The wind from the rift howled like the cry of a dying world.
Arasha remained kneeling, her sword driven into the shattered stone for balance, her hand still outstretched and glowing faintly with a divine mark that no longer answered her call. Her lungs burned. Her vision dimmed. Her blood, slick and warm beneath her armor, ran from unseen wounds. And yet, she refused to fall.
She would be a shield to the end—even if it meant crumbling like a broken statue before the void.
The rift above pulsed again. A creature was coming. Something enormous. Ancient. Its clawed limbs reached past the veil of reality, and the heavens themselves buckled around it.
Then—
A sound cut through the shrieking air.
Footsteps.
Light ones. Frantic.
She blinked hard, eyes struggling to focus. Someone was running toward the rift.
"No…" she whispered, her voice cracked and dry. "Get back… run…"
But the figure didn't listen.
A teenager, no older than sixteen, sprinted past her battered form, boots skidding over the rubble.
A civilian.
A blur of motion.
He's close to the rift.
Arasha's breath caught in her throat.
"No!" she tried to shout, but her voice was weak. Her body refused to move.
She could only watch in horror as he ran straight toward the anomaly—toward death itself.
She reached out, desperate, but that only made her fall to the ground. She had no strength at all.
She could do nothing.
And then—
The rift reacted.
It shuddered violently, the swirling void pulsing in response to the young man's presence.
Runes ignited beneath his feet—symbols Arasha had never seen before, glowing with a light so ancient and pure that even the monsters recoiled.
The rift let out a scream.
A pulse of energy erupted outward, washing over the battlefield like a cleansing storm. The creatures shrieked as their bodies disintegrated, torn apart by the raw force of magic.
Arasha, her vision darkening, watched as the rift began to collapse inward, folding upon itself like a wound finally mending shut.
It was impossible.
No one, no one but her, had ever wielded the power to close these rifts.
And yet, this stranger had done it.
As the last echoes of the collapsing rift faded into silence, the young man turned toward her.
His face was calm, unreadable. His eyes held something—something deep, something ancient.
Arasha tried to speak. Tried to ask who he was, how he had done this.
But the exhaustion crashed over her like a tidal wave.
Her body gave out.
The last thing she saw was the young man stepping toward her—before darkness took her.
...A child becoming a star?was Arasha's last thought.
***
Arasha's eyes snapped open.
The ceiling above her was unfamiliar—smooth stone, dim candlelight flickering against the walls. The air smelled of herbs, antiseptics, and faint traces of incense. A healer's ward.
No.
Her body protested as she forced herself upright, her body ached in every inch, the deep exhaustion in her bones screaming in defiance. Her right hand, the one marked by the divine, was tightly wrapped and warm to the touch, still refusing to answer her.
But she ignored it.
She had no time for rest.
There's still so much to do...
Rifts, reconstruction, securing resources and so on...
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet meeting the cold stone floor. She was still in bandages, wrapped tightly around her torso and arms where wounds had been hastily treated. Her armor was nearby—polished, repaired.
Someone had tended to her while she was unconscious.
Once again she shoved the pain aside and reached for her armor.
Before she could even lift a single pauldron, a strong hand gripped her wrist.
"Oh, no, you don't."
The voice was sharp, commanding—the voice of a battlefield medic used to dealing with stubborn warriors.
Arasha turned to see Leta, one of the Scion Order's senior healers, standing over her with a look of absolute fury.
"You are not going anywhere, Commander," Leta growled, physically shoving Arasha back down onto the bed.
Arasha gritted her teeth and tried to resist, but even in her weakened state, she could tell Leta was not going to let her win this fight.
"I don't have time for this," Arasha growled, trying to push herself up again.
Leta pressed a firm hand against her shoulder, forcing her back down.
"You almost died. Do you understand that? You collapsed from exhaustion, Commander. You wouldn't have woken up at all if we hadn't stabilized you with high tier magic. You cannot keep throwing yourself at death and expecting to walk away unscathed."
Arasha hissed in frustration, her fists clenching. "I still have urgent duties to attend to. My knights need me."
Leta's expression softened just a little, but she didn't relent. "And what good are you to them dead?"
Arasha fell silent.
Her breath was heavy, her body trembling with the remnants of fatigue. Leta's words stung because she knew they were true.
But duty demanded she rise anyway.
She made another attempt to sit up—only to stop when the door opened.
Relieved that their Commander finally stopped her attempt, Leta gave Sir Garran a thankful smile as she exited.
"Easy, Commander."
Sir Garran stood beside her bed, still in his travel-worn armor, the weight of a thousand burdens in his eyes—but also something else.
Hope.
She met his gaze. "The capital…?"
"Safe," he said. "The rift closed. We secured the city. Casualties were… heavy. But a lot more survived."
Hearing Sir Garran's report, Arasha eased a bit.
She blinked slowly. "The boy…?"
He hesitated.
Then nodded.
"It wasn't just him. Others, too. All over the kingdom. After the capital… rifts started appearing in smaller pockets across the land. But people—young, old, unknowns—started… awakening. Some call it a miracle. Others a reckoning."
She stared at him, disbelieving.
He continued. "That boy—he's resting now. Whatever power's inside him... it closed that rift. Others like him are doing the same. We're calling them the Awakened. They can do things we've never seen before. Powers we thought belonged to legends. And they're not monsters. They're heroes."
Arasha leaned back against her pillow, her breath trembling. She looked toward the window, where the light painted long lines across the stone floor.
Arasha's breath caught in her throat.
She had thought she was the only one. The only person capable of standing against the horrors pouring into the world.
But now—
Now, others had risen.
"How?" she finally asked, voice hoarse.
Sir Garran tilted his head slightly. "Something is changing. The rifts are unnatural, but the world seems to be fighting back. People are awakening to abilities they never had before. It's as if…" He hesitated. "It's as if the gods themselves are choosing champions."
Arasha stared at him, her mind racing.
For so long, she had carried this burden alone.
But now, there were others.
For the first time in what felt like forever, she allowed herself to breathe.
For the first time, there was hope.