Blood in the Snow
The underground river spat them out at dawn.
Jacob crawled onto the frozen bank, his breath crystallizing in air so cold it burned. Tara dragged Silas from the rapids, the old mage's lips already blue. Three miles behind them, the Stormspire summit glowed violet—a beacon screaming something had awakened.
"Move." Tara kicked Jacob's boot. "Unless you want to meet whatever the hell that is."
They didn't make it ten yards before the snow began to bleed.
Red petals bloomed across the white expanse. Not blood—roses, growing impossibly fast through the ice. Their thorns curled toward Lysandra's unconscious form downstream.
"Don't touch her!" Silas croaked.
Too late. Tara's gauntlet brushed a petal.
The world flipped.
The Dreaming Thorns
Jacob woke in a greenhouse that shouldn't exist.
Lysandra sat atop a marble fountain, her third eye closed. The corruption marks now formed an intricate crown around her neck. When she spoke, roses trembled.
"You shouldn't have come back, Reed."
"Where are we?" Jacob reached for his sword.
"Nowhere. Everywhere." She flicked a petal. The scene shifted—a warped version of Stormspire's Hall of Echoes, its walls dripping with sap. "The Eye's domain. Or my madness. Hard to tell anymore."
Jacob lunged. His blade passed through her like mist.
"Clever." She smiled without warmth. "But I'm not here to fight. I'm here to warn you."
A rose thorn pierced his palm.
Three Truths
The pain brought visions:
Alaric in a chamber of mirrors, his reflection showing a scaled creature with too many eyes.
Tara kneeling before a molten forge, hammering a second thorned crown.
Silas younger and whole-faced, leading a Duskwarden battalion to slaughter a village.
"Your allies have deeper graves than mine," Lysandra said. "The Eye shows all sins."
Jacob yanked out the thorn. "What do you want?"
"To survive." Her third eye opened—a spiral galaxy trapped in violet. "The Crown is merging me with the Eye. When it finishes, I'll either control the Shards... or become a new Cataclysm."
Ice cracked. Reality snapped back.
The Fractured Alliance
They regrouped in a hunter's cabin, its walls papered with missing person posters.
"Lies," Tara growled when Jacob described the visions. "I'd never forge that cursed thing."
Silas said nothing, his silence louder than confession.
Lysandra's voice echoed from the storm outside: "Check the cellar."
The trapdoor hid a nightmare—hundreds of preserved eyes floating in jars. All glowing violet.
"Alaric's experiments." Jacob smashed a jar. "He's been trying to recreate the Eye."
Tara read a lab journal aloud: "Subject 47: Crown implantation failed. Recommend using Crowne bloodline."
A shriek tore through the night. Human. Familiar.
The Sacrifice
They found Lysandra crucified against a pine tree, her wrists nailed with Shard fragments. The third eye wept black ichor.
"Don't..." She choked as Jacob pulled the first spike. "It's a trap—"
The forest exploded.
Alaric emerged from the blizzard, his human guise melting like wax. Seven eyes blinked across his elongated skull. "Return the Vessel."
Tara's hammer sparked against his talons. "Eat steel, squid-face!"
But the real horror came when Silas stepped forward.
"I'll hold him." The old mage's storm-magic surged. "Take her and run!"
Lysandra laughed bitterly as Jacob carried her away. "He's not saving us. He's paying a debt."
Behind them, Silas's scream merged with unnatural thunder.
Volume 1 Final Lines
At the valley's edge, the storm parted to reveal four floating islands. Lysandra's Eye pulsed in sync with their movements.
"It's starting again," she whispered. "The Sundering. The lies. The—"
Her words died as the northern island shattered.
From the debris rose a silhouette—winged, thorn-crowned, and horrifically familiar.
To be concluded in Volume 2: The Shattered Veil