Vaelen knelt by a jagged slab of half-melted alloy, one of the many scraps they'd pulled from the tech wreckage scattered nearby. His fingers moved with practiced precision, carving rune lines into the metal's edge.

"That's not going to hold if the mist thickens again," Jin said, crouching across from him, untangling what was left of the bio-cloth sheeting. "You're binding it wrong."

"It's holding now," Vaelen snapped, eyes never leaving the groove he traced. "Unless you've suddenly found a better option buried in this graveyard, let me work."

Jin sighed, loud enough to make his point. "You're binding a Veyari flame-shield node to repurposed human alloy. It's going to short the moment the wind shifts."

"We don't have time to be perfect," Vaelen muttered. "Or did you forget that Cael's condition is still degrading?"

"I didn't forget," Jin shot back. "I'm the one keeping him alive."

They both paused. The air around them crackled softly with residual charge, reminding them that silence here wasn't natural. Nothing was.

Jin looked down at his hands. Dirt under the nails. Blood from the edge of his thumb where the edge of a cracked med-patch had bitten in. He grabbed a strip of polymer-sealant and began welding the cloth into place. "We need to reinforce the eastern side. It's collapsing."

"No. I already ran stabilizers through that node," Vaelen replied without missing a beat.

Jin scoffed. "Of course you did. Always two steps ahead, right, Highborn?"

Vaelen finally glanced up. His expression unreadable, his voice colder than the Gate wind. "Is that really what you want to bicker about? Nobility? Here?"

Jin didn't answer, just threw the patch forward and stood. "I'll secure the perimeter. If anything moves, I'll know."

"Don't go far," Vaelen said, more quietly.

"Wasn't planning to."

Vaelen exhaled once he was alone. The weight of the mist pressed harder when no one spoke. He reached for a rusted containment shard, jammed it into the western anchor post, and activated a low-level heat rune. A small shimmer of warmth pulsed in the metal. Not much, but enough to buy them time.

Behind him, inside the half-assembled tent, Cael shivered again. His skin had taken on a pale shimmer, the veins beneath glowing softly like dull lightning bolts frozen under ice.

Vaelen's hand paused mid-motion, resting on the edge of the support frame.

"We're running out of time," he said to no one.

---

Cael’s Dream – First Person

The world burns in silence.

I don't know how long I've been drifting. Thought is sand here, slipping between fingers I can't feel. But then the fire comes, and I remember.

Screams echo without sound, rippling across a war-torn sky. I see the cities of the human dimension—torn, gutted. Their towers of chrome and glass ripped open like carcasses, smoke and rune-light bleeding into the clouds. The ground shakes, as if the planet itself is trying to vomit out the war. The screams don't stop. But they never touch my ears.

I stand in the center of it all, or maybe I float. I'm not me. I'm not there. But I see.

And I see him.

Riven.

Cloaked in blood and shadow, standing on the broken hull of an armored sky-crawler. The red glint in his eyes isn't rage—it's something colder. Purpose. He holds a black artifact, shaped like a fractured heart, glowing at its edges. Around him, the battlefield writhes—soldiers with rune-etched tech and corrupted beasts locked in a slaughter neither side is winning.

He doesn't flinch as artillery fire erupts in the background. Doesn't turn when one of his own—Cree—is torn through the chest by a lance of blue plasma. Cree stumbles, trying to say something, then crumples. The shadows drag his body away before it hits the ground.

Riven just looks forward.

"Stay down!" someone shouts. A girl with ash-white hair—Vex—dives behind a fragment of collapsed shield wall. She's wounded. Her leg is shattered, her rifle overheated and useless. Blood seeps into the stone. She's reaching for something—maybe help, maybe hope.

But Riven doesn't go to her.

He's not heartless. But he's made of something else now. Fire and vengeance and quiet grief. He watches the sky split again, revealing a second rift—purple lightning and spiraling glyphs tearing open reality like peeling flesh.

A voice speaks from that rift. No mouth. Just presence.

"Fractured child… you carry death like a crown."

I feel myself falling again—drawn into the rift. Into something older. I glimpse dozens of flickering faces—his allies, his enemies. A woman with gold-cast arms clutching a fallen friend. A Veyari general with half his face gone, whispering prayers to a dead god. A boy trying to hold back a tide of Nullspawn with nothing but a broken sword.

And then—me.

I lie on an altar again. My skin is pale as salt. My eyes wide open, reflecting the same broken sky. A crack runs from my chest down to my abdomen, glowing faintly. I'm not dead.

But I'm not alive either.

Then Riven turns—and stares straight at me.

"You left me behind."

His voice isn't angry. It's tired.

"You always do."

He reaches toward me, but the world explodes before he can touch.