Ancestry of Secrets

The western rift was a festering wound in reality. Cultists swarmed its edges, their bone masks glowing with void-light as they chanted. At their center stood a figure draped in tattered silks, her voice a poison-laced melody.

"The Hollow Star rises!" she cried, her words slicing through the chaos. "Come home, little jailer!"

The silks fell. Elara Veyra's face stared back, her eyes voids of static.

Dralei and Ashirai scouts recoiled.

"That's impossible," Garran muttered, his blade trembling. "She's dead."

"The void wears corpses like costumes," Lira hissed, nocking an arrow. "Stay sharp."

Elara's laughter echoed, sharp and mocking. "Miss me, Ethan? Or did you forget me again?"

In the Crossroads council chamber, the raven shattered the silence, its wings scattering scrolls and maps.

"She's here," it rasped, golden eyes blazing. "The void wears his mother's corpse."

Veyra slammed her fist on the table.

"Then let it chew him up. Saves us the trouble."

Kiren rose, her tattoos pulsing.

"If he falls, we fall. The void doesn't conquer—it consumes."

Ethan stood at the rift's edge, the crystal shard burning in his chest. Elara's void-tendrils lashed toward him, her smile a grotesque mockery of memory.

"Look at you," she crooned. "Half ghost, half fool. Can't even hold yourself together."

Ethan activated the shard. Light erupted, projecting a memory, Elara, wounded and gasping, pressing the shard to her heart.

"Protect him…"

The void-Elara screamed, her form unraveling. "LIES!"

Ethan plunged the shard into the rift. "Goodbye, Mother."

The explosion tore the void's heart asunder. Ethan collapsed, his body translucent, the shard's light dimming to an ember. Veyra and Kiren found him moments later, the battlefield eerily silent.

"You idiot," Veyra muttered, kneeling beside him. "Could've warned us."

Ethan's smirk was faint.

"You'd have argued."

Kiren inspected the shard, her tattoos flickering.

"This will kill you."

The raven landed, its voice softer than steel.

"Not if we find the void's heart first."

Night fell over the Crossroads. Dralei and Ashirai gathered around pyres for their dead, the air thick with ash and unspoken truths.

"Your warriors fight… adequately," Kiren said, her tone begrudging. "For thieves."

Veyra snorted. "And yours aren't total cowards."

Above them, the raven watched, the shard clutched in its talons. "Hold on, Ethan," it whispered. "I'm coming."

The void's whisper lingered, softer now, but insistent.

Find me.