It was Nora. The same woman who had led him to betray his people, who had killed Faaron with a poisoned blade. Yet something was different about her now. Her movements were more fluid, her posture more commanding, and her eyes—those golden eyes that had once fascinated him—now seemed to contain depths of ancient malice.
"You," Ithor breathed, his hand moving to the curved blade at his belt.
"Not quite," the woman replied, her voice carrying strange harmonics that Nora's never had. "Nora was merely a vessel—one of many I employ when direct intervention is required. You may call me the Lady of Shadows, though that name is also merely a convenience."
The revelation struck Ithor like a physical blow. The woman who had manipulated him, who had destroyed his life and killed his bonded brother, had herself been a puppet for something far more sinister. The true architect of his downfall stood before him now, wearing Nora's face like a mask.
"Why?" he demanded, grief and rage warring within him. "Why target me? Why kill Faaron?"
"Because of what you are becoming at this very moment," she replied with unsettling calm. "The Broken Bond. A necessary component in the cycle's progression—or its disruption, depending on one's perspective."
She gestured to the crystal he had been about to remove. "That was placed to test you, not to harm the Bearer. I needed to confirm that you could sense the corruption—that your broken bond has developed the sensitivity I designed it to have."
"You... designed it?" Ithor's voice was barely a whisper as the implications sank in.
"The poison on that blade was very specific," the Lady explained, circling him slowly. "It didn't just kill your wolf—it created a particular type of spiritual wound, one that would never fully heal but instead transform into something new. A receptor for void energy, a detector of corruption. A tool, Ithor, that I have been crafting for a very specific purpose."
The casual cruelty of her admission left him momentarily speechless. His entire existence since Faaron's death—the pain, the exile, the quest for redemption—had been engineered by this being as part of some larger scheme.
"And now," she continued, "you have a choice to make. Join me willingly, and I can ease the pain you've carried all these months. I can even offer you something no one else can—a reunion with your wolf brother, after a fashion."
She extended her hand, and within her palm materialized a small orb of swirling darkness. Within it, Ithor could see—or perhaps sense—a familiar presence. Faaron's essence, captured and preserved at the moment of death.
"His spirit never fully departed," the Lady explained. "The poison ensured that. I have kept this fragment safe, waiting for the right moment to offer it back to you."
The temptation was overwhelming. To feel Faaron's presence again, to heal the void that had haunted him since that night in the forest—it was everything he had dreamed of. But even as he considered reaching for the orb, a warning echoed in his mind—not a voice, but a feeling, a protective instinct that he recognized as Faaron's influence.
"No," Ithor said, stepping back. "Whatever you've done, whatever you're planning—I want no part of it."
The Lady's expression hardened. "You misunderstand. This isn't an invitation; it's a courtesy. You will serve my purpose either way. The only question is whether you do so with understanding or in ignorance."
She closed her hand, the orb vanishing. "The Bearer approaches. With him comes the Word. The three components of the prophecy will converge here, tonight. What happens next has been written for millennia—though perhaps not in the way the Dome intended."
Before Ithor could respond, a commotion erupted at the village entrance—shouts of alarm, the clash of weapons, flashes of magical energy illuminating the darkening sky.
The Bearer's party had arrived, and they were under attack.
The Lady smiled coldly. "Right on schedule. My agents will keep the Bearer's protectors occupied while you and I conclude our business."
She raised her hand, and the black crystal Ithor had been attempting to remove suddenly activated, pulsing with corrupt energy. The effect was immediate—a wave of anti-magic that created a bubble of dead space around them, cutting off any potential interference.
Within this bubble, Ithor felt the strange awareness that had developed since his bond was broken suddenly intensify. Rather than being suppressed by the Dead Zone as normal magic would be, his sensitivity to corruption seemed to sharpen, allowing him to perceive the Lady's true nature with horrifying clarity.
She was not merely a powerful mage or even an ancient being—she was something fundamentally different from any creature of Inhevaen. Her presence in this reality was like a splinter embedded in flesh—a foreign object that the body of the world was trying to reject. The form he saw was merely a projection, a fraction of her true self reaching through from somewhere beyond the Dome.
"What are you?" he whispered, backing away.
"I am what existed before the Dome," she replied. "What will remain when it falls. I am the correction to an imbalance created long ago, when them decided to seal this reality away from the greater whole."
She advanced on him, her form shifting subtly, becoming less human with each step.
"Your role has always been to serve as a conduit—a bridge between the corruption I've seeded throughout Inhevaen and the Bearer who can either strengthen or shatter the Dome. Through your broken bond, my influence can reach him directly."
Ithor continued retreating until his back pressed against the wall of a building. There was nowhere left to run. The Lady reached for him, her fingers elongating into shadowy tendrils that sought to penetrate the wound in his spirit where Faaron had been torn away.
In that moment of absolute crisis, something unexpected happened. The void within Ithor—the empty space left by his broken bond—suddenly filled with a familiar presence.