The cavern was a cathedral of silence—immense and echoless, as though the very stone had long since forgotten the sound of joy. Water trickled from jagged cracks above, a mournful drip that echoed like a ticking clock in a tomb. Moss grew in sullen patches along the walls, their dull green sheen barely catching the faint, trembling light that radiated from above.
Suspended like a twisted chandelier were the cores—dozens of them—spheres of stolen light, each cradled by strands of iron-like webbing. They pulsed faintly, their glow waning and stuttering, as though the souls within were still resisting death, still screaming from inside glass prisons.
Eryk Thorn stood in the center of the chamber, his boots slick with wet stone, his body was frozen. A chill had crept into his bones. Not from the cold, but from the weight of what he saw. The hollow inside him—his curse, his burden—stirred like something waking from a dreamless sleep. He could feel it responding to the raw energy that clung to the air like smoke after a battle. That ache in his chest, that hunger, was no longer just a sensation.
It was a voice.
And it whispered, take.
Above, the cores shimmered like dying stars, throwing jagged, flickering shadows that danced across the stone walls and across Riven's scarred face. The old Spellbreaker stood casually, as though this sacred, desecrated place were merely his study and not a graveyard masquerading as a shrine.
Eryk's throat tightened.
"Y-You took these?" he said, the words trembling past cracked lips. "From the dead?"
Riven tilted his head, his expression unreadable, though something close to amusement twitched at the corner of his mouth. "Would you prefer I took them from the living?"
The question sliced through the quiet like a blade.
Eryk's hands curled into fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms. His body thrummed with the nearness of so much magic. The void inside him pulsed hungrily in response, but his mind rebelled against it.
He imagined the faces behind each core. Mages fallen in battle. Children of fire and wind and water. He saw Mael again reduced to ash when his core flickered out beneath Eryk's touch.
"You're a monster," he breathed.
Riven's laugh was dry and brittle, the sound of something ancient and splintered. "And what does that make you, kid? You've fed. You've felt the rush of stolen power. Don't pretend you're any different."
The words hit like a hammer to his chest. Eryk staggered half a step back, blinking hard against a surge of memory—Mael's fire snuffing out in a final gasp, his father's magic unspooling like silk in his fingers.
"I didn't want to," Eryk said, voice raw, low, and aching.
"No one ever does," Riven said softly. His eyes were fixed on the glowing orbs above. "Not at first."
The silence that followed was oppressive and almost tangible. The cavern seemed to breathe with them—or against them. Every drip of water, every flicker of light from the dying cores, felt louder in that stillness.
Eryk looked at Riven. The stories had spoken of Riven the Spellbreaker, Riven the Traitor, Riven the Vanished. A myth. A ghost. A blade turned against the hand that forged it.
But there was no myth here. Only a man—flesh and scar, bitterness and bone—surrounded by the remnants of the fallen.
"This wasn't what I thought it would be!" Eryk said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"No," Riven replied. "It rarely is."
He walked forward slowly, his boots whispering against stone. He raised a hand and brushed his fingers against one of the cores—one that glowed blue like the sea. The orb flinched under his touch, as if recoiling. Riven's face was unreadable.
"The war was a slaughter," he said. "Mages burning out like stars collapsing. Magic spent faster than it could be taught. Their cores didn't vanish when they died. Not immediately. They lingered. Like embers after a fire."
"So you took them," Eryk said, more firmly now.
"I preserved them." Riven turned to face him fully. "The Council would have let them fade, their magic swallowed back by the earth. But magic is life, kid. And life shouldn't be wasted."
Eryk's gaze darted across the chandelier of souls, and his gut turned.
"You sound like you're justifying grave-robbing."
Riven's smile was cold and almost pitying. "I'm justifying survival."
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Eryk's voice cut through the silence again, sharp with disbelief.
"Elira Vann spared you?"
Riven stilled, a shadow passing over his face.
"She did," he said quietly. "And your father knew."
Something inside Eryk cracked.
"Why?" he demanded. "Why would she—why would he—let you live?"
"Because Elira saw what I could be," Riven said. "Not a man. Not a martyr. A weapon. A failsafe."
"And my father?" Eryk's heart beat was like a thunder now.
"Kael Thorn was given a choice. Help hide my survival, and the Council would elevate him. Refuse... and he'd burn with the rest of us."
Eryk stumbled back a step as if struck. His father—the Firebrand, the Beacon of the North, the Breaker of Gates—was a name etched in stone, sung in battle hymns. But all of it, every word, was born of a bargain.
"You're lying!" Eryk told him. "He wouldn't—he couldn't—"
"I watched him hesitate before," Riven said. "But in the end, he chose you. Your future. His legacy."
"And what does that make me?" Eryk's voice was broke now, fury and grief clashing in his chest like a storm and flame. "A child born of a lie?"
"No," Riven said. "A child born of choice. Just like I was spared, so you could exist. The question is, what do you do with that truth?"
Eryk couldn't breathe.
He felt the edges of his mind fraying and unraveling. The void inside him was no longer quiet. It throbbed now, insistent. The cores above called to it. And it to them.
He had always believed in his father's righteousness. He had clung to it. Now, he saw the truth for what it was: power paid for in silence, in secrets, in sacrifice.
"You're telling me," Eryk said slowly, "that the Thorn name—my family—was bought with silence?"
"Power always is," Riven replied. "Silence. Blood. Lies. Your father paid for your future. Now it's your turn."
Eryk swayed on his feet and his vision was blurred. His hands trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of choice.
And then, quietly, he asked, "What happens now?"
Riven stepped closer. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Now, you choose your price."
The void pulsed harder.
Hungry.
And in that moment, Eryk wondered: Was he hollow because of what he was born as… or because the world had carved him into a vessel?
Then, something cracked.
A faint, delicate sound, like porcelain under pressure. Eryk startled.
The egg.
Tucked beneath his arm, it had begun to tremble. A hairline fracture split down the shell's center, and golden light spilled through, soft and sacred. It pulsed in rhythm with the beat of Eryk's heart or perhaps the dragon's. The light spread out across the cavern floor like a second sunrise.
Riven turned, to it, his eyes were narrowing. "You brought a dragon into my home."
Eryk's arms tightened around the egg instinctively.
"It's hatching!"
"I can see that," Riven murmured. "The question is... why?"
Eryk hesitated. His next words were not calculated.
"Because no one protected me," he said. "And I won't let it die alone."
The light from the egg grew brighter.
Riven stared at him so hard. But something flickered behind the old man's eyes. A memory. Then, to Eryk's surprise, Riven laughed.
Not a bitter laugh. Not cruel. But real.
"You're a fool, Eryk Thorn!" he said. "But maybe that's what this world needs."
Eryk knelt, placing the egg gently on the stone. The crack widened. A claw appeared, tiny and iridescent, followed by the faintest, squeaking sound—like a sigh after a long sleep.
From the dark came life.
And for a moment, even the void fell quiet...