The Blighted Coast faded behind them.
What remained was a smear of black against the horizon, a scar so deep it would never heal.
Raen didn't look back.
Some wounds weren't meant to be mourned.Some scars needed to be carried.
The rain eased, falling into a misty fog as he and Dareth crossed the desolate fields beyond the coast. Their bodies were battered, their souls heavier than before, but something new burned in their chests:
Defiance.
For the first time in years, Raen wasn't just surviving.
He was moving forward.
"Where exactly are we going?" Dareth muttered, pulling his tattered coat tighter.
His voice was raw from screaming lightning.
Raen adjusted the sword strapped to his back, feeling the faint hum still pulsing inside it — like a heartbeat refusing to die.
"West," he said."Into the forgotten lands."
"Vague," Dareth grumbled."I missed your inspiring leadership."
Raen smirked.
"We're looking for someone."
Dareth raised an eyebrow.
"Another Unwritten?"
Raen nodded.
"Her name is Caela Dawnstrike."
The name stirred something even in Dareth — a faint recognition buried under layers of erased history.
"She survived?"
"If the rumors are true," Raen said, "she never stopped fighting."
Hours passed. Maybe days. Time blurred in the mist and ruins.
They passed shattered villages — places where even memories had been scrubbed clean.
No signs.No names.Just empty shells.
Finally, as the sun dipped behind a jagged ridge, they saw it:
A flicker of flame in the distance.
A fire.
Alive.
Raen and Dareth approached cautiously, blades ready, nerves on edge.
As they drew closer, the shapes around the fire sharpened — figures cloaked in patchwork armor, faces hidden behind half-masks and ragged scarves.
Survivors.
But not normal ones.
Raen felt it immediately — a wrongness, a tension in the air.These people weren't just hiding from monsters.
They were hiding from history itself.
A woman stood as they approached, her silhouette sharp against the firelight.
She was tall, clad in battered silver armor, a sword slung casually over one shoulder.Her hair, once golden, was streaked with grey and ash.Her eyes — sharp, alive, burning.
"Raen Val'torren.""Dareth Vale."
Her voice wasn't a greeting.
It was a challenge.
Raen stopped a few steps away.
"You remember."
"We all do," the woman said.
She gestured around — a handful of figures, none familiar, all scarred by time and erasure.
"We are the Broken Choir. What's left of it."
Dareth frowned.
"I thought the Broken Choir was wiped out after the Sealing."
The woman smiled grimly.
"Wiped from records. Not from reality."
She stepped closer, and for the first time, Raen saw it:
A brand burned into her collarbone — half-erased, barely visible, but still there.
[UNWRITTEN]
Caela Dawnstrike bowed her head slightly.
"You killed an Arc Keeper," she said."You broke a Law."
"And now," she added, her voice sharpening,"you've painted a target on all of us."
The Broken Choir surrounded them, not with weapons drawn — but with distrust, with exhaustion.
They weren't ready to kneel.They weren't ready to believe.
Raen couldn't blame them.
He wasn't a hero anymore.
Not yet.
"What do you want, Raen?" Caela asked."Why are you here?"
The fire cracked between them, throwing shadows like old wounds across the camp.
Raen looked her dead in the eyes.
His voice didn't waver.
"I'm not here to beg."
"I'm here to wake the dead."
A long silence followed.
Then Caela chuckled — a short, bitter sound.
"You're going to need more than memoryfire and stubbornness to fight the Pale Choir."
Raen smirked.
"Good thing I've got both."
The fire roared higher, casting their faces into sharp relief.
And somewhere far above, hidden behind layers of clouds and broken stars, the gods surely watched.
Watched and trembled.
Because the Unwritten were moving again.
Because Raen Val'torren — the hero the world tried to forget — was raising an army out of ashes.
And this time, he wouldn't fight to save the world.
He would fight to rewrite it.