The light from the Second Eclipse had scorched the horizon.
The air shook as if the heavens were screaming.
When the light finally dimmed, the world was wrong.
The stars were gone. The moon was stationary, lodged in the sky at its midpoint, neither full nor broken.
And Riven Kael was no more.
She stood at the very center of the ruins, where the Vein was pulsating faintly under her feet, alive with the residue of divine blood. With every heartbeat, a rumble as of thunder echoed in her ears.
"Riven." she whispered. Her voice cracked. "Where are you?"
No answer. Only the whisper of the wind, and the faint hum of energy that felt almost… conscious.
She dropped to her knees. Her fingers brushed against the surface of the glowing fissure, and instantly a flood of visions filled her mind: temples burning, gods screaming, a man with silver eyes falling into endless darkness.
She gasped and jerkily withdrew her hand.
"He's trapped…" she whispered. "Inside the Vein."
A shadow stirred behind her. "Then you'll have to go after him."
Lyra spun around and there stood Astrael, the Keeper of the Veins, her silver cloak shining as brightly as the night sky. Her eyes shone like galaxies, ancient and mournful.
"You know what that means," Astrael whispered. "Once inside, you could never come out again.
Lyra got up slowly. "If he's still in there, I have no choice."
Astrael's gaze flickered. "You're doing this for love."
Lyra met her eyes. "I'm doing this because the world needs him even if he doesn't believe it yet."
Astrael hesitated, then drew a thin blade of crystal from her robes. "Then take this. It can cut through the Vein's illusions. But beware once you cross, the Vein will reveal truths even gods tried to forget."
Lyra took the blade. "I'm not afraid of the truth."
Astrael smiled faintly. "You should be."
With a last breath, Lyra stepped into the fissure.
The world was dissolving into light.
The fall felt endless.
Colors she'd never seen twisted through the air, silver bleeding into gold, blue into crimson, time folding over itself. When her feet touched the ground, it wasn't ground at all, but a mirrored plain reflecting a thousand versions of her own face.
"Riven?" she called. Her voice echoed endlessly.
Something moved in the distance.
A silhouette, tall and broad-shouldered, walking toward her through the light.
"Riven!" she cried, running forward.
But when he looked up… her heart stopped.
His eyes weren't his anymore. They glowed with twin flames, one silver, one red, and each burning with the same power.
"Lyra," he said softly. "You shouldn't have come."
Her steps faltered. "I had to. You were being consumed—"
"I'm not consumed," he cut in. "I'm complete."
The light around him thickened, shifting into wings vast, divine, one black as the void, the other radiant as dawn. The air bent around him, pulsing with raw power.
Lyra whispered, "No… Riven, fight it. You're not him."
He leaned sideways. "Aren't I? Elarion's heart… Serath's wrath. your love. all pieces of the same flame."
She shook her head furiously. "You're more than what they made you! You're human!"
He drew nearer and the mirrored world undulated.
"Human," he repeated, not quite softly. "Such a fragile word.
Lyra raised Astrael's blade. "If you've truly become Elarion… then I'll finish what I started."
Riven smiled faintly and for a fleeting instant, she saw him again. The man who had laughed beside her in the ruins, who had shielded her from fire, who had whispered her name like a prayer.
"Then do it," he said softly, stepping closer. "Kill me."
Lyra hesitated, tears streaming down her face.
"I can't."
The mirrored world darkened, fracturing under the weight of her words.
Riven reached out, his fingers brushing her cheek.
"You're the only part of me that's still real," he whispered. "But soon even that will fade."
The ground split open beneath them. From the darkness below rose a colossal shadow, Serath, his form no longer flesh, but a swirling storm of molten crimson and black fire.
"You can't stop what's already begun," Serath roared. "The Vein feeds on gods and lovers alike."
Riven turned, his expression calm too calm. "Then let it feed on me."
Before Lyra could stop him, he plunged into the chasm-the divine energy wrapping around him, pulling him deep into the dark.
"RIVEN!" Lyra screamed, diving after him.
Her hand caught his at the last moment, and there was a blinding surge of silver light meeting crimson.
For one heartbeat, time stopped.
She saw every life they'd ever lived, goddess and god, soldier and healer, killer and savior. Every version of them bound by the same curse.
As the world began to collapse around them, Riven leaned into her and whispered:
"Find me again… when the next eclipse rises."
The light shattered.
Lyra awoke on a desolate plain, stars returning to the sky one by one.
The fissure behind her was gone.
The world was whole again, but Riven was nowhere to be found.
Only his sword remained, buried in the ground before her, glowing faintly with both silver and red light.
She sank to her knees, clutching the blade to her chest.
"I'll find you," she whispered through her tears. "Even if I have to break the heavens to do it."
Above her, the moon trembled and for the briefest instant, a faint silver voice echoed on the wind:
"I'll be waiting… Lyra."
The night was too still.
The stars were blinking uncertainly above the silent plains, as if afraid to shine.
Lyra knelt beside Riven's sword for hours or perhaps days; time no longer obeyed her. The blade pulsed faintly with the rhythm of a heartbeat, each pulse whispering fragments of his voice, his breath, his pain.
"Find me again…
Her fingers traced the silver runes along the hilt. "I will," she whispered. "Even if it takes eternity."
A gust of wind swept across the plain, carrying flecks of light that glimmered like falling petals. They gathered before her, swirling into a faint shape figure cloaked in shadow and starlight.
Lyra sprang up at once, conjuring her magic. "Apparite!"
The figure chuckled softly. "Still as fierce as ever, Goddess of Dawn."
Her eyes widened. "Astrael?"
The hooded figure threw back its hood. But it wasn't Astrael.
It was a man: tall, amber fire eyes, and donning the symbol of the Celestial Watchers-the ancient guardians who had vanished along with the fall of the gods.
"I am not Astrael," he said. "I am what remains of her order the Echo Sentinel."
Lyra's hands quivered a little. "Why are you here?"
"To warn you," he said, stepping closer. "You think Riven is lost. But he's not gone — he's rewriting."
Her breath caught. "Rewriting what?"
"The Vein is not just a prison. It is the world's memory. When he leapt into it, his soul fused with its core. Every breath he takes changes reality, every thought reshapes history."
Lyra stared at him, horror dawning on her face. "You mean he could erase everything?"
The Sentinel nodded. "Or rebuild it."
The plain trembled beneath their feet, faint ripples of silver spreading across the horizon. The sky above flickered between night and day, as though the world couldn't decide what time it was anymore.
"He's already changing it," Lyra whispered.
The Sentinel drew a circle in the air with his hand, and visions flared to life within it a storm forming over the capital, the rivers turning into light, mortals waking with divine marks burning into their skin.
"The Eclipse Veins are awakening everywhere," the Sentinel said grimly. "The gods' blood has begun to flow again. Soon, every living being will feel its call."
Lyra's voice shook. "And Riven is the source?"
"He's the heart."
She shook her head. "Then I have to reach him before the power consumes him completely."
The Sentinel's gaze turned dark. "There is one way.
He drew a pendant from around his neck a shard of black glass that pulsed faintly. "This is a fragment of the First Mirror the bridge between what is and what was. You can use it to enter the Vein again… but the cost will be your memories."
Lyra fisted her hands. "If that's the price, I'll pay it."
The Sentinel tilted his head. "Even if it means he may not remember you when you find him?"
Lyra's eyes glistened with tears. "I'd rather be a stranger beside him than a memory that let him fade alone."
For the first time, the Sentinel smiled. "Then take it. But know this when you step through, the Vein will not lead you to him. It will lead you to the moment he's trying to rewrite."
She took the shard carefully; it was cold and heavy, like the silence between heartbeats.
"When the next eclipse rises," she whispered, "I'll follow it."
The Sentinel stepped back, his form fading. "Then may the stars remember you both."
She lifted the shard toward the fractured sky.
It pulsed once and the heavens split open, revealing a storm of color and shadow swirling beyond.
Wind howled, earth cracked, and as she stepped forward, her reflection appeared in the glass: not the mortal, but the goddess she once was-her eyes burning like twin suns, wings of pure dawn unfolding behind her.
"I'm Lyra Vale," she said softly. "And I am not done fighting fate."
She plunged the shard into the air and the world shattered into light.
Meanwhile…
Deep in the Vein, Riven floated in endless darkness.
First, there was silence. Then, gradually, voices rose myriad, old, well known.
You should have stayed mortal.
She will come for you.
Do you even remember her name?
Riven's eyes opened. His body was no longer human. His veins glowed like constellations beneath his skin. In his reflection, he saw not one face but three.
His own.
Elarion's.
And another-a boy's face, one he did not recognize, yet somehow knew.
He reached toward the reflection, his heart pounding.
"Who are you?"
The boy smiled faintly. "The first you ever were."
Riven's hand froze in mid-air. "What.?
And then realization struck him like lightning — the faces, the lives, the dreams. Every incarnation, every soul that had carried the god's spark across time.
The boy's eyes became silver and gold.
"You didn't fall into the Vein, Riven. You became it."
The darkness pulsed violently, and light exploded outward, reconfiguring the void into a vast cathedral of shifting stars.
As Riven stared into the cosmic mirror, a voice not his own, but hers, whispered across endless darkness:
"I'm coming for you."
Riven's heart skipped a beat. His lips curled up in a little, broken smile.
"Then I shall be waiting. Lyra."
And the Vein began to beat like a living heart.
The Vein roared like a living storm.
Colors bled through one another gold into crimson, silver into violet swirling in infinite spirals that formed and shattered entire worlds within seconds.
Lyra felt weightless while drifting through it, the shard of the First Mirror clutched tight in her palm. Each breath she took gave ripples across the current of light around her, peeling away memory upon memory: names, faces, laughter, and pain.
She was forgetting.
Her heartbeat echoed within the vastness.
"Riven…" she whispered, though she could no longer recall what his face looked like.
Something pulsed ahead a faint light at the center of the chaos. She reached toward it instinctively, drawn by something older than memory, something deeper than time.
Meanwhile, deeper still at the core of the Vein Riven was unraveling.
He floated above a sea of mirrored light, each surface showing a different version of the world: one where the gods still ruled, one where Lyra never existed, one where he had never been born.
Every heartbeat warped reality.
Each thought rewrote a memory.
He clenched his fists, trying to focus, but his mind fractured into a thousand different reflections-a thousand selves whispering all at once.
"She's coming."
"You'll destroy her."
"You were meant to end this."
Riven's breath came ragged. "Stop-stop talking!"
But the reflections only grinned, their voices merging as one chorus:
"You are the Vein now. The gods' blood runs through you. There is no world without you and no you without her."
The mirrors cracked, and light burst out in ghostly shapes: memories and dreams, the fragments of his own soul. And at the center of them all… a flicker of silver light.
Lyra.
She tumbled into the mirrored sea, her body shuddering between light and flesh. "Riven!"
He spun, eyes blazing like twin eclipses. "Lyra?"
For a heartbeat, they simply stared real and unreal in equal measure, both standing in a space composed of everything they'd ever been.
Lyra ran toward him, reaching out her hand but just before their fingers met, the Vein convulsed violently.
The whole world screamed.
Every reflection shattered. A blast of searing power exploded from Riven's chest, sending Lyra tumbling backward into nothingness.
"NO!" he roared, reaching out but his power tore through everything it touched.
The Vein did what he said, and it started to break.
The light turned crimson.
The mirrors melted into rivers of divine fire.
Thus, the Vein's heart the world's memory began to die.
She forced herself up, screaming over the roar of collapsing creation. "Riven, listen to me! You're killing everything!"
He grabbed his head, falling to his knees. "I can't stop it every thought-every breath changes something"
Lyra ran to him, her hands pressed against his face. "Then stop thinking like a god. Remember what it was like to be human!"
Her touch seared through him, not pain, but memory.
The smell of rain in the ruins.
The way she laughed as he said her name.
The warmth of her heartbeat against his chest.
For the first time in what felt like eternity, Riven saw her clearly. "Lyra…"
But before he could reach her again, the Vein went into its final spasm and from the void, a new presence rose.
A tall figure cloaked in shadow and molten light.
His eyes burnt with the mark of twin eclipses, identical to Riven's.
The figure smiled faintly. "You thought that destroying the gods ended us? He stepped into the light, and the truth hit like thunder. It was Riven. Another Riven. Or perhaps the first. "I am the original," the double said. "The god before the fall the one you sealed. Riven stumbled back. "That's not possible" "Oh, it is." The other's smile sharpened. "You're only the fragment. The mortal heart she tried to save. But I am what you were meant to become." The Vein pulsed violently between them, splitting reality in two-one side glowing with silver and dawnlight, the other bleeding red and shadow. Lyra's voice cracked. "Two Riven… two Elarions… Power crackled through his form as the double spread his hands. "Only one can survive the rebirth of the world." He looked at her then eyes soft, voice almost kind. "And when I erase him, I'll let you remember. You can love me again, like before the fall." Lyra stepped protectively in front of Riven, her blade of light re-forming in her grasp. "If you want to rewrite the world, you'll have to go through both of us." The god's laughter shook the stars. "So be it." The mirrored sea split down the middle as silver lightning collided with red fire, both Riven and his divine self charging at one another, power crackling through creation. Lyra screamed his name, and the instant their swords met, the whole of Vein burst into blinding light.
When the light faded, only silence did remain. She floated alone in the wreckage of a broken reality, her body weak, her magic flickering. No stars. No sound. No Riven. But clutched in her hand was a fragment of glass-a remnant of the First Mirror, glowing faintly with silver light. Within it, a reflection appeared: Riven's face, faint but smiling. "When the world begins again," his voice whispered, "follow the light of the next eclipse. That's where I'll be." Lyra pressed the glass against her chest as tears spilled down her cheeks. "I'll find you," she whispered. "Across any life… any world." The shard pulsed once and then shattered into starlight. Above her, for the first time in centuries, dawn broke.