“But do not mistake me, Alaric. I do not merely miss him. I am furious with him.”
Dagan turns toward me, frowning. The earth trembles, a slow, angry roll beneath us.
“He should never have fallen,” I continue. “He should never have left the crown silent. The balance broken. The Fates uncertain.”
I gesture sharply, fire flickering at my fingertips as my anger bleeds into the air.
“Everywhere I look, I see the rot the SoulTakers have sown. Doubt. Fear. The slow erosion of certainty.” My voice hardens. “My people whisper it in the Broken Plains. Yours whisper it in the tides and the skies. All of them say the same thing. What will become of us?”
I look at each of them as they weigh my words.
They think they understand the danger.
They do not.
“You worry about borders and villages,” I go on. “About fields and coasts and stone halls.” My gaze sharpens. “But my people live beneath the world. In the mines and the caverns. In the heat and dark. Miners, yes—but not for gold or steel.”
I clench my fist, fire snapping to life between my fingers before I force it back down.
“We know your importance to the realm, brother,” Alaric says gently.
The gentle tone breaks something in me.
“Not my importance!” I snap. “Theirs.”
I take a step forward, heat rolling off me in waves.
“It is my people who are being hunted first. Dragged from tunnels. Burned out of their homes. Taken in the night by SoulTaker raids that leave nothing but ash and silence behind.”
My voice roughens, fury scraping it raw.
“The Demons of the Broken Plains work beneath the surface of the world—do you understand that? Do you know what that means? Sometimes for months without seeing home, or hearth, or sky. They dig where no light reaches. They endure heat and dark and stone so the forges can burn.” I bare my teeth. “So dreams can be made.”
The fire in my chest twists, turning heavy, painful.
“They are not warriors. They are smiths. Keepers. Laborers. And they are dying so the multiverse can keep dreaming.”
The chamber stills.
Even the stones seem to hold their breath.
“Every universe feeds from us,” I say. “Dreams. Nightmares. Hope. Despair. Light and darkness alike. Without night, there can be no day. Without shadow, no form. Without fire—no spark.”
The Demon Lords of Nightfall know this.
The SoulTakers know this, too.
“A stolen dream is a tragedy. And the SoulTakers are greedy,” I snarl. “They do not want balance. They want everything. All the ore. All the magic and power. All the dreams and nightmares. They want them unwoven, stripped down, devoured.”
I turn slowly, meeting each of my brothers’ eyes in turn.
“If they succeed, The Ember Vein will close.”
The words land heavy.
“Darkness will not fall like a storm,” I continue grimly. “It will creep. Ignorance. Silence. A multiverse where there is no creative spark left to ignite love or invention or rebellion.”
I shake my head once.
