The night at the Iron Divide was thick with an unnatural stillness, the kind of quiet that precedes a mountain collapse. Duke Ashbourne and Sir Eryndor stood at the very epicenter of where Riven disappeared, where the grass had never quite grown back. Eryndor's hands were already glowing with the fractured, prismatic light of his Gift, the air around his fingers warping like glass held over a flame.
"It's a delicate stitch, Your Grace," Eryndor whispered, his brow beaded with cold sweat. "If I pull too hard on the fabric of this reality without a clear anchor, we won't just find a door to another dimension; we might become part of the void itself. I can't do this unless there's resonance. I need to feel the trail his majesty described."
"The children are the anchor," Ashbourne urged, his eyes fixed on the empty air where his son had last stood. "Follow the vibration of their essence through the nightmares. It's the only map we have left. If the black mist left a scar on their minds, it left a scar on this dimension. Use them, Eryndor."
Eryndor closed his eyes, his power surging until the air tore with a sound like wet silk being ripped in two. A sliver of absolute darkness—blacker than any night—appeared. It wasn't just a hole; it was a vacuum, cold and hungry, smelling of ozone and ancient stones.
Simultaneously, miles away in the silent heart of the Imperial Residence, Vaelorian sat on the edge of his daughter's bed. Aaliyah-Lavelle looked so small beneath the heavy pink blankets, her dark hair fanned out like a shadow against the white silk. He took her tiny, trembling hands in his, grounding himself as the palace hummed with the distant, frantic energy of Sir Eryndor's experiment.
"Liyah, listen to the sound of my voice," Vaelorian whispered, his tone a soothing balm against her rising anxiety. "We aren't going to run from the bad dreams tonight, okay? We're going to walk into it together, and I'll try to understand what it means. I need you to show me what you're seeing, my love."
Aaliyah-Lavelle whimpered, her eyes fluttering as she began to slip into that familiar, terrifying trance. "It's cold, Father. It's so cold and dark. The shadow...it has eyes. It's looking for only us. It doesn't want you to see it. I'm scared."
"I know, my love. I'm right here," Vaelorian promised, leaning his forehead against hers, closing his eyes to shut out the physical world. "I'm right here. I will protect you. Nothing can hurt you as long as I'm here, okay? Show me, little star. Let me in." He opened his mind to her and instead of trying to seize her powers, he tried to harmonize with it, letting his consciousness slip into the slipstream of her nightmares, using his own will to stabilize her chaotic mind.
The world around Vaelorian dissolved instantly. He wasn't in the nursery anymore. He was standing in a field of grey ash under a sky that had no stars, only a swirling, black vortex. The black mist was there, coiled like a living creature, guarding something in the center of the wasteland.
"Papa!" Aaliyah-Lavelle's voice echoed in the void, sounding both like his six years old daughter and ancient being at the same time.
Suddenly, the mist parted for a heartbeat. Vaelorian saw him. Riven. He wasn't moving; he was standing in the center of a towering crystalline cage, his eyes closed, his face etched with a look of intense, focused appearance. He looked exactly as he had six years ago, untouched by time, but he was surrounded by a shimmering field that pulsed with a sickly black light—the same frequency as the loyalist forces at the Iron Divide.
"Riven!" Vaelorian screamed, his heart leaping into his throat. He lunged forward, his hand outstretched to touch the cage but in that same moment, at the Iron Divide, Eryndor's tear in reality flared with a blinding white light.
"I see it!" Eryndor shouted to Duke Ashbourne, his voice strained to the breaking point. "There's a signature! It's not a natural dimension—it's a pocket! A prison! But someone is holding the tether from the other side... someone is feeding it! I can't get in "
A voice, cold and distorted, hissed through the breach, vibrating in both the nursery and the grey void. "The bloodline is the key. The Consort is the lock. You are not welcome here."
The mist in the void surged, a violent wave of darkness that slammed into Vaelorian's psychic projection. He was thrown backward through the grey ash, the connection snapping with a physical jolt that sent him reeling across the nursery floor in the real world, knocking over a heavy chair.
Vaelorian gasped for air, his heart hammering against his ribs as if trying to escape his chest. Aaliyah-Lavelle sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes glowing with a faint, residual black and white light. She wasn't crying anymore. She looked at her father with a chilling, needle-sharp gaze that belonged to a much older soul.
"He's fighting, Father," she said, her voice steady and hauntingly calm. "Papa is fighting the shadows. He heard you calling out to him. He told me to tell you... 'The key is with you.'"
At the Iron Divide, the tear collapsed with a thunderous clap, throwing Duke Ashbourne and Sir Eryndor to the hard ground. Eryndor's hands were scorched, smoke rising from his fingertips, but he looked up at the Duke with wide, terrified eyes.
"It wasn't a simple attack, Your Grace," Eryndor panted, clutching his burnt hands. "The energy signature at the core of that pocket... it wasn't foreign. It was familiar. The black mist wasn't sent from the outside. It was called from inside the Empire."
Vaelorian stood up slowly in the nursery, his silver eyes cold enough to freeze the air. The truth was far worse than an abduction; it was a betrayal. "The key is with you," he whispered, the words testing rustic in his mouth. "Whoever took Riven, didn't come from some unknown world. They're here, and they've been hiding him right under my feet for six years."