The first time I saw the Herald, I was halfway through my second cup of bitter coffee and debating whether I had enough mana to reanimate a dead pigeon just to mess with the neighbor's cat.
Arielle had warned me the Council would move fast.
She was wrong.
They moved faster.
I felt it before I saw it—an unnatural stillness rolling over the block like a curtain of glass. Mana in the air shuddered, thin filaments of the world's weave vibrating just off-key. People walking down the sidewalk slowed, eyes turning skyward, uncertain why they suddenly felt cold.
Then the sky cracked.
Not with thunder.
With presence.
The kind of pressure that made your bones itch. The kind that said something stronger than you had entered the building, your life, and maybe the damn narrative itself.
He arrived by foot.
Of course he did.
Because they always do.
One minute, the street was empty.
The next, he was standing on the curb across from my apartment—long black coat swirling behind him despite the still air, a single silver pauldron on his left shoulder marked with the insignia of the Council of Ascendancy.
A burning eye enclosed in a seven-pointed star.
I knew the symbol. Everyone did.
It meant trouble.
But the face was new.
He was pale. Not unhealthily so—just… untouched. Almost translucent, like sunlight didn't cling to him the way it did other people. His eyes were violet. Not like contacts or mana glow—truly violet, a deep shade that hinted at something not quite human.
He didn't walk toward my door.
He looked straight at my window.
And nodded.
Shit.
He introduced himself fifteen minutes later.
"My name is Caelum," he said. "I'm a Herald."
No last name. No badge.
Just a voice smooth as broken glass dipped in honey.
"You're earlier than expected," I said, motioning him into the apartment.
"I'm exactly on time."
Figures.
He stepped inside, his coat brushing the floor, boots clicking like a metronome. His gaze flicked once over the room, cataloging everything—from the dead orchid on the windowsill to the faint necrotic residue clinging to the edges of my ring.
"Cozy," he said.
"Necromancer's dream."
He turned to face me.
"You're not scared."
"Should I be?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"Whether the whispers are true."
I raised a brow. "You'll have to be more specific. I've been accused of a lot lately."
Caelum's face didn't change, but something behind his eyes sharpened.
"They say you command a Sacred Ground unlike any recorded. That you didn't just awaken your class—you resurrected it."
"Council poetry. I'm just a guy with skeletons and trauma."
"Let's test that."
He moved fast.
Too fast.
One blink he was across the room, the next he was in my space, a thin obsidian dagger pressing gently against my throat.
"Summon it."
I didn't flinch.
"Ashbourne?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I want to see if he recognizes me."
That gave me pause.
I narrowed my eyes. "What are you?"
"Your past," he said.
Then louder, with authority only the dead obey: "Awaken."
I didn't say it.
He did.
And still, space twisted beside us—ribbons of reality snapping like wet wire, and from it, the cold rolled in.
Ashbourne emerged.
But this time… he was angry.
He didn't bow.
He stood between us, scythe already in hand, positioning his body as a shield.
And for the first time since awakening, I heard Ashbourne's voice without permission.
Ashbourne:You do not command us anymore.
Caelum smiled.
"Good," he said. "That means he's truly yours."
When we sat down again—no more knives, no more theatrics—he explained.
"I was part of the Necrotide Accord," he said. "Back before the Council outlawed your kind."
"You're not old enough."
He gave me a look. "The system lies."
I filed that one away.
He leaned forward. "Maledictus was our final mistake."
"The name on the report?"
He nodded. "He was the most powerful necromancer of his age. But he lost himself. Started pulling echoes from deeper layers. Broke the rules. Tore holes into realms even the Surge hadn't reached."
"And now he's back."
"Worse," Caelum said. "He never left. Just… sank deeper."
He stood again and walked toward the window, gaze distant.
"The Surge wasn't an accident. The dimensional tear? It wasn't natural. It was triggered. By him."
My blood ran cold.
"You're saying the Surge—"
"—was an experiment. A failed one. And he survived it."
I swallowed.
"Why tell me all this?"
"Because you're the only one who can reach him."
That night, Purgatory changed again.
This time I didn't step into it.
It stepped into me.
I collapsed in my room, pain lancing through my spine, light flooding behind my eyes. My ring burned like a star going supernova, and my consciousness was yanked through a tunnel of bone and cold.
When I woke, I wasn't in Purgatory.
I was beneath it.
The Crypt Below
The new realm was darker than anything I'd seen. Not black—just devoid of light logic. Color bent. Time stalled. Thoughts echoed longer than they should.
There were doors here.
Thousands.
All sealed.
And in the center of the room: a throne of marrow.
Empty.
Until it wasn't.
He appeared slowly, like an oil stain rising through water.
No flesh. No face.
Just a shadow in the shape of a man, with bones where bones didn't belong.
Maledictus.
"You've awakened," he said.
His voice wasn't words. It was rotting memory.
"You've drawn attention."
I couldn't move. I could barely think.
"You've resurrected the Triad. Do you think that makes you safe?"
He stood.
"You're a leaf on a dying tree. And I am the wind."
Then he raised his hand.
A symbol flared to life in the air—a mirror of the sigil on the back of my hand… but inverted.
Three shards.
Cracked.
Corrupted.
The Broken Triad.
I woke gasping.
Ashbourne stood by the door.
He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
I was shaking.
"Did you feel it too?" I asked.
He nodded.
Ashbourne:The Deep Crypt is real. You were summoned.
"By him?"
Ashbourne:No. By the throne. It remembered you.
I looked down at my hand.
The sigil was changing again.
Lines spreading, slowly forming new shapes.
Growing.
Preparing.
But for what?
Two days later, the Council officially filed an Ascendancy Watch Order.
I was now a Category Gray—a "Potential World-Shift Entity."
What that meant?
Surveillance. Sanctions. And, eventually, a decision.
Either I joined the Council's war…
Or I became a target in it.