They left the Obsidian Pass before dawn.
No banners. No campfires. Not even spoken farewells. Elder Thorne insisted on silence, guiding them through a narrow ravine where the stone drank sound and even footsteps felt muted.
"The Astral Expanse doesn't like attention," he said quietly. "The less the world notices us leaving it, the better."
Kael walked at the center, cloak drawn tight, senses stretched thin. The Interstice Path hummed beneath his awareness, not loud—never loud anymore—but constantly present, like a second spine running through his body.
The world felt… thinner.
Lysara noticed it too. "Tell me I'm not imagining this," she muttered. "The sky looks wrong."
Kael glanced up.
The stars hadn't changed position—but they felt closer, sharper, as if the distance between sky and ground had narrowed. Constellations he didn't recognize flickered briefly, then vanished when he tried to focus on them.
Thorne nodded grimly. "We're nearing the Veiled Meridian."
By midday, the land itself began to unravel.
Grass faded into pale crystal dust beneath their boots. Trees grew warped, their trunks bending toward invisible points in the air, leaves shimmering like fractured glass. Mana no longer flowed in predictable streams—it drifted, pooled, then vanished without warning.
"This place isn't dead," Thorne said. "It's unmoored."
Kael stopped abruptly.
The Interstice Path pulled—hard.
Ahead, the road ended in nothing.
A sheer drop stretched before them, plunging into a vast, swirling void of starlight and shadow. Floating islands drifted lazily within it, each carrying fragments of ruined structures—arches, staircases, broken towers that led nowhere.
At the center hovered a colossal rift, shaped like an eye half-opened.
The Astral Expanse.
Lysara swore softly. "That's not a place. That's a mistake."
Thorne bowed his head. "That's why it was erased."
As they stepped closer, Kael felt the pressure increase—not hostile, but evaluating. The silver threads on his chest warmed, responding instinctively.
The Expanse was looking back.
A low hum rolled through the void, and a bridge of light began to form from the cliff's edge—thin, translucent, and incomplete.
Lysara took a cautious step onto it.
The bridge held.
Kael followed—and the moment his foot touched the surface, the Expanse reacted.
Stars flared.
The rift dilated, opening wider as ancient mechanisms awakened across the floating ruins. Sigils ignited, not clan-based nor void-corrupted, but something older—architectural, as if the world itself had once been designed here.
Thorne stared in stunned reverence. "It's responding to him. The records were true."
Kael swallowed. "About what?"
"That the Astral Expanse only opens fully to those who stand between paths."
The bridge solidified.
But with the light came something else.
Figures emerged on distant islands—silhouettes at first, then clearer. Humanoid shapes wrapped in layered cloaks of star-thread, faces hidden behind masks etched with shifting constellations.
Lysara's hand went to her blade. "Please tell me those aren't enemies."
Thorne didn't answer.
The figures moved without walking, gliding across space itself, stopping just short of the bridge's end.
One stepped forward.
Its voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
"Interstice Walker detected.Authority unverified.Purpose required."
Kael stepped to the front, heart pounding—but steady.
"We're here to stabilize what was broken," he said. "And to learn the cost of walking this path."
The figure tilted its head.
"Then you arrive early."
The stars above shifted violently.
Far away—too close—a surge of familiar void energy rippled through the Expanse.
Lysara felt it immediately. "That's not us."
Thorne's face went pale. "Someone else is forcing entry."
The masked figures turned in unison.
"Second anomaly detected.Designation: Void-Ascendant."
Kael's blood ran cold.
Aerin.
The Astral Expanse had opened.
And it had opened for both of them.