The path to the throne room lay deep within the mountain, where the air grew thick with the scent of ash and stone. Lucar walked in silence, each step echoing against black glass walls that reflected faint shapes of his passing. They weren’t clear enough to show a face, only the outline of a man who no longer trusted his own.

The corridors of Vortannis’ fortress were not empty. Workers moved in quiet rhythm, former men and women of every race, now hollow-eyed and gray-skinned, their movements measured by necessity, not madness. A Terran swung a hammer at a forge that burned without flame. An Aguan dragged a chain of bone across the floor, its ends marked with runes that pulsed when they struck the stone. A Huma woman, or what remained of one, carried scrolls of dark vellum toward a sealed arch where whispering air hinted at the chambers beyond.

No one spoke. There was work to be done, and in this place, work was worship.

Lucar kept his hood low, passing them like ghosts. He had grown used to the stillness, to the sound of tools and footsteps instead of breath and talk. The fortress did not sleep, and neither did its servants. They were the fragments of a hundred nations that had once defied the Soulrender — repurposed, perfected.

He tried not to look at their faces.

The black glass underfoot had veins of dull red running through it, as though the mountain still bled. The deeper he went, the stronger the warmth under his boots. Not heat like fire, but the slow, heart-deep warmth of something alive below.

Once, he would have shuddered. Now, he found the steadiness almost comforting.

A pair of Fallen sentinels stood at the turning of the last hall, armored in the fused remains of their old lives: mail half rusted, half molten, eyes faintly luminous from the runes carved into their skulls. They did not bar his way. They knew his face, or perhaps only the mark that Vortannis had burned upon his shoulder weeks before. Lucar inclined his head and passed between them.

The great Hall of the Soulrender opened ahead, a vast, ribbed chamber carved directly into the mountain’s spine. The ceiling soared high into shadow, supported by curved pillars streaked with veins of iron and crystal. Between them, furnaces glowed in measured rows, not hot enough to burn, but bright enough to cast long, trembling reflections across the floor.

At the center rose the Throne of Ash and Bone, just as the stories whispered: sculpted from the fused remains of the war that ended a century ago. Blades and armor, horns and stone, welded together and polished smooth. Upon it sat Vortannis, not still as a corpse, but as one who no longer needed motion to command the living.

His form was terrible yet incomplete: the flesh pale and scarred, stretched taut across a frame that seemed to hum with restrained power. The left eye burned green like a smoldering ember; the right gleamed gold, steady and cold. Around him, the very air bent toward obedience.

Lucar stopped at the foot of the dais and went to one knee. The warmth from the floor seeped through his gloves, and for a moment it felt as though the mountain itself acknowledged him. “My lord,” he said, bowing his head low. “The words have been spoken in Durn-Kelmar. The dream-verse has taken root.”

Vortannis did not answer at once. The silence stretched, filled only by the low hum of the forges and the faint pulse that ran through the walls like a heartbeat. When he finally spoke, his voice carried no echo, yet it filled every corner of the chamber. “Rise, Lucar. Speak what you have seen.”

Lucar lifted his head, though his gaze stayed averted. “The Terran council divides, as you foresaw. The elders fall deepest into the dreams. They recite the verse without waking. The young resist, but their sleep grows shorter, their tempers sharper. They will turn against each other soon.”

The faintest movement crossed Vortannis’ face; satisfaction, perhaps, or the memory of it. “And the bearer of the Sigil?”

Lucar hesitated. “He endures. Their unity strengthens him.”

The Soulrender’s eyes kindled. “Then unity must be unlearned.”

The green light from his left eye flared, painting the hall in sickly hue. “Come closer, Herald. You have walked far under my shadow. It is time that you bore more than my words.”

Lucar swallowed and obeyed, stepping to the first stair of the dais. The pulse of the fortress matched his heart until he could not tell which belonged to whom. “Do you still fear me?” Vortannis asked.

Lucar hesitated, then said, “I fear to fail you, my lord.”

“Good,” murmured the Soulrender. “Fear is faith that remembers its place.” The light around him deepened to crimson.

Even as close as he was, Lucar could not fully make sense of Vortannis’ face; the scars and burn-lines across his skin caught the furnace light in shifting patterns, making him appear both younger and older in the same breath. What was unmistakable, though, was the presence: the weight of a will so focused, so absolute, that every instinct in Lucar urged him to bow deeper.

“Speak of what you’ve done,” Vortannis said.

Lucar steadied himself. His shoulder still ached faintly where his previous brand marked him as Herald, though the flesh had long since cooled and healed. “The words you taught me have reached them, my lord. The elders of the Stonewardens dream them most strongly. They wake muttering the verses, hands trembling, memories disjointed. Their thoughts arrive late. Their steps lose the count.”

The green eye of Vortannis brightened. “As expected.”

“The younger Wardens resist,” Lucar continued. “They call the elders’ faltering a sickness of sleep or age. They argue. Whisper. Some fear the mountain itself moves beneath them.”

“It does,” Vortannis murmured. “It hears their discord and sharpens it.”

Lucar swallowed. “My presence in their dreams pushed the verse deeper. But there is… strain. The elder Warden clings fiercely to wakefulness. He chants forge hymns through half the night. I believe he fears that if he sleeps, he will not rise whole.”

“He is right to fear that,” Vortannis said softly.

Lucar hesitated. “And yet… the Sigil-bearer stands untouched.”

The air cooled by degrees. Not a dramatic change, but enough that Lucar felt the small hairs rise along his arms. “Explain,” the Soulrender said.

Lucar chose his words carefully. “He anchors them. The fellowship gathers around him each night. Their unity blunts the verse’s effect. Even those who waver regain clarity by morning. The Sigil’s light steadies their minds.”

“Unity,” Vortannis repeated, as though tasting the word. “A brittle faith. A child’s cord too easily cut.”

“He leads them without meaning to,” Lucar said. “His choices bind them. His calm gathers them. When he speaks, even the mistrustful listen.”

“And this strengthens the Sigil?” Vortannis’ tone did not sharpen, but the gold eye narrowed.

“Yes,” Lucar said. “Its glow brightens each time they reconcile. It burns clearer when they share purpose. It is… maddening, my lord.”

Vortannis rose. He did not stand like a man, but like a force returning to the shape of motion. The throne did not creak; the ground did not shift. Only the temperature changed, a subtle drop like mountain air drawn suddenly across skin.

“Come here,” Vortannis said.

Lucar obeyed, though his knees felt unsteady. He ascended the last step until he stood within arm’s reach of the Soulrender. The forged bone of the throne glinted behind Vortannis’ silhouette.

“You see unity as strength,” Vortannis said, looking down at him. “But unity is nothing more than synchronized fear; many hearts beating in borrowed courage.” His voice did not rise, yet the hall seemed to tighten around each word. “They are strong only because they have not been taught to doubt the beats between them.”

Lucar bowed his head. “Then teach me, my lord. Show me how to break that rhythm.”

A flicker of approval, thin as a blade’s edge, passed across Vortannis’ expression. “Good,” he said. “But first you must carry more than words.”

He extended one scarred hand. Light gathered there, not bright, not warm, but sharp, like a shard of memory forcing its way back into form.

“Hold still.” Lucar braced himself. He had known this was coming. Yet the sight of that forming sigil, thorn-shaped, pulsing faintly, made his breath catch.

“This will bind you more deeply to the verse,” Vortannis said. “Through it, your dreams will no longer echo mine. They will speak mine. The elders will hear you as they hear their own thoughts.”

“And the young?” Lucar asked, voice barely steady.

“They will hear doubt,” Vortannis replied. “Doubt whispered in the rhythm between breaths. Doubt tastes sweeter than fear. They will swallow it willingly.”

Lucar closed his eyes. “I am ready.”

“Of course you are,” Vortannis murmured. He placed his hand over Lucar’s shoulder. Light flared, silent, swift, searing, then spiraled inward like a thorn twisting into living flesh. Lucar gasped despite himself. When Vortannis withdrew his hand, the burning shape of a thorn-glyph glowed faintly through the fabric of Lucar’s cloak, its lines sinking deeper than skin.

“Rise, Herald,” Vortannis said.

Lucar straightened unsteadily. His shadow slipped across the floor a moment too slow, then rushed ahead of him, out of sync, out of place, out of time.

Vortannis’ voice lowered, almost gentle. “You will take this verse back to the Terran. You will plant doubt where unity roots. You will teach stone to mistrust its own weight.”

Lucar bowed. “I will not fail you.”

“See that you don’t,” Vortannis replied. “The mountain is waking, and I intend for its first answer to be obedience.”

The pain faded slowly, settling into Lucar’s bones like a memory that refused to forget itself. The new glyph pulsed beneath his cloak, a slow, inward ache that echoed the fortress’s heartbeat. He forced his breathing steady, though every inhale carried the taste of scorched iron.

Vortannis watched him with that mismatched gaze, weighing every tremor, every breath. “Good,” the Soulrender said at last. “You hold the mark without breaking.”

Lucar bowed, breath tightening in his chest. “I am grateful, my lord.”

“Not grateful,” Vortannis corrected softly. “Aligned.” He stepped away from the throne, the furnace-light tracing the ridges of scar tissue that ran like molten cracks across his shoulders and down his arms. Despite the ruin of his flesh, there was nothing frail about him. Each step carried the gravity of an ancient verdict. He circled Lucar slowly, not like a predator, but like a craftsman studying his work.

“Tell me, Herald,” Vortannis murmured behind him, “do you know the difference between faith and form?”

Lucar’s pulse stumbled. He recalled the fragments of the Soulrender’s old teachings, the ones whispered into dreams long before he had known their source. “Faith believes,” Lucar said quietly. “Form obeys.”

Vortannis smiled, not warmly, but with the relief of a teacher whose student has not disappointed him. “Yes,” he said. “Faith is soft. Fluid. It bends toward whatever warmth comforts it. Faith changes with wind and season. Faith forgets.” He stepped back into Lucar’s line of sight.

“But form…” His hand lifted, fingers tracing a shape in the air. “Form endures. Form is rhythm. Form is truth even when truth is unwanted.” His golden eye narrowed. “And the fellowship clings to faith.”

Lucar nodded once. “Their unity is belief, not discipline. They draw strength from each other. It steadies the Sigil’s flame.”

“And that flame steadies them,” Vortannis replied. “A circular dependency. As fragile as glass touched by frost.” He raised his hand again. The tendrils of black root along the walls shivered, bending toward his gesture.

“You will break their faith,” he said. “Not by fear, that is crude. Not by violence, that is waste. But by making them question what they see, what they hear, what they remember. A single doubt in the right place can unmake a dozen bonds.”

Lucar felt the thorn-glyph pulse beneath his skin. “And the Terran?” he asked. “Their elders fall deeply, but the young grow wary.”

Vortannis tilted his head. “Young stone is harder to crack. But when it does crack, the break runs deeper.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice.

“You must sharpen the contrast. Feed conviction to the elders; feed suspicion to the young. Let each believe the other compromised. When age no longer trusts youth, and youth no longer trusts age, the mountain will tremble.”

Lucar bowed his head. “I will carry out your will.”

“Of course you will,” Vortannis said. “You are mine now. Not by chains, not by fear, by alignment.” He lifted a hand to Lucar’s chin, raising the man’s face until their mismatched eyes met.

“Tell me what you saw in the company’s camp,” Vortannis said. “Not the words, they are irrelevant. Tell me their posture. Their breath. Their eyes.”

Lucar forced himself to recall it. “They sit close,” he said quietly. “Always close, even when exhausted. They watch the fire together. They settle their disputes quickly, before distrust can fester.” He swallowed. “Even the outsiders, the Aguan, fold into their circle.”

Vortannis’ expression did not change, but the green eye flickered like a candle stirred by a breath. “And the Sigil-bearer?”

Lucar exhaled slowly. “He holds them without trying. When he speaks, they listen. When he doubts, they feel it. When he steadies, they follow. As I said before, it is… infuriating.”

“Good,” Vortannis murmured. “Anger reveals the line between what is yours and what you covet.” He released Lucar’s chin. “Now hear me well,” he said. “That boy, Boaz, believes unity is strength. He believes compassion shields the weak. He believes trust is a virtue.”

His voice dropped, icy and absolute. “He has never been taught what happens when trust breaks first.” The tendrils lining the walls tensed, pulsing faintly.

Lucar inclined his head. “Then I will teach him.”

“No,” Vortannis said, stepping back toward the throne. “You will teach the mountain. When stone turns against stone, when Terran doubts Terran, the company will be trapped between truths they cannot reconcile.”

He sank onto the throne as though the stone itself welcomed his weight. “As for Boaz…” His gold eye flared. “…I will handle him myself.”

Lucar felt his heart stumble: fear, awe, loyalty, all tangled.

“What would you have me do, Lord?” he asked.

“Go back,” Vortannis said. “Sleep among them as if you are humble. Walk their halls as if you are harmless. Bend the elders deeper into their dreams. Slip doubt into the young like a breath into embers. When the Terran finally choose a side, they will choose the wrong one.”

Lucar bowed deeply. “I serve.”

“Then go,” Vortannis said, the final word quiet but absolute. “And remember: form endures. Faith breaks.”

As Lucar turned to depart, the hall seemed to grow darker, the pulse of the fortress slower and heavier, as though the mountain itself understood the lesson, and approved.

Lucar’s footsteps faded into the corridor, but the weight he left behind lingered like a held breath. Vortannis remained motionless upon the throne for a long moment, his mismatched eyes reflecting two different truths in the trembling furnace light. Only when the silence grew taut did he finally move.

He rose with a slow, deliberate grace, no rush, no wasted gesture, like a man stepping back into a role he had never truly left. The black glass floor beneath him warmed as though remembering old loyalties.

He turned away from the throne and toward the mirror near the far end of the hall. It stood twice the height of a man, its frame forged from fused metal and the hardened roots of some long-dead thing. The surface was neither glass nor water but something in between, dark, reflective, and patient. It did not show Vortannis’ shape unless he willed it. It showed only what he sought.

This was the Seeing Vein, the oldest relic in the fortress. Older, even, than Vortannis’ fall. He approached it with familiarity, not reverence. “Wake,” he said quietly.

The roots along the frame twitched. Faint green light pulsed through the cracks in the stone beneath the mirror, carrying some deep, subterranean awareness upward. Then the surface rippled once, as though taking its first breath of the day.

“Show me the stone,” Vortannis murmured. The mirror darkened before blooming into a dull glow. A cavern flickered into view, the council-hall of Durn-Kelmar. He watched in silence as the Stonewardens moved like figures on an uneven stage, their gestures mismatched, their speech visibly out-of-sync with the cadence of their lips. The elders were indeed the most affected.

Their steps landed late; their heads turned a fraction after someone finished speaking; their hands trembled in the pauses of conversations. Two of them paused mid-argument, blinking like people waking from a dream they could not recall.

“Their foundation loosens,” Vortannis murmured. “Good.” He lifted one hand toward the mirror, and the surface pulled inward as though drawn to the scars on his palm.

“Now… show me the flame.” The Terran hall dissolved into drifting gray. The image reformed, smaller, closer, more intimate. A chamber deep within the mountain. A fire burning low.

The company gathered around it. Boaz sat slightly forward, the Sigil hidden beneath his tunic but glowing faintly through the cloth, a steady warmth that softened even the shadows. Kiera leaned beside him, hands wrapped around a cup of broth. Jaxson paced near the far wall, restless as ever. Lyra sat with her back to a pillar, hood up, eyes narrowed in thought. Theo scribbled something on a scrap of parchment, muttering under his breath. Aldryn sat cross-legged, weary but watchful. Telen and Shaye, the Aguan, shared quiet conversation in a low murmur.

Vortannis watched them with clinical stillness. “So this is unity,” he said. “The faith that bends. The faith that breaks.”

The Sigil-light flared again, just a pulse, but enough to distort the mirror for a moment. Enough to resist being seen. “Noted,” Vortannis whispered. “The flame resists the eye. It always has.”

He extended his fingertips until they met the surface. The mirror shuddered, not in fear but in preparation, as if bracing itself.

“Listen,” Vortannis commanded it. “Listen to their breath. Listen to their rhythm. Find the first uneven beat.” The mirror obeyed.

The fellowship’s image slowed. Their motions separated into lines — posture, breath, thought, word — each drifting just enough that Vortannis could see what was true beneath the surface.

Jaxson’s impatience.
Lyra’s suspicion.
Kiera’s worry.
Theo’s exhaustion.
Aldryn’s fear he would fail them.
Boaz’s doubt, deeper than all the others, buried beneath steadiness but still alive.

“Ah,” Vortannis whispered. “There you are.” The mirror trembled again as his shadow stretched across it. “The flame grows brighter,” he murmured. “But the shadow behind it grows longer.” He lowered his hand, and the mirror’s surface flickered. “Now show me what Lucar could not see.”

The image shifted once more. This time, it showed not the company but the space around them: the cracks in the stone, the seams in the walls, the faint tremble of the mountain listening.

Because the mountain was listening. Vortannis smiled.

“Good. The stone hears them. And if it hears them, it can be taught to doubt them.” He placed one palm against the glass and whispered five words, soft and deliberate: “Let doubt bloom between beats.”

The mirror absorbed the phrase like water taking ink. The roots around its frame pulsed once, then held still. Vortannis stepped back. “Now,” he said, voice low, satisfied. “The Terran will begin to dream of truth. And the company will begin to doubt what truth means.”

He turned away from the mirror as its light dimmed.

“And when their faith finally cracks…” His gold eye glowed with quiet certainty. “…form will endure.”

The Seeing Vein dimmed to black behind Vortannis’ back, its last pulse of light fading like embers beneath ash. Only the mountain’s heartbeat remained, slow, deliberate, an old rhythm rising through stone to meet the Soulrender’s will.

He returned to the center of the hall, pausing at the foot of the throne. The air shifted around him; the tendrils in the walls bent inward. Even the forges along the chamber edge seemed to lean their dull glow toward him in expectation.

“It is time,” Vortannis said quietly. The words were not loud. They did not need to be. Sound traveled differently in the Fortress of Black Glass, obeyed differently. His command sank into the floors and walls as though the mountain itself were a lung drawing breath.

A deep, resonant knock answered, one beat, two, echoing from the dark archway at the far end of the hall.

Then something moved. Not quickly. Not clumsily. With purpose.

A figure stepped forward from the shadowed mouth of the passage: tall and sinewed, with armor fused into its skin like cooled slag. Its skin was the color of scorched earth; its horns curled back over its skull, one cracked, one unbroken. The creature’s chest glowed faintly with an ember-light that burned behind its ribs rather than above them.

This was Kael’thir: newly named, newly purposed.

He approached the dais and dropped to one knee, taloned hands clasped before him. When he spoke, his voice was low and rasping, scraped raw by the weight of the mountain above. “You called, my lord.”

Vortannis regarded him without blinking. “Rise, Kael’thir.”

The demon obeyed, towering but bent slightly forward in deference. A thin plume of smoke drifted from the seams of his armor-skin, curling upward before dissolving.

“Your predecessor fell upon the walls of Cirol,” Vortannis said. “His ashes fed my work there, but his absence now requires correction.”

Kael’thir’s lip curled faintly. “Maeroth was strong in strike. Weak in understanding.”

“Yes,” Vortannis murmured. “Strength untempered breaks itself. Understanding untested curdles into pride.” He stepped closer until he stood directly before Kael’thir, the green light of his left eye casting the demon’s features in sickly glow. “I have chosen you because you possess neither flaw. Not yet.”

Kael’thir bowed his head. “Tell me how I may serve.”

Vortannis lifted a hand, palm facing the demon’s chest. He didn’t touch him, didn’t need to. The ember-light beneath Kael’thir’s ribs flared in answer.

“Lucar tends to the Terran,” Vortannis said. “You will tend to the roots beneath them.”

Kael’thir stiffened slightly. “You mean the Hollow Host?”

“I do.”

The forges along the walls guttered low for an instant, as if bracing for the name. “They sleep beneath the deepest vaults,” Vortannis continued. “Their forms… incomplete. Their minds… unbound. They are remnants of my earliest works, pieces of will without direction. Now they will have direction.”

Kael’thir’s ember-light brightened. “I will wake them.”

“You will do more,” Vortannis said. “You will shape them. Discipline them. Teach them the rhythm I have woven into the stone. When the Terran falter, and they will, you will send the Hollow Host into the cracks their doubt has made.”

Kael’thir inclined his head. “And the fellowship?”

A faint pulse traveled along the walls, as if the fortress itself held its breath. “They walk deeper into Durn-Kelmar,” Vortannis said. “They bind themselves to one another with every step. Their unity grows… irritating.”

Kael’thir’s teeth flashed. “Shall I break them?”

“No,” Vortannis said. “Not yet.” He stepped away from the demon and toward the low pool of black water that sat near the dais. It reflected nothing. It never had.

“They must fracture before they fall. Doubt must cut them from within, not from without. When one turns upon another, when trust wavers, when the Sigil’s light dims through confusion rather than conflict…” His hand hovered over the pool. “…then you will strike.”

Kael’thir lowered his head in acceptance. “I hear your cadence.”

“Good.” Vortannis turned back, his eyes bright with asymmetrical light. “Wait in the vaults. Prepare the Host. When the mountain trembles with divided purpose, that tremor will be your summons.”

The demon bowed deeply. “As you command.” Kael’thir stepped backward into the shadows, each footfall leaving a faint scorch that cooled and vanished seconds later. When he reached the darkness of the archway, he dissolved into it, one more weapon sheathed in the fortress’s endless night.

Silence returned.

Vortannis stood alone, staring into the black pool. From its depths, a single point of red light flickered, the echo of the Sigil’s flame reflected across impossible distance.

He reached toward it with a whisper: “The flame draws nearer.” The light trembled. “The stone will remember.” And the Fortress of Black Glass pulsed once more, slow and deep, as if preparing itself for what the mountain would soon be asked to bear.

The corridors outside the throne hall were quieter now, though the fortress never truly slept. Lucar moved with care, his breath still uneven from the branding. The thorn-glyph beneath his cloak pulsed in rhythm with the mountain, each beat a reminder that the Soulrender’s mark now lived inside him.

He turned down a narrow passage lined with old forges and rune-marked alcoves. The air was warm here, tinged with the sharp scent of cold iron waiting to be awakened. He had nearly reached the stairway toward his chambers when a voice slid out from the shadows behind him.

“Herald.”

Lucar stiffened.

Kael’thir stepped from the darkness, his ember-lit ribs casting a faint glow across the passage. The demon’s cracked horn brushed the low stone ceiling as he straightened to his full height. Smoke curled from the seams in his armor-skin like breath from a smoldering coal.

“You walk unsteadily,” Kael’thir said, voice dry as old parchment. “The mark unsettles you.”

Lucar did not turn fully toward him. “Pain is irrelevant. Only purpose matters.”

Kael’thir made a soft sound that might have been amusement. “Purpose. Yes. You hunt in dreams while I shape the Host. Two hands of the same master… though one hand reaches farther than the other.”

Lucar’s jaw tightened. “You think yourself the favored weapon.”

“I do not think,” Kael’thir said. “I know.”

He stepped closer. The heat radiating from his chest prickled against Lucar’s skin, and the thorn-glyph pulsed in answer. Almost… defiant.

“You are air and whispers,” the demon murmured. “Useful for turning stone soft. But when the time comes to break the mountain, it will not be you who strikes the blow.”

Lucar finally faced him. “Breaking the mountain is pointless if its mind remains whole. Doubt prepares the soil. Without me, your strike lands on solid rock.”

Kael’thir’s ember-ribs glowed slightly brighter. “And without me, your whispers die unheard.”

A long moment stretched between them — antipathy held in check only by the weight of the master they served. The fortress pulse deepened, as if the mountain itself saw fit to silence both.

Lucar stepped away first. “We serve the same will,” he said, though his tone made clear how little comfort he found in that fact. “Our methods differ. But the Soulrender directs both.”

Kael’thir inclined his head, though the gesture held no humility. “Then let us hope he finds your method worthy.”

“And yours restrained,” Lucar returned.

The demon’s grin bared sharp, imperfect teeth. “Restraint is for the untested.”

“Then you will be tested soon enough,” Lucar said, already turning away.

Kael’thir did not stop him this time. His voice followed instead, low, echoing softly along the corridor. “The mountain will tremble, Herald. When it does, we will see whose rhythm the deep answers.”

Lucar did not look back. “The deep will answer the master. Not you. Not me.” He continued toward his chambers, pulse still unsteady, the thorn-glyph warming beneath his cloak with each step.

Behind him, Kael’thir watched: an ember in the dark, patient and hungry. And above them both, the fortress shifted in its sleep, stone groaning quietly as though preparing for what came next:

The awakening of the mountain’s heart.

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