Riftborn: The One Who Carries The Void

Durik's voice was soft, but it broke the hall like an axe through frost.

"What is the Wyrm?"

The music faltered. Mugs were lowered. Even the flames curling around the stone sconces seemed to hush — listening, as if they, too, remembered.

King Rurik rose from the head of the table. He did not raise his voice. He did not look down on them as a king, but spoke as something older.

A dwarf.

A son of stone.

A bearer of fire.

"In the age before forges," Rurik began, "before we shaped steel or named gods… Druvadir was not yet a kingdom."

"It was a mountain. Untamed. Undying. And we — we were children of stone, beardless and blind."

"But we heard it."

He looked toward the towering forge at the back of the Emberhalls. "Not with ears — but through the bones of the world. A pulsing. A call."

"Our ancestors followed it downward, pick by pick, carving past roots older than time."

"They found no gold. No runes. No light."

"What they found… was a pit."

"It was not carved. It was born," Rurik said, eyes glowing dimly now. "The stone around it glowed red as breath. The air was thick with pressure — not heat. Weight."

"They called it the Bleeding Hollow. A place where all things melt. Even thoughts."

"It burned without fire. It pulsed like a second heart. Not one of flesh — but of magma, pressure, silence."

"It was not death. It was beginning."

"And there… entered Mongrim."

"He was no god. No hero. Just a smith," Rurik said, smiling faintly. "His beard not yet full. His forge no larger than a hearth."

"But he saw what the Hollow could be."

"Where others saw an end, Mongrim saw a beginning. A place to build — not flee."

"He did not try to tame it. He did not try to chain it. He built with it."

"He shaped the first forge — not upon the Hollow, but within it. He carved anvils into the bones of the mountain. He fed the flames not with coal, but with the breath of the world."

"And then… it came."

"The Wyrm."

"Not summoned. Not conjured. Born."

Rurik turned, and the firelight caught the bronze relief behind him — a dragon coiled in the mountain's core, its wings folded like furnaces, its eyes twin crucibles of molten gold.

"It rose from the heart of the Hollow like a breath drawn after silence."

"It was not a beast. It was not a god. It was the mountain's answer."

"Mongrim did not flinch. He did not kneel. He bowed… in understanding."

"The Wyrm looked upon his forge — and it breathed into it."

"And thus, the Forge was born."

"Every flame that burns in Druvadir," Rurik said, "is from that breath."

"Every spark that leaps from steel. Every sword that drinks its heat. Every chain. Every helm. All of it — from that first oath."

"For the Wyrm did not speak. It gave no name."

"But it gave flame. Its fire became the soul of the Forge. Its body, the furnace beneath the stone."

"And we — sons of hammer and hearth — became its keepers."

"But now," Rurik said, voice darkening, "the Wyrm has screamed."

"A cry not of birth… but of warning."

"And we must ask — why?"

He looked at Rei now, standing beneath the hall's high braziers. The Riftborn did not speak. The gem at his side pulsed like a wound.

"Does it wake simply because time has passed?" the King continued. "Because its fire has grown restless?"

"Or does it stir because it senses something?"

His gaze narrowed.

"You, Riftborn."

"Or what stirs within you."

The Hall Listens

Silence reigned again.

Durik looked away.

Kaia stood motionless.

And Rei… felt it. Not the Wyrm's breath — but the pressure beneath it. Like the mountain was watching through another set of eyes.

Rurik's voice was quiet now. Reverent.

"The Forge lives again. That much we know."

"The Wyrm wakes."

"But what it fears… or what it calls to…"

"…we do not yet understand."