The clang of metal rang through Gaija’s tower like a struck bell. Rivian stood in the forge room, stripped to his tunic and drenched in sweat, arms aching from repeated strikes against the glowing ingot on the anvil. The air shimmered with heat. Firelight danced on the curved stone walls, casting warping shadows that seemed to watch him work.

  “You hit like a farmer,” Gaija muttered from behind him, puffing on his pipe as he leaned against the doorway, arms crossed.

  Rivian didn’t stop. He struck the metal again, harder this time. Sparks scattered upward. “That’s an insult to farmers.”

  Gaija huffed. “Fair point. Most farmers don’t look that miserable while doing something useful.”

  The metal began to glow white-hot. Rivian lifted it with tongs and slid it into the basin of rune-water. A loud hiss filled the room, steam coiling up like smoke from a dragon’s nostrils. He wiped his brow with his sleeve, breathing heavily.

  “How many times do I have to repeat this process?” Rivian asked.

  “As many as it takes until that blade becomes part of you,” Gaija said. “You don’t forge a sword like you did in your old world. Here in Sarinia, you’re not just shaping metal—you’re binding memory, mana, and intention into it.”

  Rivian looked at the half-formed blade, now dull and cold in the water. “What does that even mean?”

  Gaija walked forward and tapped the ingot with the end of his pipe. “It means the blade won’t be worth a damn if it doesn’t know who its wielder is. So ask yourself—who are you now?”

  The question sank deep. Rivian didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t want to—but because he didn’t know. Not yet.

  #####

  The next week passed in a blur of heat, pain, and learning.

  Leonora stayed near, often helping with exercises when Gaija vanished into his strange library. She drilled Rivian in desert survival—how to find water in cracked canyon walls, how to spot a Sandshade before it leapt, how to move across the dunes like the locals did: with silence and grace, not brute force.

  At night, they sat by the firepit outside the tower, where the canyon wind sang eerie lullabies. Lavinia would join sometimes, sitting on the edge and plucking a stringed instrument that made a haunting sound, like wind through chimes.

  “So what was your kingdom like?” she asked one night, her voice curious and soft.

  Rivian hesitated. “Cold in the north, green in the south. Castles older than time. The kind of place where people lived and died for things like pride, legacy, and bloodlines.”

  “Sounds exhausting,” Leonora muttered, sipping her drink.

  “It was,” he admitted. “But it was home.”

  Leonora didn’t speak for a moment. Then she said, “Home isn’t always where you started. Sometimes it’s where you stop running.”

  #####

  On the twelfth day, Gaija gave Rivian his first spellbook.

  It wasn’t what he expected. The cover was simple cloth, bound with twine, and the pages were made of bark rather than paper. No glowing sigils or ominous inscriptions.

  “You don’t need fireworks,” Gaija said as Rivian flipped through the pages. “You need control.”

  The spells were foundational—light manipulation, mana focusing, simple barriers. But Rivian soon realized how difficult even the smallest incantation was. Magic in Sarinia wasn’t something you willed with emotion. It required precision. It was like tuning an instrument to the exact frequency of your soul.

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  One evening, frustrated with a failed incantation, Rivian stormed out into the canyon and let out a shout.

  The ground trembled beneath his feet.

  He froze.

  Then, from a crack in the rocks, a figure emerged.

  It was shaped like a man but made of obsidian. Its face was smooth, blank, save for two burning red eyes. It moved slowly, deliberately, dragging a jagged blade behind it that sparked as it scraped the stone.

  Rivian instinctively raised his hand. “Stay back—”

  The creature lunged.

  Rivian barely rolled aside. The blade carved into the earth where he’d stood. He scrambled up, heart pounding, and reached for mana—not with desperation this time, but with intent.

  “Lux… Ignis!”

  A flash of golden light burst from his palm, blinding the creature momentarily. It staggered, clawing at its face. Rivian didn’t hesitate. He focused again, summoned light to his hands, and threw it like a lance.

  The spell struck the creature’s chest. It roared, the sound like grinding stone, before it collapsed into shards of dark crystal.

  Leonora and Gaija arrived moments later, weapons drawn.

  “What the hell was that?” Leonora asked, kneeling by the shattered pieces.

  Gaija scowled. “A shadeborn. Not natural to this realm. They don’t come uninvited.”

  “They were watching me,” Rivian said, still breathless. “I think… they’re looking for something.”

  Gaija lit his pipe again, slower this time. “No, Rivian. They were looking for someone.”

  #####

  The next morning, the storm had crept closer to the horizon. Black clouds swirled like ink in water. Red pulses glowed within, distant but growing.

  Leonora stared at it for a long time. “It’s accelerating.”

  Rivian stood beside her, freshly bandaged from the night before. “What happens if it reaches Varn?”

  “It won’t,” she said flatly. “Because we’ll meet it halfway.”

  He nodded, jaw set. “I’m ready.”

  “No,” Gaija interrupted, approaching from behind. “You’re not. But you’re ready enough.”

  He handed Rivian a bundle wrapped in black cloth. Rivian unwrapped it slowly—and his breath caught.

  The sword was unlike any he’d wielded. It was slender and curved, with veins of glowing gold running through the steel like lightning frozen mid-strike. The hilt was wrapped in blue leather, and the pommel bore a single crystal, humming with mana.

  “It’s bound to you,” Gaija said. “Call its name.”

  Rivian closed his eyes. He let his hand rest on the blade. He thought of Sylon, of Valebringer. Of the old weight. Then he thought of this place, of Leonora and Lavinia, of light magic and second chances.

  When he opened his eyes, he whispered, “Luxvain.”

  The blade flashed, resonating.

  Leonora raised an eyebrow. “Fancy.”

  Rivian sheathed the sword. “We leave at dawn?”

  Leonora nodded. “Pack light.”

  #####

  Their journey took them through the dry veins of the Varnic Dunes, across landscapes that looked like cracked skin or shattered glass. They slept in outposts manned by sandwardens and old soldiers who told stories of disappearing caravans and strange whispers on the wind.

  On the fourth night, they found one of the lost caravans.

  It had been torn apart. Wagons crushed, supplies scattered. There were no bodies—just trails that ended abruptly, as if the earth had swallowed the people whole.

  Rivian found a child’s toy half-buried in the sand. A small brass bird with wings that spun in the breeze. He handed it silently to Leonora, who said nothing, just slipped it into her pack.

  “This storm,” she said later, “it isn’t just weather. It’s something more. Something ancient.”

  “You sound like Gaija.”

  “Gaija’s not wrong.”

  They kept walking.

  The storm hit them on the edge of the Black Hollow, a canyon said to have no bottom.

  It didn’t arrive like a wall. It arrived like a sigh—a sudden stillness, followed by a flicker of red light across the sky. Then came the wind. Not strong, but full of whispers. Thousands of voices, indistinct but pleading.

  “Don’t listen to them,” Leonora shouted over the gale. “They’ll burrow into your mind!”

  Shapes moved in the storm—too quick to see clearly, but close enough to feel. One brushed past Rivian, and a memory erupted in his mind—Aerion, standing on the battlefield, smiling as he drove the blade in.

  He staggered, shaking his head.

  “Focus!” Leonora shouted. “Your light!”

  Rivian reached inward. He didn’t push away the memory—he embraced it. It was pain. It was failure. But it was his.

  He raised Luxvain, and light exploded outward.

  The storm recoiled.

  Leonora drew her own blade, etched with violet runes, and cut through the shadows that clawed at her legs. “They don’t like pure mana,” she said. “Good. Let’s give them more to hate.”

  Together, they fought their way to the heart of the storm. At its center stood a figure, cloaked in rags, face hidden beneath a mask made of bone and obsidian.

  “You do not belong here,” the figure hissed, voice like shattered glass.

  “Neither do you,” Rivian replied, stepping forward.

  The figure raised a hand—and the ground cracked open.

  From the fissure rose a creature of shadow and flame. Eyes like lanterns. Claws like spears.

  Leonora cursed. “A shardbeast. That’s not supposed to be here?"