Ash'Var still burned in echoes. Across the obsidian plains, the demons whispered of the Nine — of Veyr, the Silent Herald… and who might come next.
In the deepest chamber beneath the Citadel — a place known only as the Well of Chains — Shadow stood alone. Before him: a sealed gate, carved with runes so old that even time had forgotten their meaning.
He did not knock.
He bled.
With a single strike across his palm, his blood dripped onto the stone. The runes flared — not golden, not red — but black, like dying stars. The gate screamed as it opened.
From within, she stepped out.
Tall. Armored. Burning.
She wore no crown, yet the air bowed before her.
Eyes like molten gold pierced the room, and her voice cut like a blade long kept in fire.
"So," she said, "you've come to free me. Or to die trying."
Shadow didn't flinch.
His voice was steel:
"You swore an oath. And I've come to collect it."
She smiled — cruel, sharp, and full of old scars.
"I swore it to a king who betrayed me."
"You're no king."
Shadow stepped forward, closer to her fire, to her fury.
"Good," he said. "I burn thrones. I don't sit on them."
A silence.
Then, slowly, she knelt.
Not in surrender — but in recognition.
"Then let the world fear me again," she whispered.
"Let them remember the name… Sa'Karrah."
The chains around her snapped like brittle glass.
Sa'Karrah, the Crimson Oath.
Fallen Queen of the Wrathborne.
The Fire That Was Never Extinguished.
Shadow placed his hand on her shoulder — and it burned, but he did not pull away.
"Second of the Nine," he said.
"Your war is not over."
She rose beside him, and the flames surged behind her like wings.
"Then let the heavens tremble. I will make the stars bleed."
Together, they walked through the gate, now shattered.
And far above, the sky over Hell cracked.
The Nine were awakening.
And their shadows were no longer bound to the past.
Deep beneath the charred forests of the Forgotten Expanse, beyond the rivers of boiling glass, there is a place that even the demons do not name. A place where laughter echoes, but no joy lives.
They say the Third of the Nine was buried there.
Not imprisoned.
Not exiled.
Just… left. Because even Hell was afraid to keep him close.
Shadow and Sa'Karrah stood at the edge of this cursed ground. The trees around them were twisted into grotesque shapes — like screaming faces frozen in time. The wind laughed, softly. Then louder. Then wrong.
Sa'Karrah narrowed her eyes.
"You're certain he's still here?"
Shadow nodded once.
"I don't think he ever left."
They stepped forward together, and the world shivered.
At the center of the clearing stood a mirror. Tall. Fractured. Bleeding shadows from its cracks. Carved at its base: a single name, scratched over and over in hundreds of different tongues — all meaning one thing:
Velren. The Laughing Silence.
A voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere.
"I felt you coming… King of Ash. Queen of Rage. How boring your titles sound."
From the mirror, a boy stepped out.
Or what looked like a boy.
His skin was pale porcelain, his eyes too wide — too still. He wore a child's cloak, but his shadow stretched across the entire forest, shifting shapes like a flickering nightmare.
He smiled.
"Do you want me to kneel too?"
Sa'Karrah summoned flame to her fists, tense.
"He's dangerous."
"He's mad," Shadow corrected. "But he remembers."
Velren giggled.
"Oh, I do! I remember the screaming. The day the Ninth died. I remember the scent of your mother's blood. You smell just like her, you know."
Shadow didn't blink.
"You are the Third. The next to rise. Will you stand with us?"
Velren tilted his head. The world bent with it.
"Only if you let me watch it all burn again. But slower this time. Slower… funnier."
A silence.
Then Shadow nodded.
"Then laugh with me. Or laugh at me. But never against me."
Velren bowed with a flourish, grinning ear to ear.
"Then the Third laughs once more."
And far beyond the trees, the sky cracked again. A third echo joined the storm.
The Nine were not a legend.
They were returning.
One by one.
And the world had no idea what was coming.