Elsewhere, deep in the Vale of Forgotten Thrones…
A woman cloaked in white stepped across a silver pool. The air shimmered with unstable magic. Her staff, carved with ancient glyphs, hummed against her grip. Her eyes—once warm and wild—now carried the weight of time uncounted.
She whispered to the void, to the presence she knew was watching her.
"He's coming. I felt the fragment activate. But he doesn't know who I am yet… does he?"
Silence answered.
She closed her eyes.
"Please, don't let him remember too soon. I'm not ready to lose him again."
Back at the city of Kael'Zar…
Jian and Song Chan stood before the relic vault. The Shadow Prince's relic was sealed behind a thousand-year-old lock known only to respond to bloodline echoes and guilt unspoken.
"According to the system," Jian said, tapping her interface, "the relic can only be activated by someone who has 'betrayed light for shadow.' That's some vague poetic bullshit."
Song Chan didn't reply.
He stared at the seal.
And it opened.
Not with a flash or dramatic flair—just a slow, bone-deep creak. The metal curled away like it feared him.
Jian's mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"I don't know how," he said quietly. "But I think this thing… it recognized me."
The relic hovered in the air: a black ring inscribed with runes of both creation and undoing. And as he touched it, a sharp pain shot through his chest—followed by a flicker of Alice's face, superimposed over a battlefield soaked in blood.