The wind on the Blighted Coast didn't whistle.
It screamed.
Not loud. Not sharp.
Just a low, endless howl — like the world itself was mourning something it couldn't remember.
Ash rained from a sunless sky.
The sea was black, thick like oil, thrashing against jagged rocks as if trying to escape the shore.
Raen walked alone.
No path. No map. Just memory and instinct — both unreliable, both burning inside him like dying stars.
His coat billowed behind him, soaked in salt and silence.
And still… the blade didn't speak.
---
> "Dareth Vale."
He whispered the name like it might summon a ghost.
Once, Dareth had commanded storms with laughter in his voice.
Once, he had stood beside Raen as a brother, binding lightning to will and sky.
Now?
He was a myth buried beneath the lies of the world.
Just like Raen.
---
The cliffs opened into a crater.
Once a fortress — now shattered, melted by divine fire, crawling with twisted stone and echoes of spells cast by men who no longer existed.
And in the center of it all…
Lightning walked.
It didn't crack from the sky.
It stepped.
Bolts of white-gold formed legs, a spine, shoulders — until it coalesced into the shape of a man.
Tattered coat. Scorched runes. Hair glowing like static fire.
And eyes — not blue like they once were.
But white. Empty. Endless.
---
Raen stepped into the storm.
> "Dareth."
The figure didn't move.
> "You remember me."
A pause.
Then the lightning spoke.
Not from lips.
From everywhere.
> "Raen Val'torren is dead."
Raen gritted his teeth.
> "He was. We both were."
> "Then why are you here?"
"To kill me, like the others?"
"To chain me in silence?"
"To finish what the Crown started?"
The air shattered with thunder.
---
Raen didn't flinch.
He raised his blade — not to strike, but to stand.
> "I'm not here to end you."
> "I'm here to remind you who you are."
---
The storm recoiled — like those words hit deeper than any spell.
> "Who I am…" Dareth's voice twisted. "I am what remains. I am a weapon that forgot its wielder. A name eaten by lightning."
Raen stepped forward.
Ash whipped around him.
The storm surged.
> "Then remember me."
> "Remember the boy who pulled you out of the execution pit."
"The one who fought beside you in the Ninefold Siege."
"The one who watched the world erase us… and survived."
---
Silence.
Then, one word:
> "Why?"
Raen's eyes blazed.
> "Because we're still breathing."
---
The storm cracked.
Dareth stumbled back, electricity spasming across his form. He raised a shaking hand — and for a moment, his eyes flickered.
Color.
Blue.
Memory.
> "Raen…?"
Then a scream — pure lightning — echoed across the coast.
The storm exploded.
And Raen stood in the center of it, blade drawn, not to kill—
> But to pull a brother from the thunder.