The city of Tyraxis was alive with motion and sound, its twisting streets painted in sunlit gold and copper. Floating bridges weaved through the air like ribbons, and at its heart stood the Tower of Falling Stars, a structure built not from stone, but from the bones of a long-dead god. Scholars said it was the city's spine; mystics called it a curse barely contained.
But today, it trembled—not from storm, war, or magic.
It trembled from awakening.
Ryve ran through the streets, her cloak flying behind her like a second skin. Her boots clattered on polished white marble, slipping as she crossed the Arcanum Market. Crowds stepped aside as they caught a glimpse of her eyes—iridescent now, swirling like oil upon water—and the glyphs that coiled around her forearms, burning faintly through her sleeves.
She didn't know where she was going. Only that something had woken inside her, and it wanted to move—no, it demanded it.
A pull.
A whisper.
A call.
She ducked into a forgotten alley near the edge of the Auroral District, where the city's skyborne lamps began to flicker. Her breathing came fast, uneven. The markings across her arms pulsed to a rhythm not her own.
That's when she heard the first voice.
("Child of Salt and Spark.")
It wasn't in her ears—it was in her bones.
She staggered back, heart pounding.
A figure stepped from the shadowed wall, not emerging from behind it but seeming to bleed out of it.
Tall. Thin. Face covered by a half-mask of mirrored metal.
("I am The Writ,") it said. ("First witness to the Second Flame.")
Ryve stepped back. ("What do you mean—second—?")
The Writ raised a hand, and the world twisted.
The alley disappeared.
She stood now within a sphere of flame and stars.
Floating above a sea of glass.
Words danced through the air like fireflies—symbols older than language, each one whispering meaning she shouldn't understand, yet did.
("The Rift is a wound,") said The Writ. ("But within its blood sleeps power. The Glyphs are fragments of the first thought—the design before design.")
Ryve's lips parted. ("And I'm one of them?")
("You are chosen by one.")
A flame flared in the distance—green, flickering like wind-warped light.
("Come,") said The Writ. ("Claim it.")
Ryve stepped forward, and the symbols burned brighter.
Meanwhile, halfway across the continent, Haraza stirred from a troubled sleep.
He sat bolt upright, hand reaching instinctively for his blade. Lirien, already awake and sitting by a dying fire, raised an eyebrow.
("Nightmare?")
("No,") Haraza said. ("A Glyph just woke.")
He stood, eyes scanning the horizon though he couldn't see what he felt.
("A girl. In Tyraxis.")
Lirien packed up their camp without needing instruction. ("Then that's where we go.")
Haraza nodded, his jaw set. ("But not alone.")
Two days later, beneath a sky streaked with long ribbons of twilight thunder, Haraza stood at the edge of a ridge overlooking the city of Tyraxis. The wind carried the tang of alchemical smoke and sun-heated copper.
Beside him stood Lirien, ever watchful, and behind them—three new companions.
First was Brannock, a colossal man with hair like stormclouds and a voice as deep as the Earth's bones. A former Warden of the Ebon Range, now exiled for refusing to execute a city that defied the Accord's decree.
Second was Harael, a flame-scarred magus once thought dead. He wore no sigils, no banners—only the longcoat of his fallen order, and eyes that glowed faintly from too many years peering into rift-rifts and shadowminds.
Last was Caela, a rogue Dreambinder from the Moon-Hewn Guilds of Senath. Her gaze always seemed a half-second behind reality, like she watched the world from somewhere sideways.
Each of them had felt it: the call.
Each of them had come for Haraza.
Not for war.
But for purpose.
The group passed through the gates of Tyraxis beneath cloaks and silence.
The city buzzed with unease.
Whispers of a girl with glowing arms. Of alleyways that bent in impossible ways. Of a tower that sang at night, humming tunes no bard had ever dared.
Haraza led them through narrow corridors, tracing lines of energy he alone could feel. The Origin Glyph inside him pulsed with quiet excitement—another was near.
He felt not just power, but... kinship.
Ryve stood within a ruined cathedral, the remnants of a temple long abandoned to the flux of time. The Writ had brought her here, speaking of glyphs and fate, of balances not yet tipped but tipping nonetheless.
She stood before a brazier filled not with fire—but memory.
When she reached out, her hands trembled.
And then—Haraza stepped through the shattered arch.
Their eyes met.
And the world stopped.
Ryve gasped as the Glyphs on her arms flared, and Haraza felt the pull—the recognition between two fragments of a once-whole power.
("I felt you,") she whispered.
("I came for you,") Haraza replied.
The Writ stepped back into the shadows, bowing once before dissolving.
Haraza approached slowly. Ryve didn't move.
("They called me the Thorn,") he said. ("But I'm not meant to stand alone. None of us are.")
Ryve stared at her hands. ("I don't know what I am.")
Haraza smiled softly. ("Then we'll find out together.")
Suddenly—the air split.
A crack in space tore across the ceiling of the temple like a jagged smile. Riftlight poured in, and three figures stepped through—wreathed in pale silver, their eyes hollow, their movements wrong.
("Scribes,") Lirien hissed.
Brannock stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. ("Good. I needed something to break.")
Harael raised his hand and summoned fire that danced like glass shards.
The battle was quick but brutal.
Ryve's glyphs activated without her bidding—slowing time around her, letting her move like flowing ink. She danced through the chaos, frightened but unflinching.
And in the end, they stood among the crumbled ash of the enemy.
Haraza offered her a hand.
("Come with us,") he said.
Ryve nodded.
And the Second Flame joined the Thorn.