The road from the Jackal's territory was long, silent, and coiled with unseen menace. They moved under the fractured sky, the iron-hued moon above them leering like an ancient god watching from behind a veil of storm. Even in the quiet, the world whispered—the sand, the stone, the wind—they remembered.
And somewhere within that memory, a summons had begun to echo.
Haraza felt it first.
A tug beneath his ribs, like a string being drawn taut. The Verdant Crown pulsed faintly in his pack, but it was not its call he followed now. Something else stirred—a presence buried in the crust of the world, resonating in tandem with the Glyphs already awakened. Not one of them. Not yet. But something close.
("Are we being followed?") Lirien asked during their second night past the dunes. She crouched near the fire, bow in hand, scanning the dark.
("Worse,") Caela murmured. ("We're being expected.")
They camped beside an ancient ley-crossing—once a temple, now only a hollow ring of stone inscribed with runes too weathered to read. Even so, Haraza felt the power dormant in the earth, humming like a sleeping beast.
Harael pressed his palm against the stone and frowned. ("Residual resonance. Someone opened a gate here not long ago. Less than two days.")
("Gate?") Brannock cocked his head. ("Like a Rift?")
("No,") Ryve said. ("A riftborn gate. There's a difference.")
("A terrifying one,") Caela added. ("Rift gates tear. Riftborn gates invade.")
That night, as they all took turns sleeping in staggered shifts, Haraza remained awake. He sat apart from the others, watching the firelight dance along the curved stone. In its flickers, he saw forms—shadows of men with antlered masks, women with hair made of smoke, children with hollow eyes, reaching.
A soft voice broke the silence.
("You see them too, don't you?")
He turned. Caela sat beside him now, legs folded beneath her like a patient spirit.
("They're echoes,") Haraza said. ("Or warnings.")
("They're welcomes,") she replied, voice distant. ("This place is ancient. Older than kings. It remembers when the world was a single breath.")
Haraza's brow furrowed. ("Why do I feel like I've been here before?")
Caela tilted her head. ("Because a part of you has.")
He turned sharply. ("What do you mean?")
She didn't answer at first. Instead, she reached into the shadows and pulled something from thin air—a thread of violet silk, floating like smoke. It wound itself around her wrist before vanishing again.
("There are things you don't know about yourself, Haraza,") she said. ("Things even the Glyphs are wary of.")
("Like what?")
("The world chose you. The Rift didn't make that choice. It simply... delivered you.")
His heart beat faster. ("And what chose me?")
Caela smiled faintly, and for a moment, her eyes were not entirely human.
("You'll meet it soon.")
They journeyed north toward the mountains of Vennahl, where the sky split in permanent crimson and the soil glowed with veins of sleeping flame. It was said that somewhere within the chasm-riddled highlands lay the remnants of the Accord—the first group of glyphbearers who had tried to seal the Rift and failed.
Legends claimed one of them still lived.
Others said the Accord had become part of the Rift itself.
Either way, Haraza had no choice but to seek them out. If the Twelve Glyphs were to be awakened, he would need what they left behind—glyph codices, alignment scrolls, bindings forged in the heart of collapse.
But when they reached the edge of the Vennahl range, they found something else entirely.
Smoke.
A village lay in ruin—burnt husks of houses still smoldering, the air thick with ash and old screams. Glyphmarks were etched into the scorched stone, not in reverence—but in fury.
Haraza walked into the ruins slowly, the others following with weapons ready.
("No bodies,") Brannock muttered. ("That's never a good sign.")
("Worse,") Harael said, kneeling beside a blackened glyphstone. ("These weren't killed. They were taken.")
Ryve ran a hand along a warped doorframe. ("Taken by what?")
A low sound, barely audible, tickled Haraza's hearing.
He turned, then knelt beside a pile of collapsed beams. Beneath them, a faint glow.
("Here!") he shouted, ripping the wood aside.
There, barely conscious, was a man wrapped in crimson-threaded robes. His face was burnt on one side, his eyes clouded—but still alive.
Caela pressed her hand to his chest, whispering in an old tongue. His breathing steadied.
Haraza leaned in. ("Who did this?")
The man coughed. Blood stained his lips.
("They... they wore your face...")
("What?")
("They said the Thorn comes, and they must cleanse the path... before you arrive.")
Haraza's breath caught.
("Where did they go?")
The man pointed, trembling, toward the heart of the mountain. ("The Hall... the Accord... it calls to them now...")
Then he stilled.
Haraza lowered the man gently to the earth and stood, face set.
("They're ahead of us.")
("Who?") Ryve asked.
He looked toward the mountains.
("Whoever's been watching. Whoever's been waiting.")
Caela's voice was almost a whisper. ("Then we must arrive before they finish what they've started.")
They climbed for days, the terrain turning treacherous, steep with shale and whispering winds. The further they ascended, the stranger the world became.
Rocks that bled when cracked.
Trees that spoke only when no one listened.
Stars that moved behind clouds.
It was a place where reason bent.
And at last, they reached it: The Hall of the Accord.
Hidden behind a waterfall that flowed upward, the Hall was carved into the living mountain—a grand cathedral of stone and crystal, with twelve thrones arranged in a circle beneath a ceiling made of skyglass.
The air inside was wrong.
Heavy.
Watched.
Each throne was empty.
Except one.
A figure sat upon the final seat, unmoving, face covered by a porcelain mask half-broken and burned.
He rose slowly as they entered.
("You are late,") he said, his voice like gravel scraped against old guilt.
Haraza's heart pounded.
("Who are you?")
The figure stepped forward, cloak billowing behind him like smoke.
("I am the last of the Accord,") he said. ("And I have been waiting a thousand years for you, Haraza Genso.")