The halls of Arvenhall pulsed with new magic—alive, unstable, ancient. Elira stood before the obsidian map room, where the great runes on the floor glowed in shades of violet and silver no one had seen in centuries. The entire empire was shifting, realigning itself in preparation for something no prophecy had dared name.
Across from her stood Idrien, the brother she once believed lost to the winds of time, now returned—older, hardened, but bearing eyes that mirrored hers in intensity and sadness. Between them, an arcane sigil pulsed, opening not just the past, but a fracture in reality itself.
"You said you saw the gate in your visions," Elira said carefully, her fingers brushing the rune of Recollection.
"I didn't just see it," Idrien replied, his voice carrying the weight of another realm. "I walked through it. And I wasn't alone."
Suddenly, the runes on the map cracked and lifted, revealing a circular descent beneath the palace—a vault untouched by any mortal hand. As the chamber opened, a deafening hum rose, and Valeth, the fire phoenix, shrieked from the sky as though sensing something that should not return.
Maelrik descended the spiral steps beside Elira, hand ready on his sword, though even he knew no steel would avail them where they were going.
The vault door—a sphere of woven timeglass and obsidian threads—shivered open. On the other side was not darkness, but a kaleidoscope of realms: oceans in the sky, mountains that breathed, trees whispering forgotten names, cities floating in silence, abandoned by gods.
"This is not just another world," Elira murmured. "It's every lost world. The ones shattered by the Celestial Sundering."
Idrien stepped forward. "We were never told the truth. The Shattering wasn't a war between gods. It was... a sealing. These realms were deemed too dangerous to exist, so they were fractured and exiled. But something survived in them. And it's waking up."
A tremor shook the vault as a wind unlike any earthly gust pushed through—carrying voices. Familiar and not. Dead and unborn.
Behind them, the Celestian mages panicked. "The seal—it's weakening! If that gate stays open, we'll lose the tether to reality!"
But Elira didn't back away. She stepped forward.
"I opened this gate to face what was forgotten. We'll not close it because we're afraid."
Maelrik looked at her. "If we enter... we may not come back."
She smiled faintly. "Then let's make it worth it."
Together, they crossed the threshold. The Gate of the Forgotten Realms closed behind them with a sound like a heartbeat stopping.
And far away—in the shadow of a fallen realm—a figure stirred.
Golden eyes opened in a throne made of silence.
The Voice of the End had awakened.