THE GAME THAT HAS ALREADY BEGUN
The meeting had ended, but the words still hung in the air like unextinguished embers. The echo of Sary's voice faded into the mist, as the four of them dispersed with precise movements, like shadows gliding across an invisible chessboard.
Several kilometers away, beyond a forest of twisted trunks and obsidian-black leaves, a solitary figure worked silently. Umbraek, whose name was rarely spoken even among the Saekrim Noxar, moved with a disturbing calm.
The place where he stood seemed more like a forgotten shrine than a workshop. The ceiling was supported by moss-covered pillars, and the light came only from torches embedded in the damp stone walls. The air smelled of hot metal and something else... a dense, ancient aroma that seemed to seep from the very cracks in the floor.
Umbraek, shrouded in a gray cloak that opaqued the light, spread a parchment on the table, so old the ink seemed about to fade. His hands, gloved in black leather, moved with surgical precision as he placed a series of strange objects beside the parchment: fragments of dark glass, bones carved with runes, and a vial containing a red liquid so thick it seemed to move with a life of its own.
"Everything must be ready before the eclipse..." he murmured in a rough voice, almost a whisper that the stone absorbed without returning an echo.
From the shadows in the background, a raven with jet-black plumage descended, perching on a metal stand. Umbraek turned his head slightly toward it, as if he understood every minute movement of his eyes.
"They've already made their pact... even Sary. Just as you predicted."
The raven bowed its head, and although it made no sound, Umbraek barely smiled, a gesture that conveyed not joy, but certainty.
His fingers began to join the objects on the table in a circular pattern. Each piece fit with millimeter precision, as if part of some arcane mechanism. As he placed the last bone, a faint vibration ran through the floor, barely perceptible but enough to make the raven raise its wings uneasily.
Umbraek bent over the parchment and traced with a metal pen a symbol that shone for an instant before vanishing.
"They think the board is theirs," he said, his voice laced with a sinister humor. "But the board... is mine."
A strange sound echoed from the depths of the sanctuary. It was not an echo, nor a roar, nor a thud. It was something else... a slow, deep breathing, coming from somewhere beyond the stone, as if an immense creature slept beneath the ground.
Umbraek held up the vial of red liquid, observing it against the light. The substance seemed to stir, forming eddies that swirled toward the center, as if responding to his gaze.
"Soon, my old friend... soon you will open your eyes."
An icy wind swept through the room, extinguishing one of the torches. The gloom deepened, and Umbraek's face was shrouded in shadows so thick that his features were impossible to discern. Only the red glimmers of the vial remained visible, floating in the darkness like a beating heart.
The raven finally cawed, breaking the silence. Umbraek didn't move, but its voice filled the room once more.
"Keep an eye on Sary. She mustn't know... yet."
The gloom closed in around them, and the deep breathing coming from underground grew a little louder.
While deep within a sanctuary, Umbraek wove his intricate work, the world continued on its course, oblivious to the invisible thread that was beginning to tighten between their destinies.
Lunqirest stood in the floating library of Lysareth, surrounded by circular walls formed by seemingly endless shelves. The light from arcane lanterns fell upon his table, where an open ancient book released a faint scent of aged parchment. He ran his fingers over the symbols engraved on the pages, as if by touching them he could hear the voices of those who had written them.
"I need to figure it out before the south wind season arrives," he muttered to himself, not imagining that the real wind that was approaching would not come from the sky, but from the shadows.
Calezz , on the other hand, trained in the crystalline gardens of Aelvaris. His sword traced silver arcs as he sliced through shapes of air, each blow accompanied by the crisp clang of metal. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but his eyes were fixed on a single goal: perfecting a technique that, he believed, would one day save his life. He didn't notice a small black bird watching him from the nearby branches, motionless, before vanishing as if it had never been there.
Drakmir walked through the markets of Zathor, a city built among suspension bridges and wooden walkways. His dark cloak protected him from the scorching sun as he examined pieces of metal, enchanted stones, and rare herbs.
"Too expensive," he remarked to a merchant, negotiating with the calm of someone who knows time is on his side. In his pocket, an unopened letter weighed more than it should, but he couldn't bring himself to read it.
Sylphra was underwater. Not in a river, not in a lake, but in the submerged ruins of Arvenhaal. Her hair floated like silver silk, and her movements were slow, calculated, as she inspected a mural covered in algae.
"There's something here... something they wanted to hide," he thought, without noticing that in the corner of the wall, a small crack was beginning to emit a faint glow.
Glacius remained in the Kareth Mountains, sitting before a small fire, watching the ice melt in an iron pot. His breath created white wisps in the frigid air. He sought nothing, awaited no one; for him, these days of solitude were a gift. As he sipped hot tea, he didn't notice that in the distance, on the snow, a hooded figure had paused to look at him before vanishing into the blizzard.
Seraphion stood in the Hall of Echoes, tuning an instrument whose strings were made of filaments of light. He played a note, and the vibration traveled through the air like a whisper. "Perfect," he said to himself, closing his eyes and allowing the melody to fill the room. Little did he know that in the outer corridors, the music was being heard by ears that belonged to no human.
Nocthyris descended a dark tunnel in the Forgotten Lands, a torch in one hand and a crumpled map in the other. Her footsteps echoed in the silence, and the walls, covered in strange inscriptions, seemed to follow her. "Two more passages and I'll find the chamber," she told herself. What she didn't know was that the chamber wasn't empty.
Galdor was drinking wine on a stone terrace overlooking the sea. He was dressed in fine fabrics and wore rings on almost every finger. Around him, a group of sailors laughed as he told an exaggerated story about his latest adventure. Between laughs, he didn't notice the fleeting reflection of a raven on the surface of the wine he was holding.
Elaris tended a garden of night-blooming flowers, those that only opened their petals in the moonlight. Her hands were gentle, but her eyes calculated every cut, every pruning. "Beauty also needs discipline," she thought, unaware that among the tallest flowers, a shadow crouched, observing her work with silent interest.
Aevindor crossed a desert mounted on a winged creature. The sand lashed his face, but he maintained his course thanks to a map etched in his memory. He hummed an ancient song to ward off weariness, unaware that on the horizon, something was following him at the same speed as his mount, hidden beneath the curtain of sand.
Gravon worked in an underground forge, shaping a piece of incandescent steel. Each hammer blow made the walls tremble. The heat was stifling, but he didn't stop. Finally, he lifted the piece to inspect it, and for an instant, the reflection in the metal showed a face that wasn't his own.
Pyrran practiced magic in a forest clearing, surrounded by circles etched into the ground. With a flick of his wrist, the air ignited with blue fire. "Faster... stronger," he repeated like a mantra. From among the trees, a pair of golden eyes watched him unblinkingly.
Miranth was traveling by sea, on the deck of a merchant ship. The smell of salt and damp wood surrounded him as he watched the waves crash against the hull. He held a journal in which he wrote without pause, recording routes and thoughts. He didn't notice an enormous shadow pass beneath the ship, too large to belong to any known creature.
Psyrion meditated atop a temple, his legs crossed and his eyes closed. The breeze played with his robes, and each breath seemed to draw in a piece of the sky. He didn't hear the soft creaking of the flagstones behind him, nor the whisper that drifted through the air currents: "It's almost time..."
The world kept breathing. They kept living. None of them suspected that they were already pieces in a game that had begun long before they were born.
The prophecy foretells a war between fragments.