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Another death on my conscience. Another price paid for my absence. Narina, with her quick mind and quicker tongue, who once challenged every plan I brought to the table until I couldn’t imagine forming one without her insight.

And with that thought, another rises. Two days before Thornreave, when we received word that Blackhollow had fallen.

My eyes lift, searching out the scorch marks at the corner of one tapestry. Put there by my hand, when in rage over the news, I lay waste to this chamber while I replayed every mistake that led us there.

She’d stood and watched, then stepped in front of me and pressed a hand to my chest.

“You’re no good to anyone if you break,” she’d said, and channeled my frustrations elsewhere.

There was nothing soft about it. Just heat, and breath, and another body close enough to keep me grounded. We never mentioned it afterward. She never used it against me. Just met my eyes the next morning and passed me a map.

Gone, like so many others.

My familiar recoils, withdrawing from pain it cannot stop. Not physical, but the memory presses too deep to defend against.

“How many more?” I need to know. I need to carry the weight of each name.

Varam sighs, and sets down his glass with such delicate care it betrays the tremor in his hand.

“Too many.” His eyes fix on a point beyond my shoulder.

“Tallis fell defending the southern sanctuaries, took six Authority soldiers with him before they cut him down. Nerin and Savril were betrayed by informants in the western territories—hanged side by side while their families were forced to watch. Kelren’s brother, Renth, was captured during an infiltration mission.

They say he lasted sixteen days under questioning.

” His voice drops to a whisper. “The list is long, Sacha. Longer than one night allows.”

The use of my given name rather than my title speaks to the depth of his emotion. Not Shadowvein Lord, the Vareth’el, or Veinwarden commander now, but two men facing what remains of a war we didn’t finish.

“But still, you persisted.”

“What choice did we have?” He shrugs. “Surrender wasn’t an option. Not after what we’d already sacrificed.”

He means me. The cost of my capture. The absence they survived. The belief they chose to keep breathing.

He tops up his glass, then drains it. “The Authority has grown complacent over time. They believe the Veinwardens gone, and assign any attacks to patrols as bandit activity.” His eyes meet mine, and a spark lights deep behind them. “But with you back, we can rebuild. Take back what was ours.”

He leans back, tapping the side of his glass. “Tell me about the woman. She doesn’t belong here. Where does she fit into all this?”

It’s a question I’ve been waiting for, and Varam is the only one brave enough to speak it aloud.

“Her name is Ellie. She responded to my summoning spell. It took the last of what I held before they sealed me away. I thought it failed. But the spell took form. It reached into the darkness, searching for someone who could break me free.”

“And she did this?”

“More than that. She crossed worlds to reach me.”

Varam frowns. “Another world entirely? Not just beyond the Great Divide?”

“A different world, yes. She says she was in a place called Chicago one moment, and in the Sunfire Dunes the next. She opened the tower door when no one here could even see it.”

“Interesting. Maybe the laws that bind us don’t touch someone like her?”

“I believe that’s why the spell found her. And why she may matter to what comes next.”

“Can you trust her?” His question cuts to the heart of his concern, though what lies beneath remains unspoken. Can you afford another vulnerability? Not when the last one cost my freedom.

I could lie. Offer the easy reassurance he wants to hear. But he deserves more than that.

“Her only goal is to return home. She believes helping me might lead to discovering how that can be accomplished.” I turn the glass in my hand, watching how the liquid catches the light.

“She saved me when she had every reason not to. She’s risked her life since arriving here, despite having no stake in our conflict. No knowledge of what we fight for.”

“And will being here help get her home?”

My fingers tighten around the glass.

“Perhaps.” I don’t share my deeper suspicion—that the summoning forged a bond more complicated than I yet understand. “For now, our purposes align.”

Varam nods, accepting my words without argument. “What is our immediate plan? The network has been splintered. Many we once trusted are gone.”

“We rebuild. Beginning with those still loyal to the original cause. Have you sent out messengers?”

“Yes. Those who remain, and are close, will come.”

“Good. We will need them all.” I turn the conversation back to practical matters. “What of the Authority’s presence here in Ravencross? How have you kept this place from detection?”

“For all its growth, Ravencross is still considered a minor outpost. After you fell, the Authority established their main headquarters at Ashenvale. This settlement, like many on the fringes, is monitored but not heavily controlled. They believe Veinwarden activity ended with your death. ”

“Let it rest for now. We’ll speak more about it when the others arrive.” There is nothing more to be gained from making plans this evening.

Varam inclines his head, rests his palms on the table and pushes himself to his feet. He walks to the door, then pauses, looking back.

“I grieved you. Built what I could in your absence. But gods, Sacha, seeing you standing here again …” He exhales, low and rough. “It makes me believe that miracles can happen.”

Then he’s gone.

The door clicks shut behind him. I remain at the table, toying with the glass in my hand.

He still sees the man I used to be.

I’m not sure he’d recognize what’s left.

The Authority won back then. They broke the Veinwardens’ spirit, dismantled what we built, and paraded my supposed corpse as proof of their dominion.

But what they took was more than the war.

They took years I will never reclaim.

Voices I can still hear.

The man I was.

Now they believe their control is absolute. Unassailable.

They will soon learn that they are wrong.

With my freedom, my power, and the shadowblade returned to my hand, I am almost complete.

Magic flows through my veins, already stronger than it was when they captured me.

And they have no idea that I’ve escaped, no idea that I walk free among them.

Which means I have time to gather intelligence and reconnect with networks they believe destroyed.

I’ve had nothing but time to plan their downfall, to imagine every detail of retribution. The thought should bring satisfaction.

Yet revenge alone isn’t enough.

It never was.

This advantage won’t last long. They’ll discover the tower’s collapse, if they haven’t already.

Rumors will spread. Questions will rise.

But by the time they move, it will be too late.

I will have reformed the Veinwardens around the core that remains, sharpened by absence. Stronger for what we’ve lost.

I thought freedom would feel like fire, but it’s quieter than that.

It’s closer to breath returning to lungs that haven’t filled in years. Or standing in a room full of ghosts, and knowing every one of them by name.

I survived, yes. But I don’t know yet what remains of the person I was before my imprisonment.

I drain my glass, and push to my feet. My steps take me across the room to the bedchamber that was once mine … before Thornreave.

The room remains largely as I left it. A bed. A desk with writing materials. Shelves holding personal items preserved like relics. Varam’s loyalty extends even to these small details.

My fingers find the spine of a book I once treasured. It belonged to my mother, who brought it with her when she traveled to Meridian from lands beyond the Great Divide. Poems from her birthplace. A realm she hoped to take me to one day. A hope that ended with the rise of the Authority .

I open it to a page marked with a frayed ribbon, finding lines that once steadied me in moments of doubt. I read them again, but they land differently now. The cadence is familiar, but the comfort has faded.

My raven brushes against the memory, sensing my difficulty in reconnecting with parts of myself I was forced to abandon.

I close the book and return it to its place, then send the raven out, using its eyes to reacquaint myself with Ravencross.

Varam said the Authority’s presence here is limited. I find the outpost, and watch as the patrols rotate. Their routes are clean. Predictable. It functions more as a monitoring station than a true occupation force.

Perfect.

Their overconfidence will be their downfall.

The raven continues its flight. I learn the layout of Ravencross through the shadows, identifying watch patterns, blind spots, unsecured thresholds. Mental notes form in sequence. Sentry timings, structural vulnerabilities, fallback points.

My power threads through the connection, growing steadier with each pass. Shadows stretch farther. Movement responds faster. Each passageway I map becomes part of me again. With each hour spent soaring above the sleeping town, I recover what was taken.

In the next room, Ellie sleeps.

Through shadow, I sense her restless movements, the twisting of limbs tangled in covers, the soft murmur of dreams that hold her captive.

What does she see ?

Visions of her home—this Chicago she speaks of with such longing? Or visions of this one?

For a moment, I'm tempted to extend my awareness further. To taste the edge of her dreams. I could, if I wished to.

But I don’t.

Some boundaries shouldn’t be crossed without invitation.

And yet … my familiar strains toward her without my direction, drawn like a compass finding north. I pull it back sharply, unsettled by its behavior.

There’s something in her presence that disrupts the stillness I’ve learned to live with. The spell I cast was designed to seek resonance. I assumed it would reach someone in this realm. Someone capable of answering my call.

Instead, it found her .

Across worlds. Through barriers no one else has breached.

Was it only the spell? Or something else?

What quality does she possess that allowed her to travel here? And can that same quality be used? Can I tap into it to return her to her world, as she so clearly desires?

I think back to the moments that followed her arrival. How the tower door opened to her touch. How the spell’s reach faltered and failed when she moved close to me. How the binding weakened in her presence.

These are not coincidences.

There’s a pattern here. And I must unravel it, if I’m to understand what role she may play in the future.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, a storm gathering above Ravencross. My magic responds. Darkness deepens throughout the chamber, shadows pulling tight along the walls, drawing inward.

Something about the thunder resonates strangely. It moves through me, not just as sound, but sensation. A pressure I remember. One I haven’t felt since before the tower.

With morning comes the first true test of my return—assembling what remains of the Veinwardens, assessing our resources, and shaping what comes next.

The Authority believes their dominion is unchallenged. They will learn, soon enough, that the Shadowvein Lord has returned. And with me, the reckoning they’ve long believed impossible.