Eldoria hadn't changed.
The wind still hummed low through crooked chimneys. The fields still swayed like sleeping giants. And the people—still silent when Kieran passed.
He returned alone, cloaked in soot and shadow, his footsteps louder than any greeting.
But this time… he didn't come back for them.
He came for the truth.
The Blood-Sign Gate
Beneath the ruin of the old chapel—where forgotten priests once whispered prayers to fading gods—Kieran found it.
A stone gate buried beneath ivy and rot, carved with an ancient spiral crest.
In the center: a groove shaped like an open palm.
"Blood," he muttered. "It wants mine."
He pressed his hand into the stone, letting the blood from a reopened wound drip into the mark.
The stone pulsed once.
And then it spoke—not with words, but with a memory.
A Voice That Wasn't There
Kieran fell to his knees as images seared into his mind.
A sky torn open.A sea of red stars.A man standing between realms.
Sylas Veyron.
Not a monster. Not a butcher.
A protector.
Cloaked in void, his blade dragging the end of all things behind him, and his voice—
"Let the world forget me. Let my name rot. I chose silence… to spare them."
Kieran cried out and pulled away.
"No… no, he's lying."
But he couldn't shake the truth in the vision.
Sylas had saved the world.
He had vanished to protect it.
And if he had wanted Kieran's family gone… they would've been gone.
Not hunted. Not purged by nobles.
Just erased.
"Then who…?"
The Rival in the Shadows
A whisper drifted through the cold chamber.
"The other one," said a new voice—dry, distant. "The man who called Sylas a coward."
Kieran turned sharply.
No one was there.
But something had been.
"His rival was never interested in saving the world," the whisper continued."He wanted to reshape it. Sylas stood in his way. You are now in his way, too."
A name hung in the air like a curse not yet spoken.
Auren Soldran — once a brother-in-arms to Sylas Veyron… now the architect of ruin, the one who twisted the nobles with promises of a Voidborne purge.
Weight of the Name
Kieran stood again, fists trembling.
All this time, he'd hated a ghost.
Cursed the man who saved him before he was born.
And now… now his real enemy had no face. Only whispers. Influence. Manipulation.
"Sylas…" he said softly. "I'm sorry."
But the gate did not answer.
Only the wind did—cold and quiet.
Like a legacy waiting to be reclaimed.