” she screamed, thrashing wildly, her nails clawing at his hand, his face, anything she could reach. Her struggle only seemed to fuel his frenzy. And then it came—the sound. A whisper, faint and otherworldly, slicing through the chaos like a blade through flesh. Marek froze, his head snapping toward the sky windows. Lysandra didn’t hesitate. She tore free of his loosened grip and scrambled out of the cage, her body moving on pure instinct. She didn’t look back as the whisper grew louder, a dry rasp like bone against stone. Shadows spilled into the room, fluid and deliberate, descending through the latticework above. The first figure landed soundlessly, its cloaked form absorbing the moonlight like a void. Then another. And another. Marek stumbled to his feet, his wild eyes darting between Lysandra and the intruders. He reached for his dagger, but the figures were faster. They moved as one, their motions seamless, and before he could draw his blade, they were upon him. Lysandra pressed herself against the far wall, her breath coming in short, frantic gasps. She watched as Marek fell, the fight stripped from him with brutal efficiency. The sound of his body hitting the floor was muffled, swallowed by the same silence that had brought them. The shadows turned toward her, their faces hidden beneath their hoods. She clutched the bars behind her, her heart pounding as they advanced.

He stepped into the dim-lit chamber, the weight of its silence pressing down on him like a stone. The air was thick, stale, tinged with the metallic tang of rust and something older. At the center of the room was the man, gaunt and wiry, his frame little more than a scaffolding of bone. Marek sat under the watch of two hollow-eyed guards who stood as though they’d been carved from the same desolation. Dorian halted, his steps measured, his gaze sharp and wary. The man lifted his head, a slow and sinuous movement that carried no welcome. Marek’s face caught the dim light, and there it was—that smile. A barren thing, as if it had been unearthed rather than formed. His eyes were voids, empty as a drained well, and yet

they held something in their stillness that made Dorian pause. “I’ve always wondered,” Dorian said, his voice low and deliberate, “what it is that men like you live for.” He kept his distance, feet planted just beyond what he reckoned was Marek’s reach. He wasn’t about to test the limits of those chains. Marek’s gaze held on him, unblinking, that desolate smile unwavering, as though it had been stitched into his face. The silence stretched between them, Marek’s stillness more unnerving than movement might have been. It wasn’t something practiced. It wasn’t something deliberate. It simply was. And yet, it worked. It burrowed into the bones of the moment, set the air to trembling. “I’ve read about you,” Dorian said. “Enough to know the kind of man you are. Chaos is your gospel, isn’t it? No law, no order, just the rule of ruin. Selling men, women, children to fight, to die, all for the weight of a few coins in your pocket. And then—” he gestured with a hand that trembled only slightly—“you take those coins, that blood-stained bounty, and you cast it away.” His words hung in the air, brittle and sharp. Marek didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. The emptiness in his expression felt like the answer to a question Dorian hadn’t meant to ask. The guards shifted slightly, their movements skeletal, like wind-blown reeds. The room waited, its shadows deepening, as if it, too, hungered for what Marek might say. “I’ve seen what you’ve left behind,” Dorian began, his voice sharp, cutting through the silence. “Towns emptied. Families sundered. Men turned into beasts for your profit.” He took a step closer, though his boots dragged as if the air around Marek weighed heavy. “And for what? What do you build? What do you leave behind, Marek? Nothing. Nothing but ruin.” Marek sat motionless, his head lowered, the faint rattle of his chains the only acknowledgment of Dorian’s words. His eyes lifted, catching Dorian in their shadowed depths. There was no malice there, no defense. Only a hollow, bottomless stillness, as if the man before him was not a man at all, but the eye of a

storm, vast and unmeasurable. “You sit there,” Dorian continued, his voice rising. “You sit there like none of this matters. But it does. It matters to the people you’ve destroyed. It matters to me.” His fists clenched at his sides, and he leaned closer, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “I’ve read about men like you. You think you’re above reason, above judgment. But you’re not.” Marek blinked slowly, his expression unchanging. Dorian’s words fell into the stillness like stones into a void. “Say something,” Dorian demanded, his voice cracking, as though the silence itself mocked him. Marek moved at last, the faintest of motions—a tilt of his head, a slow exhale. He rose from his seat, the chains dragging against the floor with a metallic hiss. The guards stiffened but did not intervene, their faces pale with the same unease that rippled through Dorian’s chest. Marek stepped forward, closing the space between them. Dorian fought the urge to step back, his heart pounding in his ears. The man before him radiated a calm so absolute it was unbearable, like standing at the edge of a great abyss. Marek raised a hand, slow and deliberate. For a moment, Dorian thought he might strike, and his fingers twitched toward the hilt of his weapon. But Marek did not strike. His hand came to rest on Dorian’s shoulder, light as a breath. The touch sent a jolt through him, not of pain but of something deeper—something unnameable. Then Marek leaned in, his lips brushing Dorian’s cheek in a gesture so sudden and inexplicable it froze him in place. It was not an act of defiance or affection but something far stranger, as if chaos itself had reached out and touched him. The kiss lingered for a breath, then Marek stepped back. His chains clinked faintly as he returned to his seat, his gaze drifting downward once more, as

though Dorian had ceased to exist. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Dorian stumbled back a step, his mind reeling, his skin prickling as if he’d been touched by the infinite. His voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. “You’ll answer for this,” he said, though the words felt hollow even as he spoke them. Marek didn’t move. Didn’t look. Dorian turned and walked away, the kiss searing his skin, a mark he would carry without name or reason.

As they brought her forward, Lysandra held her head high, though every step closer to him felt like the ground might give way beneath her. Dorian stood waiting, his posture stiff and officious, hands clasped behind his back, a ledgerkeeper surveying the day’s losses. His eyes, sharp and assessing, lingered on

her longer than she cared to tolerate, though his face betrayed no emotion beyond the faintest shadow of bitterness. She saw it then—tied to his belt, swinging faintly with his breaths. The pouch. The Sisters’ ashes. A gift entrusted to her, now dangling like some cheap trinket at his side. He did not speak immediately, nor did he step closer. When his voice finally came, it was clipped and careful, as if he were walking the edge of something he refused to name. “It seems,” he said, “you’ve found yourself in quite the predicament.” Her lips tightened, her jaw clenched. “You did this,” she said. “You and your twisted beliefs. You’re a coward. A tyrant.” Something flickered across his face, so faint it might have been imagined—a twitch at the corner of his mouth, a brief tightening of the jaw. He adjusted the hem of his coat, his fingers brushing against the pouch at his side, though whether consciously or not, she couldn’t tell. “I am merely a servant,” he said, the words neat and precise, “of the greater good. A guardian of The Great Weaver’s order. Whatever betrayal you imagine, it was your actions, not mine, that led you here.” She laughed once, bitter and sharp. “Don’t speak to me about righteousness. You’ve no claim to it. You’re a monster, and you know it.” His hands tightened behind his back. He looked away briefly, toward the men standing at the edges of the room, then back to her. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, though no less measured. “Do you know,” he asked, “what the law is beyond The Meadowlands?” She said nothing, her silence heavy with defiance. “Gravity,” he continued, the word hanging in the air. “Men like to think their laws matter. That their scriptures and decrees hold weight. But strip them of their illusions, and what remains? The pull of the world beneath them. The

certainty that, no matter how high they rise, they will always fall.” His voice lowered, barely more than a breath. “Unless they learn to command it.” His eyes gleamed with something dark, something unshaken. “And those who can bend it to their will inherit the power to shape everything else.” Her stomach twisted, her disgust plain on her face. “You’re insane.” The words landed hard, and though he barely moved, something shifted in him. Dorian’s voice was low, his gaze lingering on her face as though searching for something long lost. “We could’ve been something special,” he said. His words carried no heat, no grand declaration—just a simple, bitter truth, dropped like a stone into the silence between them. He didn’t wait for her response. The door closed behind him with a soft click, and the room seemed colder for it.

As the Crawler lurched into motion, it emitted a low, resonant hum, a dissonant note in the land of dissonance. When the traction pads gripped the

terrain, there was a series of soft thuds, like the muffled drumbeats of a distant giant walking across the land. Kael felt it resonate within his chest, a symphony of potential that was both exhilarating and intimidating. The interior of Dorian’s Crawler was a cocoon of alien technology and unfamiliar luxury. Visions of his father’s forge came to him, the heat of the flames, the ring of hammer on anvil. Kael recalled the pride in his father’s eyes, the lessons of resilience and strength. He recalled his mother. Lysandra, confined next to Dorian in the front, was marked by a palpable air of resignation. Her gaze was distant, fixed on a point beyond the Crawler’s armored walls, as if she could will herself away from the oppressive proximity to her husband. There was no fear evident on her face, only a detached indifference, a protective veil she had drawn around herself. Each jolt of the Crawler was met with a slight tightening of her jaw, the only sign of discomfort she permitted herself to show. She turned around and looked back through the cold steel bars at Kael and Marek’s silhouette, both bound by chains across from each other. The Crawler groaned and sighed, a great mechanical animal adapting to the capricious whims of gravity’s invisible hand. Its hum wavered like a prayer to no god in particular, the fluctuating pitch a hymn to friction and weight, the metal guts of the beast alive with unknowable intent. Marek came to with a start, lurching forward against the restraints that bound his wrists behind his back, the cage around his mouth rattling like the punctuation to a bad joke. He blinked hard, once, twice, the dim light casting odd shadows across his face, turning him into a half-carved idol abandoned mid-chisel. His eyes, sharp and glassy, roamed the confines of the cabin, cataloging the alien strangeness of his predicament with a dispassion that could only be called professional. And then they landed on Kael. A moment stretched itself out—too long, too thin, like a rubber band about to snap. The blacksmith squirmed under the gaze, a gaze that did not so much observe as it did insinuate, worming its way into

every fissure of his discomfort. Lysandra’s wrists were raw, her skin worn thin where the chains gnawed like greedy vermin at her bones. She shifted against the metal that enclosed her, the soft rasp of her movement swallowed by the endless, droning hymn of the Crawler. Options? No. There were no options, no doors to kick in, no cunning escape route awaiting discovery—just the slow grind of inevitability. Dorian leaned against the cabin wall, his posture too casual, his voice an instrument tuned to precision. “Lysandra, what is it, exactly, that you hope to achieve, chasing after The Nexus?” She turned her head just enough to let him see the fire behind her eyes. “You already know my answer.” “You think you’ll find a place on Veridian—this godforsaken rock—where you’ll be reunited with your stonefoot?” His tone dripped with condescension, the kind you could bottle and sell to bureaucrats. “His name is Arin.” “Oh, of course. Arin the noble. Arin the martyr. Arin, who you believe is waiting for you somewhere beyond this heap of scrap and slag. Tell me, do you write him letters? Do you sign them ‘Someday, yours’?” Lysandra's lips barely moved as she replied, her words scalpel-sharp. “I must believe in a place where love isn’t shackled by the weight of this world. Where gravity doesn’t break the heart.” Dorian chuckled, a dry, low sound that landed somewhere between amusement and spite. “Hopeless romantic,” he said. “And you’re just hopeless.” That stung, and she could see it in the slight twitch of his jaw, the shadow of something raw that slipped across his face before he buried it again under the veneer of detached superiority. He shifted closer, his eyes narrowing, his voice dipping into that dangerous register of men who have learned how to win battles

with words alone. “Your determination, Lysandra,” he said, “is as admirable as it is ridiculous. Let’s entertain, for a moment, the possibility that The Nexus exists. That there’s a gateway somewhere on this ball of dust to another plane of existence. Even if you find it, have you considered the cost? The toll it might demand of you? Traversing it, reuniting with the dead—it’s not like threading a needle. You’ll bleed. You’ll sacrifice. And for what? A pipe dream? A delusion?” The hum of the Crawler rose in pitch, a mechanical exclamation point to his argument, but Lysandra didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink. Her gaze was fixed on the horizon beyond the cabin’s narrow window, where the dead skies of Veridian stretched out like the waiting arms of some unknowable god. One of the graviturgists leaned forward, his voice cutting through the hum of the Crawler’s engine. “Boss, storm clouds gathering. Looks like tornadoes could be forming up ahead.” Dorian peered through the Crawler’s reinforced viewport. The skies, a tumultuous canvas of darkening swirls, mirrored the chaos of the land below. “Adjust our course. Keep to the edge of the storm’s path, but maintain speed. We can’t afford delays.” The driver nodded, hands deftly adjusting the controls as the Crawler veered, its traction pads gripping the terrain with renewed urgency. The graviturgist’s voice cut through the cabin’s tension. “We’re heading into a real behemoth of a storm.” Kael’s eyes darted from the storm-churned windows to the control deck, the quiet tension of survivalists creeping into every corner of his body. Across from him, Marek sat motionless—no, not motionless. Marek was a slow burn, a predator crouching in the guise of a prisoner. The faint shift of his shoulders, the tightening of his jaw: small movements, yet they bristled with the energy of something coiled too tightly.

Dorian’s men secured the hatches and double-checked the instruments. The Crawler’s interior was bathed in the soft glow of emergency lights, casting long shadows that danced with the vehicle’s movements. Kael, strapped tightly in his seat, hands bound, watched what could be seen of the storm’s approach with a mixture of fear and fascination. The Crawler’s hull groaned under the strain of the intensifying winds. Suddenly, a bright flash of lightning illuminated the landscape, followed by the deep rumble of thunder. The Crawler shuddered as a powerful gust of wind slammed against it, tilting the vehicle precariously before the traction pads regained their grip on the ground. “Steady!” the graviturgist barked, his voice sharp as broken glass against the rising gale. His hands gripped the controls with the desperation of a man clutching the edge of a crumbling cliff, knuckles bone-white and trembling. The Crawler groaned beneath them, its traction pads clawing at the treacherous ground as if scrabbling for purchase in a nightmare. “We’re not going down without a fight!” he shouted, though the words felt like a plea hurled into the void. Another flash, another thunderous roar, and the world outside turned a blinding white. The graviturgist knew the Crawler was now at the mercy of the storm. Lysandra’s senses were assaulted by its ferocity. The wind howled like a beast in agony, a sound so primal and raw that it seemed to resonate with the core of Veridian itself. She could feel the Crawler shake with each thunderous boom. And then, there it was—the tornado. It loomed vast and grotesque, a monstrous gyre stitching dirt to sky, its broad base grinding the soil to pulp, its apex vanishing into the heavens, a needle threading chaos into the firmament. Trees cracked and hurtled upward, debris orbiting in ecstatic submission, the land itself offered up in fragments to the whirling god of entropy. Inside the Crawler, commands shattered the air. Dorian’s voice, sharp as a lash: “Get them out! Secure the doors!” The storm seemed to mock him, its howl

threading through the cabin, tearing words to tatters before they could settle. The guards obeyed. Marek’s buckles were wrenched free with frantic hands, his body hauled forward as though the storm itself had deputized them. The rear doors flung open, and the wind surged in—a predator seizing its chance, a feral, laughing force. The guard at the threshold braced himself, gripping the railing as his boots skidded against the floor. Marek fell first. No resistance. No struggle. Just the easy grace of surrender. He hit the ground, rolling, vanishing, a speck in the storm. Kael fought. His kicks were wild, defiance flailing against inevitability. The guard ducked, unbuckled, and shoved. The wind caught him. He hit the ground. The storm roared. Tornado loomed. It came closer. Closer. Close. Here.

Lysandra's heart twisted sharp in her chest, the kind of pain that leaves no room for breath, as Kael was flung into the maw of the storm. "No!" Her voice, lost in the fury of the wind, was nothing but a thread torn from the fabric of the storm. Her hands, trembling, stretched out across the void, fingers clawing at the emptiness where he had been. The storm answered her with its own cruel indifference, scattering her desperation into the dirt and sky. Dorian sat there, the wind rattling faintly against the reinforced glass, tugging at the edges of his coat as if even the storm longed to unseat him. But he might as well have been carved from the same stone as his heart. “It was necessary,” he said, his words rolling slow, heavy, like stones loosed into her chest. “He chose this path the moment he turned his back on order, on The Weaver's design. This was always how it would end for him.” Her breath hitched, her tears welling up until her vision blurred, the wind cold against the wetness on her face. And still, her hands hung in the air, reaching,

grasping for something she could not name but could never forget. The storm’s fury began its’ Gravilisk-like envelopment of the Crawler. Its powerful tendrils reached out to claim its prey. The wind buffeted the vehicle with relentless force. Rain violently lashed against its metal hull. Lysandra gripped the edge of her seat. The tornado enveloped them in its dark embrace. Lightning crackled, illuminating the swirling chaos. Thunder rumbled ominously. “Divert all power to the shields and traction pads! Anchor the Crawler!” His men scrambled to comply. But it was too late. A sickening lurch. The Crawler was caught. Tossed about in the hands of a wrathful god. Lysandra’s world spun dizzily. The maelstrom’s grip tightened. She prayed. This was all she knew to do.

He found himself wandering through a desolate landscape, where towering monuments of stone rose against the backdrop of a blood-red sky. He walked alone, haunted by whispers of regret and longing, his footsteps echoing

hollowly against the cold, unforgiving soil. Suddenly, he was adrift upon a sea of stars, sailing through the cosmos aboard a vessel of his own creation. The vast expanse stretched out before him, infinite and unknowable, its secrets hidden behind veils of shimmering light. He reached out, yearning to touch the mysteries that lay beyond his grasp, only to find himself pulled inexorably into the depths of the void. And then, amidst the chaos, he saw her—a figure cloaked in shadows, her features obscured by the mists of time. She reached out to him, her hand outstretched in a gesture of forgiveness and redemption. But as he reached back, he found himself unable to bridge the divide that separated them, his fingers slipping through hers like grains of sand.

Her mind clawed its way back, slow and raw, through the fog of half-dreamt dread, the storm’s ruin settling in around her like the weight of a world undone. She lay there, the taste of dust bitter in her mouth, her body pressed into the wreckage’s embrace, her wrists still bound, chains biting deep against bone. The sky above churned on, indifferent.

He was there too, a shadow trapped beneath the broken door of the Crawler, the metal buckled and jagged like the teeth of some ancient, dead beast. She pushed herself upright, limbs protesting every movement, and staggered toward him. The storm’s dying breath still whispering in her ears. When she reached his side, she stood over him, her shadow falling long across his face. Without hesitation, she drove her heel into his ribs, the blow sharp and full of purpose. Dorian jolted awake, coughing as the pain pulled him from unconsciousness. His eyes fluttered open, settling on her with the disoriented gaze of a man dragged back to life against his will. “Look where you have brought us,” he managed, voice thin and rasping. She stared down at him, her jaw tight, her hands trembling from exhaustion and rage. “You have done this to yourself,” she said, her voice low and steady, punctuating her words with another kick to his side. His body jerked under the impact, a groan slipping from his lips. He turned his head to cough, the motion drawing blood to the corners of his mouth, bright against the pallor of his skin. “You will never reach The Nexus,” he said, the words curling up into a weak, venomous smile. “You will never see Arin again.” The name struck her like a blow, the weight of it catching in her throat, but she refused to let him see the wound it left. Instead, she knelt beside him, her face unreadable, her eyes fixed on his with an intensity that made his smirk falter. For a fleeting moment, his gaze softened, a flicker of something tender, almost pleading, passing between them. Her hands shot out, closing around his throat, her grip tightening as his breath hitched. His body convulsed, and he clawed weakly at her arms, his lips parting in a futile gasp for air. For Arin. The thought burned in her mind, but as her hands trembled with the effort, the resolve began to fray. She had never killed, not with her own hands, not like this. The weight of it pressed down on her, unbearable. Her grip faltered, and she released him. Dorian choked and coughed, his chest heaving as he struggled to fill his lungs, the sound raw and desperate.

Lysandra rose, her legs unsteady beneath her. She turned and began to walk away, each step feeling heavier than the last, the pull of the distance between them like the breaking of some unseen thread. “Wait,” Dorian gasped behind her, his voice ragged but laced with urgency. “Lysandra, help me. Don’t leave me like this.” She didn’t stop, her steps crunching against the debris. “Please,” he said, and there it was, the crack in his voice, the sound of something breaking apart. Lysandra paused. She turned back toward him, her face unreadable. His expression shifted, relief washing over his features as she approached. She knelt beside him, her hands moving quickly to his belt. “Thank you, Lysandra,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. She didn’t answer, didn’t meet his gaze. Her fingers found the blade at his side, pulling it free with a deft motion. In one clean cut, she severed the rope holding the Sisters’ ashes. She cradled the small bundle in her hands, then rose without a word. Dorian’s face darkened as realization dawned, the relief twisting into fury. “You’ll never survive!” he shouted after her, his voice ragged, desperate, bitter. “The Nexus is a lie! Just like your love for the stonefoot!” But she didn’t look back. Her steps carried her forward, unyielding, toward whatever lay ahead, the ashes clutched tightly against her chest. Dorian’s cries grew weaker, fading into the howling winds that swept across the land. Lysandra scoured the desert, her eyes scanning the endless expanse of wreckage and sand. The suns blazed overhead, the merciless heat beating down on her, but she pressed on, searching for any sign of Kael among the twisted remnants of the battle. She called out his name, her voice growing hoarse and desperate, but the only response was the mournful howl of the desert wind. Kael was nowhere to be found. The weight of this realization settled heavily on her shoulders. The distant line where the sky kissed Veridian beckoned her forth, so she walked. Alone now, without her guide, without Kael, she walked on.

“Chaos and order collide in a dance of cosmic significance.” - Horace Pine