The soft soothing sounds of the river didn’t so much fade into silence as they lulled Xavier into peaceful slumber. At first it was the deep dreamless sleep of the soul exhausted, he was aware of nothing around him besides the vast expansive darkness that oft times followed days of exhaustion and exertion. That did not last however, the darkness started to thin, faint light resolving into the world around him.

  He did not open his eyes to the trees and sounds of the Silverwood and the Silver Reach River next to their camp, instead he found himself standing in a vast and boundless field. The grass lit silver by the faint light while overhead the sky had taken on the tint of deep twilight. Disturbingly there were no stars in that expanse, no heavenly bodies what so ever, instead he beheld undulating constellations, their cold light formed from seemingly living sigils that wrote and rewrote themselves on the inky canvas of the night sky.

  And he was not alone.

  Ahead of him, the mist slowly parted to reveal a woman veiled in soft silver, her long luminous hair of sanguine sheen flowed like silk strands disturbed by a unseen and unfelt breeze. There was no boisterous or loud fanfare to her presence, it was a soft, deliberate and inevitable presence, like the slow turning of seasons and the grinding passage of time. Her eyes were fathomless, the dark orbs reflecting not himself standing before her but seeming the whole of creation.

  She, Xavier knew without introduction. He had seen her before even if not in this form… Danu.

  Before he could react, she opened her mouth to speak and the voice that issued forth was like a stream cascading over ancient stones. It was ageless, calm and yet it carried the weight of everything that had come to pass, existed and was yet to be.

  “The world stirs, child of earth and echo. Beneath the mountains you have not yet climbed something sleeps, a nexus of lines older than the gods’ decree”

  The sound of her words reverberated through the very ground he stood upon, a tremor that shook as deep as bedrock itself. Overhead the sigils shifted from constellations to form the outline of a vast mountain, at its roots was wrapped a radiant core that pulsed, then pulsed a second time, then faded to silent presence.

  “It sleeps not by nature but bound by chains wrought in fear. Fear of what you might yet revive and awaken.”

  A thousand questions thundered through Xavier’s mind, a hundred thousand fought in the darkest recesses of his conscious thoughts straining to be brought forth. He opened his mouth to speak but only silence issued forth. No words came, the dream held him perfectly in a silent audience. And Danu stepped closer. He could smell the subtle scent of rain on dry soil, that clean smell of nitrogen as the drops first started to strike clung to her robes.

  “Another chain binds closer still though.”

  Overhead the sky changed once again. The mountain vanished and was instead replaced by a crown, a shattered crown, a jagged line sundered its middle and it was suspended over twisted and gnarled tree roots. The whole image was bound with sigils of divine nature that burned gold and white in color. The roots of the tree twitched but their movements were weak bound as they were by the glowing chains.

  From right in front of him Danu whispered, “the king yet lives.”

  Xavier’s eyes were drawn back to hers and her gaze was piercing.

  “His throne stolen, his will caged. It was not mortals who could seal him thus but the will of those who would call themselves stewards of order.”

  Above, the fractured crown slowly spun, a faint and soft silver light bleeding from its cracked edges.

  “He cannot rise while the chain holds, and without him neither can the land be restored.”

  Danu’s body began to shimmer. Its wavering form dissolved into drifting motes of light that the unseen wind scattered across the twilight lit fields, but even as she vanished her final words filled the air and hung there as gentle as falling ashes.

  “To wake that which was silenced, you must first seek to free what was shackled. Trust yourself to find the way.”

  As the last echoes of the goddess’ voice faded the dream and the very field that he stood in began to unravel as well. The silver grasses melted into hazy mist and the sigils that stood for stars folded in upon themselves.

  Xavier fell.

  And he kept falling, deeper into the darkness, until his eyes opened to the cold breath of dawn’s light.

  Dawn’s breath lay cold on his skin as he returned to consciousness. It was laced with the damp scent of the nearby river and heavy with the faint loamy musk of the dew crusted earth. For a long time, Xavier just lay still, caught between the ghostly remains of the fading dream and the crisp reality of the waking world. The memory of silver fields, burning sigils, and Danu’s voice clung to his mind like mist and refused to relinquish their hold easily. However, the soft murmur of the Silverflow and the gentle rustle of the leaves in the trees grounded him back in the waking world and he opened his eyes to the quiet camp wrapped in the grey gentle mist of early morning.

  Exhaling slowly, he felt the weight of what he had seen settle in his breast like a stone lodged too deep into a shoe to easily be shifted. Nearby the embers of the fire from last night gave the faintest of glows as the breeze fanned them lightly, a fragile heartbeat against the early morning chill. Beyond them, Ella sat, watching him closely. Her gaze was sharp and steady but wholly unreadable in the pale gloomy light.

  “You saw her again did you not?” She finally whispered, so as to not disturb the others in the camp.

  Xavier nodded slowly once, then shifted to a sitting position. His muscles were sore from sleeping on the ground and the hard journey they had taken to get here from Ironhaven. It was not that which caused him the heaviest burden though, that came from the knowing that Danu had provided. He remained silent for a few heartbeats, trying to align the fragments of the dream into a coherent thought he could put to words.

  “She didn’t come with a warning this time,” he stated eventually, his words certain as he spoke them. “She came with a truth and a choice.”

  Ella rose and shifted to kneel beside him, she was close but not crowding him, her presence providing a steady weight to anchor himself to in the tumultuous thoughts of the morning.

  “Tell me?” She prompted him.

  Xavier drug fingers through his hair, the cold dampness of the air clinging to each strand and his skin only lending to the leaching of his body’s heat.

  “There is another nexus, this one buried beneath the Ironspire mountains. It’s ancient but suppressed. Forced to slumber by the gods in ages past. However, that was not the most critical point she made, nor is it what matters most at the moment.” His hands clenched into fists against his knees. “King Rorik is still alive, he’s alive and imprisoned. He’s not the one ruling. He’s bound beneath Thandor’s Reach by divine sigils. Shackled by those who claim to be the very stewards of order.”

  That proclamation caused Ella to intake a sharp breath, one she didn’t even bother to hide. The sound caused Lianna to stir from across the clearing, her ears twitching as she heard the low voices. By her side Frostclaw lifted his head and blinked into the mist. A few moments later, even Lythara prowled over, her tail flicking lazily behind her and her sharp crimson eyes taking in everything.

  “Did you say the King is imprisoned?” Lianna asked quietly, her voice rough with disbelief. “The rumors were he was severely injured and possibly killed leading a charge against rebels.

  “Lies,” Lythara mused. “Convenient ones, a bound king rallies rebellions whereas a dead or injured heroic one drums up the morale and support for the power behind the throne, suppressing that of the rebels.” She crouched beside a fallen branch and began toying with one of the broken branches in idle thought. “Who better to write such lies than the gods themselves?” Her voice was low and cutting, like a sharp blade. “Fear dressed up as stability. Order bought with broken crowns.”

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  Xavier bobbed his head in agreement then turned his gaze to the northeast where maps said Thandor’s Reach, its magnificent towers unseen, were supposed to lie beyond the forest’s edge somewhere in the rolling hills and plains of the Wildlands.

  Speaking more to himself than those around him he murmured. “We’re not here to start a war. We don’t need to burn Arenvalis to the ground so we won’t need an army.” Pushing himself to his feet the mist swirled around him like the whispers of old buried things. “We need to break just one chain.”

  Ella rose beside him. She did not speak but her posture and presence spoke volumes. She was bound to him not just through Vaeltheris, but she had tied her very essence to his soul and would follow him into the abyss and back if he needed it. Her eyes shifted towards the capital as well.

  Lianna rose next, her hand resting on Frostclaw’s head as her eyes narrowed. “If it will help my people, you need but show me the way and I will walk it with you.”

  Lythara’s smile was lazy as she leaned back on her heels more. The broken branch rolling between her fingers. Her posture was casual but her gaze, those glowing sanguine orbs were sharp as a razor. “Breaking chains always makes noises,” she said softly. “We should plan how we slip away afterwards before the gods send more than whispers and dreams to dog our trail.”

  Like Ella, Sihri didn’t speak. Her actions were more than words. She simply adjusted the leather wraps on her fists and flexed her fingers as her ears twitched towards where Xavier looked.

  Looking at those gathered around him, Xavier’s chest swelled even as his stomach knotted. The weight of their agreements wrapped around his shoulders like a mantle. Then he felt it again, the faint hum beneath the soles of his boots, the slow, inexorable stir of the earth, and deeper still, almost out of reach, the soft pulse of life, and a colder shiver of death brushing faintly against his awareness. The Syr’Vailen’s bond to him was strengthening, the leylines were listening and the world was beginning to waken once again.

  “And soon,” Xavier thought to himself. “So too would the sleeping king.”

  While they moved through the forest the mist continued to thicken around their calves, curling in low coiling tendrils over the woodland floor. The light seemed to struggle to pierce through the dense ancient canopy of the Silverwood trees resulting in the world being cast in muted hues of grey and green. No one spoke; they were all lost in thought. The weight of Xavier’s dream, the truth of it, hung heavy on their minds a silent thread that tied their thoughts and themselves to a single way forward.

  Xavier led the way, his boots moving over the damp earth with barely a whisper, he was not as skilled as Lianna in this, but he was getting better. As he took each step, he started to notice a subtle vibration reverberating through him, a tremor he might have ignored but he was paying closer attention to the slight changes about him. It was why when he felt them now, he noticed.

  As he walked, his mind on the new sensation beneath his feet he casually brushed his fingertips over the bark of a nearby tree. Through that ancient oak he felt another sensation that gave him pause and for but a heartbeat he felt the world shift. A deep slow pulse moving through the soil and stone beneath his feet similar to when he could feel caverns with his nascent earth sense. He could swear he felt Arath’s patient breath and heartbeat, while he focused for an additional fleeting moment, he felt other sensations brush his mind, He felt the sap of the tree surge with life, and off in the distance he ‘knew’ a small squirrel like corpse lay decaying. Those sensations were not as sure as the earth sense and as he pressed his palm flat to the tree he sought them again. Only this time they faded away like the mist surrounding them slipping through his grasp. They faded, resisted, vanished. Only the earth remained, a slow faint steady hum beneath his feet deep below the soil.

  Ella moved to his side, her presence silent and steady, quite for several moments before she asked, “You felt it, did you not?” Her voice was cast low but clear to his ears.

  He let his hand fall from the rough bark of the tree and nodded. “For a moment, though its not constant or consistent.”

  Ella studied him thoughtfully, her head slightly canted to the side. “No, it likely would not be. Not yet,” she said gently, “the bond you made… it is like catching a thread in the storm. Sometimes it is strong and easy to grasp and other times it slips away.”

  “The earth sense lingers though,” he murmured. “It’s the others that are harder to hold onto.”

  Ella’s smile was small, a knowing smile if not a certainly understanding one.

  “Earth is patient,” she said, “it waits. The others… maybe they will come easier the longer you grow with them. They may have been first, but they are not as solid as earth even if they are just as immutable.”

  Xavier looked at her quietly. It was slightly disturbing how she could almost know what he was thinking or feeling. He chalked it up to her being bonded to his soul as he had no other explanation for it.

  She opened her mouth to speak again, pausing briefly as if she was carefully considering her words. “If you truly want to understand the sensations you are feeling, you should speak with Aelriva when we get back to Rynthavael. She knows the old ways better than I recall, she knows the Ley better and will likely have answers that I do not.”

  The suggestion hung between them like a quiet offer. A quiet promise of knowledge. He slowly nodded in agreement as a ripple of both anticipation and unease flowed through him. He would seek out the knowledgeable little sprite, but for now he had to walk in ignorance, blind faith in the earth beneath his feet and what sensations it offered him.

  Ahead of the small group the path forked into the mist. Lianna moved past the two quickly and held up a hand signaling without a word for everyone to wait. A crisp birds whistle left her lips before she moved again and, interestingly to Xavier’s mind, Sihri, Valkra and Frostclaw all reacted. Sihri darted to one side vanishing silently into the fog like a living shadow. Following her came the small dark form of Valkra, her tails low and poised as her paws carried her silently over the ground. Down the other path Frostclaw ghosted forward following the direction that Lianna had taken, his great form melding into the mist like a ghost.

  Xavier watched them scatter into the trees ahead, scouting the path for any sign of danger. As they vanished from sight he slowed his breath, steadying himself. As he did so the sensation of connection, he had felt faded further, leaving only the quiet constant murmur of the earth underfoot, the old deep song of roots and stone, the heartbeat of the world itself.

  A few breaths later he heard Lianna’s voice float back to them.

  “The trail is clear. Valkra has caught the scent of a deer but there are no patrols.”

  Xavier sighed in relief as Lythara drifted up beside him. Her voice a low purr when she spoke.

  “Careful, Lord Stonewalker. Listen too long to the heartbeat of the world and you might forget your own.”

  Xavier shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. The teasing title brought a faint smile to the corner of his lips.

  “I think I will risk it… demoness.”

  The succubus flashed a sharp and amused smile in return.

  “Good, dull men are such terrible company after all.”

  They pressed deeper into the trees, the mist thickening, the old game and hunting paths twisting between gnarled roots and ancient stones. Xavier closed his eyes briefly, reaching for the sensation again. Only the Earth sense remained. The brighter currents, those of Life and Death, had retreated. He knew he would have to seek them again another day. Another day when he had more patience and guidance to do so.

  Ahead, Sihri and Valkra flickered back into view, then slipped once more into the shadows. Frostclaw circled back to Lianna’s side before vanishing among the trees.

  Deep beneath the polished stone floors of Thandor’s Reach, hidden from the gilded banners and bustling marketplaces above, the air grew still and heavy. There were no windows here, no light or fresh air. The sounds of the waking city were unable to pierce this deep into the stone underbelly. Only the cold flicker of candlelight, burning with a faint, sickly gold lit the room. A figure knelt at the center of the chamber, draped in ceremonial robes of white and gold, the sigil of Solara stitched proudly across her back.

  To any who saw her walking the palace halls, she would seem a priestess of the Divine Light, and a devout servant of the Edict of Order, however, here away from watchful eyes, she shed the mask. She rose slowly, drawing the golden veil free to expose beneath it, her true face was hidden by a stark, bone-white mask. It was a skull crowned by a sunburst, the unmistakable mark of Nekros, the god of death and endings masked beneath the Edict's bright facade.

  The priestess of Nekros moved toward the heart of the chamber, where a glyph shimmered and twisted in the air, sigil of divine make. A binding seal. At its center floated a fragile image: a fractured crown, caught in a web of gold and white light. The seal was anchored in the very Edict of Order itself, pulsing faintly with each slow heartbeat of the spell.

  She extended one pale hand toward the glyph, and she felt it. A tremor, not within the stone beneath her sandals, but inside the magic itself. It was a flicker of instability where there should have been only absolute stillness.

  “The chain weakens...” she whispered, voice soft as falling ash. “The will stirs.”

  Footsteps echoed lightly across the stone. The priestess turned as another figure entered. This one was cloaked in gray and black, their face hidden behind a smooth obsidian mask. An agent of the Shadow Court.

  It was the masked agent who spoke first, their voice low and measured but unidentifiable as male or female. “You felt it too.”

  The priestess inclined her head slightly. “The king strains against his bindings. Someone... or something... touches the weave beyond what should be possible.”

  The agent folded gloved hands behind their back. “The human. The one the Animari shelter. He stirs lines we were told and thought long buried.”

  The priestess turned back to the glyph, watching the fractured crown as it trembled, ever so faintly. “It was inevitable. No chain, however blessed by law, remains unstrained forever.” She paused, her voice cooling even further. “He cannot be allowed to come to the Reach unchallenged. Nor may the slumbering heart beneath the Ironspires be disturbed.”

  The agent bowed slightly. “The Chainsworn are already in motion. They will harry him in the wilds. Delay him. Cut away his strength and ultimately kill him.”

  A thin smile curled behind the priestess's mask, it was a brittle thing, untouched by warmth. “Let them. One fracture invites another. If he reaches the king, if he loosens the chain even slightly...”

  She reached out, tracing the trembling glyph with two fingers, whispering a prayer in the old tongue of Nekros’ followers of ages past. The fracture steadied, but the damage was done, the glyph's pulse was no longer perfect. The crack had been seeded, and chains, once cracked, rarely hold forever.

  Somewhere beyond these gilded walls, a ripple extended in the deep wilds and the waking bones of the earth, a mortal had begun to shake the heavens themselves without even knowing it.