The Whispering Wastes had never known silence like this.
It wasn't the absence of sound—no, the Wastes were never truly silent. The wind still hissed through the skeletal remains of ancient constructs, carrying the echoes of dead spells and forgotten wars. The earth still groaned underfoot, cracked and brittle as old bones. But the air between the Thorn family and the Council was thick with something heavier than silence. Something like the moment before a storm breaks, when the sky holds its breath and the world waits for the first strike of lightning.
Eryk Thorn stood between his parents, his mother's grip tight on his wrist, his father's blood still drying on his hands. Liora Thorn—his mother—was a storm barely contained. Her dark eyes burned with a fury that had no outlet, her lips pressed into a thin line as if she feared what might spill out if she opened them. She was smaller than Kael, slighter, but there was a weight to her presence, a gravity that made the air around her tremble.
And then there was Kael.
His father swayed slightly where he stood, his face pale beneath the dirt and blood. The Mythblade was gone, shattered into fragments at his feet, its runes dead and dull. But he was alive. That alone was a miracle Eryk hadn't dared hope for.
Across from them, the Council's enforcers—the Black Tongues—stood in rigid formation, their silver-trimmed cloaks stirring in the wind. At their center, Magister Dain leaned heavily on one of his subordinates, his face ashen. His magic was drained. His eyes, those were alive with something dark and venomous.
"You will answer for this, Hollowborn," Dain spat, his voice a ragged whisper. "You think because your father still breathes, this is over? The Council does not forgive! It does not forget!"
Liora's fingers tightened around Eryk's wrist.
"Touch my son again," she said, her voice low, "and I will show you what it means to be forgotten!"
The threat hung in the air, sharp as a blade.
Dain's lips curled, but before he could speak, Eryk stepped forward.
"You want to punish someone?" His voice was raw, scraped thin from screaming. "Then punish me."
The words tasted like ash. Like surrender. But he meant them.
Dain's gaze flickered to Sera, who stood a few paces behind Eryk, her knife clutched tight in her hand, her eyes darting between the Council and the dragon coiled at Eryk's feet. The creature—small, molten-bronze, its wings still damp from hatching—hissed at Dain, smoke curling from its nostrils.
"All of you will face judgment," Dain said. "The Thorn family for harboring a Hollowborn. The girl for aiding him. And you, Eryk Thorn, for the crime of existing!"
Kael stirred, his voice rough. "Enough, Dain!"
Dain ignored him. "Seize them!"
The Black Tongues moved as one, their boots scraping against the broken earth.
Eryk's pulse roared in his ears. He could feel the void inside him stirring, hungry and restless. He could fight. He could tear through them like he had torn through Dain's magic. But then what? More blood? More bodies?
His mother's grip on him tightened.
"Why didn't you imprison Riven?"
The question cut through the tension like a knife.
Dain froze. The Black Tongues hesitated. Even Kael turned, his brow furrowing.
Eryk pressed on, his voice gaining strength. "The old Spellbreaker. The one before me. You let him live. You let him walk these Wastes. Why?"
Dain's face darkened. "Riven is dead."
"No!" Eryk said. "He's not. Elira Vann spared him."
The name landed like a hammer.
Kael's breath caught. "Shit…"
Eryk didn't look at him. He kept his eyes on Dain, on the way the man's fingers twitched, the way his jaw clenched.
"She let him live. In exchange for my father's silence. Just like she gave him the Firebrand name, didn't she?"
The words were a gamble. But the way Dain's eyes flickered, Eryk knew he'd struck true.
Kael made a sound, low and wounded. "Eryk… what are you saying?"
Eryk turned to him with his chest aching. "You never earned that name, did you? It was given to you. Because Elira spared Riven, and you were the one who took his place."
The truth hung between them.
Kael's face crumpled. For the first time in Eryk's life, his father looked small.
Dain recovered first. "Enough of this! You think lies will save you?"
"It's not a lie," Eryk said. "Riven told me everything. He's the one who helped me control the Null Grimoire. He's the reason I'm still standing here."
The Council shifted, murmurs rising among them.
Dain's voice was a snarl. "You expect us to believe you?"
"I don't care what you believe," Eryk said. "But I'm not a threat to Veldros. Not if I can control this." He pressed a hand to his chest, where the void pulsed. "Give me time to remove the Null Grimoire inside me. Let me leave Veldros and find a way. Let me find a way to remove the Null Grimoire."
Liora's grip on him turned bruising. "No."
Eryk turned to her. "Mama—"
"You are not leaving," she said, her voice breaking. "You are coming home."
He had never seen her like this. Not when he was a child scraping his knees. Not when he'd first manifested his magic and set the house ablaze. She had always been steady. Unshakable.
Now, she was shaking.
"I have to," he whispered.
Kael stepped forward, his voice quiet. "Liora… if this is what he needs—"
"No!" She rounded on him, her eyes blazing. "You don't get to decide this! Not after everything!"
Kael flinched.
Eryk had never seen his father flinch before.
The dragon at his feet chirped, nudging his boot with its snout. Sera, meanwhile, looked like she wanted to strangle someone. Preferably Eryk.
"This is insane," she muttered. "We're all going to die."
Eryk ignored her. He turned back to the Council. "Let me go to the Court of Thorns. Let me prove I'm not a monster."
Dain's lip curled. "The Court of Thorns? You think they'll help you?"
"I don't know," Eryk admitted. "But Veldros has no jurisdiction there. And I won't be your problem anymore."
The Council exchanged glances. The air hummed with tension.
Then, slowly, one of the older magisters—a woman with silver-streaked hair—nodded. "Let him go."
Dain whirled on her. "You cannot be serious—"
"Enough, Dain," she said, her voice weary. "We've spilled enough blood today."
The decision was made.
A silence settled over the room like ash after fire.
Eryk exhaled, the sound shaky and thin, and for a moment, he thought his knees might give out. The weight of what had just happened—the choice he had sealed with his own mouth—crashed over him like a tidal wave. It was done. There was no taking it back.
Across from him, Liora made a sound, something guttural and broken, a wounded animal noise that should never have come from a mother's throat. She doubled over, gagging as if the air itself had turned poison in her lungs.
Kael surged forward, all was sharp concern and frantic movement. "Liora—?"
She shoved him back, violently, her hand trembling from the force of it. Her face had gone corpse-pale, her mouth trembling with unsaid things.
"Don't," she croaked, her voice barely a whisper, yet heavy enough to silence the room.
Eryk stared, the word slipping from his mouth before he could stop it.
"Mama…?"
She wiped her mouth with the back of her shaking hand, trying to hold herself together, but she was coming apart in pieces, and he could see every shard. Her eyes were red, rimmed with the fire of grief and sleepless nights, and when she finally looked at him, it was as if her gaze peeled him open.
"When will you come back?"
The question shattered him.
It tore through every layer of his resolve, cutting deep into the part of him that still wanted to be her boy, that still wanted to be held and told everything would be okay.
"I don't know," he whispered. "Weeks. Months. Maybe… maybe years."
She let out a small, bitter laugh, the kind that comes only when the heart is too cracked to cry properly. Then the dam broke anyway, and she covered her face with her hands and wept, the sound was raw, full of everything she couldn't say.
Kael reached for her again, more carefully this time, his hands unsure—torn between the man who had made the same choice and the husband who couldn't watch his wife unravel. But she slapped his hand away, not out of cruelty, but desperation.
"Go," she said, her voice was trembling. "Go, before I change my mind."
Eryk's throat tightened. He wanted to run to her. To hold her. To promise her he'd return, whole and unbroken. But what good were promises in the face of the unknown? What good were words when you couldn't even trust the ground beneath your feet?
So he turned.
Sera was already ahead, her boots crunching through gravel as she stomped away without a backward glance. She muttered curses with every step, loud and defiant, like they could shield her from the ache beneath. The dragon padded behind her, tail swishing with idle menace, as if it could sense the tension in the air and chose mockery over comfort.
Eryk paused, just once, and looked back.
His mother: a broken storm of sobs.
His father: standing like a statue, eyes wide and hollow, as if someone had scooped the soul from his chest and left a shell behind.
He closed his eyes and turned away.
~○~
The Wastes stretched before them like a scar across the world. The sky above was the color of old iron, clouds bruised with a storm that never came, and the wind whispered secrets no one wanted to hear.
Sera waited until the last sliver of the settlement disappeared behind them before she spun around with her eyes blazing.
"You absolute idiot!"
Eryk blinked. He was already exhausted. "What?"
"The Court of Thorns?" she snarled, incredulous. "Do you even know where that is?"
He hesitated.
"No," he admitted.
She threw her arms up, eyes wide with fury.
"Of course you don't! Of course! Because you're an idiot! A brave, self-sacrificing, stupid idiot! And now I'm stuck with you! And that—that thing!" She jabbed a finger at the dragon who blinked slowly at her.
The creature hissed at her, smoke curling from its nostrils like a smirk.
Eryk rubbed his face. "Sera—"
"No! Shut up! Just shut up!" Her voice cracked as she turned away, pacing. "I hate this. I hate you. I hate—" She lashed out, kicking a rock with all her strength. It skittered across the dry earth, a pathetic thing pretending to be a release. "I just wanted to go home... I missed Narliya..."
The last word faltered, like it didn't want to be said. Like admitting it made it real.
Eryk didn't speak. What could he say?
I'm sorry? Sorry wouldn't undo the pain, wouldn't take them back, wouldn't make the road ahead any less terrifying.
The dragon chirped softly and nudged Sera's boot. It was almost tender.
She looked down at it, face streaked with dust and something dangerously close to tears.
"I will cook you!" she muttered darkly.
The dragon puffed smoke in her face in reply.
Eryk exhaled—third time now, and it felt like every breath took a little more of him with it.