The nights after Blackfire were never quiet again.
Even in sleep, Valen couldn't escape the fire.
It lived beneath his skin now—coiling through his blood like smoke through shattered glass. His body had healed, mostly. But the scars on his arms still pulsed faintly in the dark, warm like old embers that refused to die out.
He didn't tell anyone about the dreams.
Not even Kira or Lira.
They were too real.
Too… loud.
And tonight, they returned again.
The Vision Begins
It started with silence.
Then the sound of wind. Bitter, dry.
Valen opened his eyes and found himself standing in a wasteland of bone.
The sky above was red—not with fire, but with rot. Cracks ran across the clouds like old wounds, leaking light that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Mountains of ash rose in every direction, and beneath his feet, the earth cracked and bled darkness with every step.
He knew this place.
Not from memory—but from prophecy.
The End. The true one.
The first apocalypse.
But he wasn't alone.
A shadow walked ahead, draped in armor that shimmered like broken obsidian. A long coat whipped behind him in the wind, the same way Valen's did now. The figure stopped—turned.
And Valen saw himself.
Older. Hardened. Eyes like black stars. And something far worse behind them.
"You came," the older Valen said.
Valen frowned. "What is this?"
The other tilted his head. "A warning. A test. A truth."
The Harbinger
They stood across from one another on a ridge of glass.
"You think the fire changed you," the older Valen said. "You're wrong. It revealed you."
"I survived it," Valen said flatly.
"For now. But the more you use it, the more it shapes you."
Valen's fists clenched. "Then tell me. What am I becoming?"
The older self looked out across the wasteland.
"Me."
A memory surged forward. Thousands of dead. Cities falling. Riftborn kneeling before a burning figure wreathed in both Echo and Blackfire. A god. A monster. A weapon.
"No," Valen said through his teeth. "I won't let it come to that."
"You won't have a choice."
The older version stepped forward, shadows peeling away from him like smoke.
"They'll call you Harbinger soon. The Riftborn will follow. The humans will fear. And when the Nexus opens…"
"The Nexus?" Valen asked, cutting him off.
The older Valen raised a hand—and the sky split.
The Eye
From the red clouds above, something opened.
Not a portal. Not a Rift.
An eye.
Massive. Unblinking. Carved in light and agony. Its gaze washed over the land like a flood of judgment, and every part of Valen's body screamed as it looked at him. His scars burned. His Echo twisted. The fire inside him surged in revolt.
He dropped to his knees.
"What is that?" he gasped.
The older self didn't flinch. "That is the Dreaming Eye. The gate to the Nexus. When it opens in your world, everything changes."
Valen's breath came ragged now.
"Can I stop it?"
The older version didn't answer.
He just walked away.
But before he vanished into ash, he said:
"You'll dream of it again. Until it wakes."
Return to the Sanctuary
Valen jolted awake, drenched in sweat, breath harsh in the stale air of his bunker. The fire scars on his arms glowed faintly. His Echo buzzed at his fingertips, restless.
A soft knock sounded on his door.
"Valen," came Kira's voice. "You okay? Heard something."
He looked at the shadows stretching long across his floor.
"I'm fine," he said. "Just a dream."
But he knew it wasn't.
He rose, pulled on his coat, and stepped outside.
The night above the sanctuary was quiet. Too quiet. No Riftborn. No movement. Not even wind. Like the world was holding its breath.
Lira was on watch. She handed him a canteen and eyed his posture.
"You didn't sleep."
"No," Valen said, sipping water.
"Was it… them?"
He paused. "No. Something worse."
He turned his gaze upward, toward the stars hidden behind layers of dust and darkness.
"There's a gate," he said. "A Nexus. I saw it. And it's waking."
Lira didn't ask how. She just nodded. "Then we better find it before it finds us."
The Path Ahead
Later, in the war room, Valen traced his fingers over an old map of the pre-fall cityscape. His eyes lingered on a section deep underground—where Rift energy spiked in unreadable waves. A place no one had returned from.
A red zone.
He marked it with a sigil of Echo.
Kira leaned over his shoulder.
"That where you're going?"
Valen nodded. "I need to know what's down there. If there's a Nexus… I have to see it with my own eyes."
"You sure you're ready?"
Valen didn't answer right away.
He looked down at his hands—one wrapped in black fire, the other in cold shadow.
"No. But I don't think we ever get ready for the end."
Kira placed a hand on his shoulder. "You won't go alone."
"I never do," Valen said quietly.
And in the silence that followed, he heard it again.
A whisper.
Not in the air.
Inside his mind.
Soon.