The night air was thick with tension, the once lively hum of Sundermere now swallowed by an unnatural silence. The lanterns that lined the streets flickered erratically, their flames dancing as if caught in an unseen draft. The world felt wrong, like the very air had been tainted by something unseen.
I walked past the village gates, my boots crunching against the dirt path as I made my way into the open plains beyond. The golden fields that had once seemed so vast and endless now felt like a void stretching into the abyss.
The Merewyn River lay behind me, its gentle waters now eerily still—as if even the river itself dared not make a sound tonight.
I stopped beneath a lone, gnarled tree standing against the wind, its twisted branches reaching skyward like skeletal hands clawing at the heavens. The moon hung high, bathing the land in a pale glow, but it did little to banish the weight pressing down on my chest.
I exhaled, my breath visible in the night air.
"You're a fool."
Veylara's voice curled around me like a phantom whisper, her tone sharper than usual. She manifested beside me, her veiled form shifting as if she were caught between worlds, the silver-lined fabric of her presence moving with an unnatural grace.
"You think this is justice? You think you can fight something like this on your own?"
I clenched my fists. "If it's after me, then I end it here. I don't need to drag them into this."
She scoffed, stepping closer, her golden eyes gleaming with a dangerous intensity. "You have no idea what you're dealing with."
I turned my gaze to the horizon, watching the endless darkness stretch before me. "Then why don't you tell me?"
She was silent for a moment, and then she whispered, "Because some things are better left unknown."
I exhaled slowly, my fingers twitching, the grip of my light blade forming at the edges of my thoughts. "Is this because of the vampire king? Did I disrupt some kind of balance when I killed him?"
"Perhaps." Veylara's voice was unreadable. "Or perhaps something much older has simply taken notice of you."
A shiver crawled down my spine, but I refused to let it settle.
"Either way, it's coming," I muttered.
Veylara circled me, her veils billowing in the unseen wind. "You can still turn back, Noctis." Her voice softened. "You can go back to that warm bed with your little cleric and pretend none of this is happening."
I said nothing.
She sighed, her form flickering for a moment. "Fool."
A sudden shift in the air.
The wind stilled. The reeds no longer swayed. The sound of the world seemed to die all at once.
I felt it before I saw it.
Something was here.
The darkness beyond the plains seemed to bend, the horizon distorting—no, warping. The air grew thick, heavy, oppressive. My breathing slowed as a primal wrongness filled the space around me.
Then—
The first footstep.
Slow.
Deliberate.
A crack in the silence.
I turned my head slightly, my body tensing.
There, standing at the edge of the shifting dark, was a figure.
Tall. Unmoving.
It did not breathe. It did not waver.
And though it had no eyes, I knew—
It was looking at me.
A ripple of something ancient, something raw, passed through the air between us.
My grip tightened around the forming light blade.
Veylara's voice, low and deathly still. "You should run."
I ignored her.
Instead, I stepped forward.
The world felt like it had shrunk down to the space between me and the figure at the edge of the darkness. The weight of its presence pressed against my skin, thick and suffocating, like the very air had turned to iron. My heartbeat slowed, my breath shallow, every instinct in my body screaming at me to turn back—to run.
But I didn't.
Instead, I took another step forward, the glow of my light blade flaring to life in my grip.
"You're making a mistake," Veylara whispered, her tone now unreadable. Not mocking, not cruel—just quiet.
I ignored her.
The figure at the edge of the dark finally moved.
Not a step forward—no, something much worse.
It tilted its head.
The motion was unnatural, too smooth, too precise—like a marionette string had been pulled. Even without eyes, I could feel it analyzing me, measuring, weighing.
The light from my blade flickered.
Then, it spoke.
Or rather, something spoke through it.
A voice, deep and hollow, not made for mortal ears, crawled through the air like fingers dragging over stone.
"Seraph of the Void."
A chill ran through my veins. My grip tightened.
"You are unbound," the voice continued. "Yet you bear the mark. A paradox. A mistake."
The words felt wrong, like they weren't meant to exist in this world. They curled around my mind, sinking into the marrow of my bones, twisting like roots trying to take hold.
"Noctis," Veylara's voice hissed, urgent now. "You need to listen to me. This is not some specter. Not some beast in the night. This is a Hunter."
The word carried weight, more than a simple title.
A Hunter.
Not a hunter of men. Not a hunter of beasts.
A hunter of things that should not exist.
Of things like her.
Of things like me.
My breath hitched.
The figure moved.
No sound. No weight to its steps. It simply was, and then was closer. A shift in reality itself.
My muscles locked.
Too fast.
Far too fast.
I barely had time to react before the air collapsed inward.
The figure's arm swung—no, not an arm. A limb of shifting darkness, something that wasn't solid but still cut through the space between us like a blade.
I barely dodged.
A shockwave blasted the earth where I had stood, splitting the ground apart like brittle stone. I hit the dirt hard, rolling, gasping as the air warped with the force of its strike.
"You can't fight this," Veylara's voice whispered into my ear, almost pleading now. "You need to run."
I grit my teeth. "No."
The Hunter turned, the movement eerily slow, precise. No frustration. No emotion.
It did not care.
It did not feel.
It only hunted.
I pushed myself up, forcing my lungs to work, my fingers tightening around my light blade.
The glow had dimmed. The power I was so used to calling upon felt distant.
Like something was pressing against it.
Suppressing it.
I clenched my jaw. "Is this your doing?" I called out.
The Hunter did not answer.
It simply raised its limb again.
And this time, it did not swing slow.
The air screamed as darkness ripped toward me.
I barely had time to raise my blade.
Impact.
A cold like I had never felt before exploded through my entire body. My vision went white. Sound vanished. Pain did not exist—only absence, only the feeling of something else sinking into my very being.
A voice, not my own, but mine all the same, whispered in the depths of my mind.
"You are not ready."
I fell.
I didn't know how far.
Didn't know where.
Only that the world vanished beneath me.
And then—
Nothing.
A void swallowed me whole.
It wasn't darkness—not in the way the night sky was dark, not in the way shadows clung to the corners of the world. This was something deeper, emptier. It wasn't the absence of light, but the absence of everything. No sound. No air. No feeling.
I couldn't even tell if I was falling.
Was this death?
No.
I was aware. That meant something.
I clenched my fingers. They moved. My body was still here, still mine. But something was missing. A weight had been taken from me—no, stolen.
My connection to the light.
I gasped, the first real sensation in what felt like an eternity.
And then—
"Noctis."
The voice shattered the nothingness.
A sharp, piercing golden glow erupted before me, cutting through the void like fire through dry grass. A figure stepped forward, veils shifting, her eyes like twin suns burning through the abyss.
Veylara.
She reached toward me, urgency burning in her gaze.
"Wake up, Noctis."
I wanted to. I tried to move, to breathe, to pull myself back toward the world I had been ripped from. But something held me down, like invisible chains wrapped around my limbs.
Veylara's face twisted into something dangerously close to anger.
"You are not ready to be unmade." Her voice commanded the space itself.
A pull. A force dragging me upward.
The void screamed as reality snapped back into place—
I woke up choking.
The cold ground beneath me. The sky overhead, blurred, spinning. My lungs burned, like I had been suffocating. I sucked in a ragged breath, my entire body trembling as sensation returned in a wave of searing pain.
I was back.
But something was wrong.
The Hunter.
I forced myself onto my hands and knees, head pounding. The wind howled across the open plains, the grass flattened in a perfect circle around me—as if something had erased part of the world.
Veylara stood over me, her golden eyes sharp, searching.
"What did it take from you?" she asked, voice cold.
I tried to answer. My mouth opened, but nothing came out at first. Then—
"My light," I rasped.
Veylara stilled.
Then, for the first time since I had met her—she cursed.
"Damn it."
She knelt, her veils brushing against my skin as she grabbed my wrist, forcing me to look at her.
"Listen to me, Noctis. This is no longer a game. The Hunter did not come to kill you—" she leaned in, her voice a whisper of dread, "it came to make you vulnerable."
A slow, sinking horror crawled through my veins.
My light was gone.
I had nothing left to keep the void at bay.
And for the first time since this all started—
I felt fear.
I struggled to my feet, my body feeling wrong, like my own limbs weren't entirely mine anymore. The weight in my chest—the absence—was suffocating. My light was gone. Not sealed, not weakened—gone.
The night air had turned bitterly cold. My breath came out in uneven gasps, fogging up in the moonlight. I clutched my chest instinctively, as if trying to grasp something that had been ripped away from me.
Veylara was still holding my wrist, her grip tight, her veils shifting unnaturally in the wind.
"We need to leave."
Her words snapped me back to reality. I turned my gaze to the empty plains around me, scanning for any sign of the Hunter—but it was gone.
It had taken what it wanted.
And it had left me alive.
A cruel, calculated choice.
I swallowed hard, my voice hoarse. "Where do we go?"
Veylara's grip tightened.
"Somewhere safe. Somewhere we can fix this."
I let out a humorless laugh, shaking my head. "Fix this? My light is gone, Veylara." I turned to look at her, my vision swimming from exhaustion. "How do we fix something that was erased?"
Her golden eyes locked onto mine, and for once, she didn't have an immediate answer.
That scared me more than anything.
She slowly released my wrist, straightening as she lifted her chin slightly. Composed. In control. Always.
"It is not gone forever," she finally said. "But what was taken… will not return easily."
I exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down my face. "Great. Just what I needed. Another impossible problem to solve."
Veylara tilted her head slightly, watching me with a strange intensity.
"You are taking this better than expected."
I laughed again, bitter and hollow. "Yeah? Because I feel like I'm about to fall apart."
"But you are not."
I stared at her, my fingers curling into fists.
No. I wasn't falling apart.
I was still here.
Even without my light, even without the power I had relied on for years—I was still standing.
I forced my thoughts into something stable, something actionable. Panicking wouldn't bring my power back.
I needed a plan.
I glanced back at Sundermere in the distance, the warm glow of the town completely at odds with the cold emptiness inside me.
"Elaris. Alaria. The others. They're going to notice something's wrong."
Veylara hummed in agreement. "Yes. And you will not be able to hide this for long."
I gritted my teeth. "Then we don't give them the chance to ask questions."
"Oh?" A faint, amused smile touched her lips. "What do you propose, Seraph?"
I ignored the nickname. "We go back. I act normal. No panic, no weakness. We take the next step in our journey—get to the tomb, like we planned."
Veylara watched me closely. Assessing. Calculating.
Then she nodded once. "Good."
I turned, forcing my legs to move, step after step, back toward the village. Every movement felt like dragging myself through mud—but I moved.
Veylara followed, her presence a whisper in the wind.
"We will get it back, Noctis."
I didn't answer.
Because deep down—
I wasn't sure I believed her.
As I walked back toward Sundermere, every step felt heavier, as if the world itself was pressing down on me. The absence of my light gnawed at the edges of my consciousness, a constant reminder that I was less than I had been just hours ago.
Veylara followed in silence, her presence lingering just behind me, her veils shifting as if caught in an unseen current.
Then she stopped.
It was subtle—no sharp intake of breath, no dramatic pause—just an almost imperceptible hesitation, a flicker of something different in her golden eyes.
I barely caught it, but after all these years, I knew when Veylara was hiding something.
I slowed my pace. "…What?"
She tilted her head, her gaze slipping past me, as if staring into something beyond the physical.
"There is another way."
Her voice was softer than usual. Not mocking. Not indulgent. Just… thoughtful.
That set off alarms in my head.
I turned fully to face her. "What do you mean?"
Veylara's eyes flicked back to mine, her veils shifting around her as though unsettled.
"I had nearly forgotten." She let out a quiet, humorless chuckle, shaking her head. "A cruel irony, considering what I am."
My patience was wearing thin. "Veylara. Explain."
She was silent for a moment, her fingers lightly brushing against her own wrist, as if lost in a memory. Then, slowly, she lifted her gaze to mine.
"There is a way for you to reclaim power. A different kind. One untouched by what was taken from you."
Something cold ran down my spine.
Veylara wasn't pleased about this.
That meant it was bad.
"…Keep talking."
She stepped closer, her voice lowering into something almost gentle—and that scared me more than anything else she could have done.
"It is called the Riftbinding."
The name meant nothing to me.
But the way she said it—slow, careful, reverent—made my stomach twist.
I swallowed hard. "And what does that mean?"
Veylara exhaled softly, lifting a hand as if tracing something unseen in the air.
"The Rift is the space between existence and oblivion," she murmured. "It is the void before the void. The place where things that should never be… come into being."
She turned her golden eyes back to me, their glow dimmer than before.
"To bind yourself to it—to wield its power—is to become something beyond mortal understanding."
I stiffened. "You're telling me to make another pact?"
Her lips curled slightly. "No. The Rift does not make pacts, Noctis. It simply takes."
The implications hit me like a hammer.
My throat felt dry. "Then what does it take?"
Veylara was silent.
And that told me everything.
I clenched my fists. "It kills me."
"Not immediately," she corrected, her voice smooth. "But yes, it will eat away at you. Slowly. Relentlessly. Until there is nothing left but the Rift itself."
I swallowed down the nausea curling in my stomach. "That sounds like a terrible idea."
"It is," she said simply. "But it is an option."
I stared at her. "Would you do it?"
For the first time since I'd met her—since she had first whispered into my thoughts, since she had watched over me like a specter of fate—she hesitated.
Just for a moment.
Then, softly—too softly—she said, "I have already lost everything, Noctis. There is nothing left for the Rift to take from me."
I felt sick.
A long silence stretched between us.
I stood there for a long moment, staring into the night. The wind rustled the tall grasses, the stars above indifferent to the war raging inside me. Every instinct, every ounce of reason, screamed at me not to do this.
But what choice did I have?
I had nothing left. My light—gone. My power—stolen. My fate—already sealed. If I did nothing, I would be weak, helpless. I wouldn't be able to protect Elaris. I wouldn't be able to fight back against whatever the Hunter had planned for me.
And worse—I wouldn't be able to reach Veylara's tomb.
I exhaled sharply, the weight of my decision settling over me like a shroud. "Do it."
Veylara's golden eyes flickered, searching my face for hesitation.
"You are certain?"
I nodded once. "Yes."
She stepped forward, her veils shifting around her like liquid shadow. She raised her hand, her fingers ghosting along the air between us, tracing unseen patterns in the void.
"Once we begin, there is no turning back."
"I don't care."
"This will hurt."
"I don't care."
"Then kneel."
Her voice was absolute—a command laced with something far deeper than words.
I hesitated for only a second before lowering myself to one knee.
The wind died. The world around me seemed to still, as if the land itself was holding its breath. The weight of the night pressed down on me, and the silence became deafening.
Veylara lifted her hands, her veils swirling as she whispered words in a language I didn't understand. The sound twisted in my ears, warping and bending, like reality itself was splitting apart.
Then—
Pain.
A raw, consuming agony unlike anything I had ever felt before. It wasn't a wound, wasn't a strike—it was as if something was tearing into my soul, ripping it apart and reshaping it at the same time. My vision fractured, the world blurring between existence and something else, something deeper, darker.
I gasped, my body seizing, my veins burning with something wrong—something ancient.
Veylara's voice never stopped.
"Rend the flesh, bind the soul—let the Rift take its claim."
Shadows coiled around my limbs, crawling over my skin like ink spreading through water. My breath came in ragged, broken gasps as my hands clawed at the ground, trying to find something—anything—to hold onto.
I could feel it.
Something unseen wrapping around my being, pressing into the cracks of my existence.
The Rift.
It was hungry.
I wanted to scream, but I couldn't.
I wanted to stop, but I couldn't.
Veylara stepped closer, kneeling in front of me, her golden eyes piercing into mine.
"You are now bound to the Rift, Noctis."
Her voice was softer now.
"Its power is yours."
I shuddered, my breath coming in sharp, uneven gulps. The pain was still there, but beneath it—power. It was different from the light I had once wielded. Colder. Heavier. Unstable.
I lifted my hand, watching as blackened tendrils of energy curled around my fingers, flickering like dying embers. It wasn't light. It wasn't shadow. It was something in between.
The Rift had taken its claim.
And I had survived.
For now.