CHAPTER NINE: Fractures in the Pack
Riven couldn't sleep.
She lay awake, staring at the cracked ceiling of the cavern they'd holed up in. The dying embers of the fire crackled softly nearby, casting dancing shadows across Fynn's sleeping face.
But she knew better.
He wasn't sleeping either.
His chest rose and fell too evenly. His fingers twitched every few seconds like he was restraining himself from something—some movement, some urge. Some truth.
He was there, she kept thinking. He saw the Gate too.
And more disturbingly: He knew what I was holding.
---
When morning came, the tension was thick enough to choke on.
Kael was already up, sharpening his sword. His eyes hadn't left Fynn since the vision.
Fynn, ever the clown, didn't crack a joke. He packed in silence, moving slowly, deliberately, avoiding Riven's gaze.
She finally broke the quiet.
"We need to talk."
Fynn paused. "…Yeah. I figured."
They stepped away from Kael and the campfire, out into the cold winds that rolled over the mountain pass like whispering ghosts.
"You felt it too," Riven said. "The Gate."
Fynn nodded.
"I didn't mean to be there," he said softly. "I didn't want to be. But… I think I've been dreaming of that place since I was a kid."
Riven's heart thudded. "You never said anything."
"Would you have believed me?"
She hesitated.
He smiled bitterly. "Exactly."
---
There was something fragile about Fynn now. Like if she pushed too hard, he'd shatter—not out of weakness, but out of exhaustion. Like he'd been holding too much for too long.
"I'm scared, Riven," he admitted. "There's something inside me. Something old. Sometimes I hear it whisper. Sometimes I see things—flashes of places I've never been. Wars I've never fought. Names I shouldn't know."
He met her gaze.
"I think it's waking up now… because of you."
The air tightened.
"Because of me?"
"I don't know what it means," he whispered. "But I don't think I'm just me anymore."
---
Kael was waiting when they returned.
"We need to move," he said. "Scouts are spreading through the eastern valleys. The Council's searching faster than we thought."
"Where are we going?" Riven asked.
Kael handed her a map.
"North. To the ruins of Duskmere. There's a seer there. If anyone can explain what's happening between you and Fynn, it's her."
Fynn raised an eyebrow. "You sure we can trust her?"
"No," Kael said flatly. "But we don't have a choice."
---
The journey to Duskmere was brutal.
The wind screamed down from the high cliffs. Snow fell like ash, coating the trees in deathly white. And the deeper they went, the stranger the world became.
Crows watched them from above, too still.
Wolves howled in unnatural harmony.
And once, at dusk, they found a clearing filled with frozen bodies—dozens of people, locked in their final screams, statues of agony.
Kael knelt beside one. His voice dropped.
"They're not frozen."
"What do you mean?" Riven asked.
"They were… drained."
He stood up.
"Someone's using soul magic."
---
When they reached Duskmere, it was long after sunset.
What had once been a thriving city of stone towers and obsidian streets was now a decaying ghost-town, half-swallowed by time and frost.
At the center stood a single tower—black, jagged, and humming with arcane energy.
Kael took a deep breath. "She's in there."
Riven frowned. "Who is she, exactly?"
Kael hesitated.
"She calls herself Nysha the Oracle. But before she took the name, she was something else."
Fynn snorted. "Of course. Nothing's ever simple with you, huh?"
Kael didn't smile. "She was once my commander."
That silenced them both.
---
The inside of the tower was lit with blue fire.
Runes lined the walls, shifting as they passed. The deeper they went, the colder it got—not physically, but spiritually. As if something was pressing down on their souls.
And then… they saw her.
Nysha stood before a broken mirror, her hair silver, her eyes blind yet glowing. She was draped in robes stitched with forgotten languages. One of her arms was covered in bark-like scales, as though time itself had begun consuming her.
"You finally bring her," Nysha said without turning.
Kael bowed. "Oracle."
Nysha's smile was cold. "Still so formal."
Her gaze turned toward Riven—even without eyes, it pierced straight through her.
"You are the Harbinger."
Riven bristled. "So they say."
"I don't deal in superstition," Nysha said. "I deal in truth. And you, child, are both salvation and destruction."
She stepped forward.
"And him," she added, eyes shifting toward Fynn, "he's your other half. Not in love. Not in fate. But in balance."
Fynn looked wary. "What does that mean?"
Nysha tilted her head. "It means when you fall, he will rise."
---
Riven clenched her fists.
"You said you deal in truth. Then answer me this—what is the Gate of Arcael?"
Nysha's smile vanished.
"That is not something I speak of lightly."
"Why not?"
"Because every time someone learns the truth, blood follows."
She stepped back toward the mirror and touched its surface. Ripples spread across it like water.
"You want to know the truth? Fine."
The mirror changed.
---
They saw war.
Thousands of wolves, pure and golden, tearing across bloodied fields. Humans beside them. Fighting something massive—the Voidbeasts, creatures made of black stars and writhing chaos.
They saw the Gate, locked shut with nine seals, each guarded by an Alpha.
They saw betrayal—a girl who looked like Riven driving a sword into the chest of a wolf with Fynn's eyes.
And then—
They saw nothing.
A void.
Then a heartbeat.
Then Riven, standing alone… before an open Gate.
---
She stumbled back.
Nysha's voice echoed behind her.
"You asked. That is your fate."
"No," Riven whispered. "I won't be her. I'll never be her."
Nysha's eyes darkened. "Fate is not a chain. But it is a shadow. You can run—but it always follows."
Kael stepped forward. "Can it be stopped?"
Nysha didn't answer. She turned to the wall and pressed her hand to it.
A stone slid away, revealing a hidden room.
"There's only one who escaped fate," she said. "And he's in there."
Riven's heart raced. "Who?"
Nysha looked back.
"Your father."