Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 25: THE EMISSARY

Chapter 25: THE EMISSARY

The morning the emissary arrived, the air carried a different kind of weight—like the sky itself was holding its breath.

Reed stood barefoot in the blackstone courtyard, staring toward the horizon where a trail of gold-and-silver banners rippled through the mist. They did not march like an army. They did not sneak like spies. They came with pomp, protocol, and the stench of old power.

A rider at the front blew a thin silver horn. The note was high, clean, and cold.

Shia appeared at Reed’s side, expression unreadable beneath her dark cowl.

"Lords’ Council," she said. "They’re late."

"They’re afraid."

The emissary dismounted with the grace of a man who had never known mud or blood. He was tall, thin, wrapped in black velvet lined with mirrored runes that shimmered as though reflecting an unseen fire. His face was pale and unlined, and his eyes were two pieces of glass. Artificial, probably.

He bowed low. Not deeply. Not sincerely.

"I am Valen of the Sixth Tongue. Bound Mouth of the Lords’ Council. I come bearing recognition... and questions."

Reed didn’t return the bow. He nodded once, like a wolf acknowledging a smaller predator.

"Speak, Mouth."

A formal audience was held in the half-finished throne hall. Crude though it was—cobbled from blackstone, hung with goblin trophies, still reeking of blood—it served its purpose.

Valen unrolled a scroll and began to read.

"By decree of the Thirteenth Council, the entity known as Reed—Commander of the Hollowspawn, Slayer of Lords Hadren, Vesrick, and Helcran—is hereby acknowledged as Warden of the Hollow, with full dominion rights over the reclaimed territory..."

He droned on through clauses, sigils, and legal bindings. Each word more suffocating than the last.

Reed let him speak. Words were weapons. But silence, in the right hands, was worse.

When Valen finally rolled up the scroll, he added, with a razor-thin smile:

"With recognition comes responsibility. You will be expected to maintain order within your borders, provide tithe in both essence and manpower, and attend the upcoming Convergence of Lords—hosted under Lucent Seal in the ancient city of Graeven."

"Tithe," Reed said flatly. "What kind?"

"Five hundred soulmarks. Or fifty bodies. Combat-trained."

Shia scoffed. "A blood tax."

Valen’s smile didn’t break. "A symbol of unity."

Reed stood slowly. The glyph over his heart pulsed once, a dull amber flash.

"You’re not here for diplomacy. You’re here to measure me."

The emissary tilted his head. "Measurement is not hostility."

"No," Reed said. "But intrusion is."

That night, Valen was housed in the guest spire—one of the only stone towers without fresh blood on its floors.

Reed didn’t sleep.

He walked the perimeter of the Hollow, visited the Shadow-Chanter, spoke with the Knight-Binder, and checked the Soul Forge beneath the ruined altar. All stable.

Still, unease prickled under his skin.

He returned to the guest spire alone. The guards had been rotated out—Valen’s request, citing privacy.

Inside, the chamber was dark. Too dark.

Reed touched the wall. His fingers brushed metal.

Not stone.

A device. Small, round, humming with quiet energy. Buried into the mortar.

SYSTEM ALERT: UNREGISTERED TECH DETECTED

CLASS: OBSERVATION NODE / RANGE: PLANAR

Reed’s lip curled. He tore the device free with one hand, crushing it between his fingers. Sparks burst. A faint whine echoed through the room, like a scream cut off at the throat.

Valen was already at the gate the next morning, his horse waiting, attendants silent.

"You enjoyed your stay?" Reed asked.

Valen bowed again. "Deeply enlightening."

"You left something in your room."

"I leave only impressions."

Reed stepped forward, voice low. "If you or your masters place another eye in my walls, I will answer with fire. Not messages."

Valen’s smile never reached his eyes. "Then let us hope the Convergence brings clarity. Not conflict."

He rode away, banners snapping behind him like the laughter of ghosts.

That evening, Reed stood at the altar’s ruins with Shia. Above them, the stars were wrong again—misaligned, flickering.

"I don’t like their words," she said.

"Words don’t worry me. Intent does."

A new notification appeared.

QUEST UPDATED: CROWN OF WILDS

OBJECTIVE ADDED: SURVIVE CONVERGENCE

OPTIONAL OBJECTIVE: DESTROY ONE LORD DURING SUMMIT

Reed’s eyes narrowed.

But that wasn’t all.

The System glitched. Symbols twisted. Lines of corrupted text scrolled across the interface.

Then, one message emerged, written in raw code and flame:

"THE ARCHON STIRS. THE GATE BLEEDS. YOU DREW THEIR ATTENTION, NOW DRAW THEIR BLOOD."

Reed watched Valen’s procession disappear into the mist before turning to Shia. The wind carried the scent of ash and iron.

"Gather the Circle," he said. "All of them."

Her eyes widened slightly beneath the cowl. "Even the Tainted?"

"Especially them."

The Hollow’s central hall—what his followers had taken to calling the Bloodthrone Chamber—was filled within the hour. Shadows moved in the corners, some with bodies, some without. Eyes glowed in the darkness, reflecting torchlight in colors no natural creature could produce.

Krait, the Knight-Binder, arrived first. The massive warrior’s armor was pitted and scarred, bones fused to metal in a grotesque marriage of flesh and forge-work. What remained of his face was hidden behind a helm that seemed to weep black tears.

"What’s this about?" he growled, voice like stones grinding together.

"Politics," Reed answered.

Krait spat on the floor. The saliva smoked where it landed.

Next came Elisara, the Shadow-Chanter. She didn’t so much walk as glide, her feet never quite touching the ground. The air around her shimmered with forbidden equations, mathematical proofs that violated the laws of reality. Her hood was pulled back today, revealing a face that shifted between beautiful and terrifying with each blink.

"The Council’s dog smelled sweet," she said. "Old magics in his veins. Not his own."

"I noticed," Reed replied.

The others filtered in: Vex the Limb-Maker, whose mechanical constructs clicked and whirred at his sides; Huren, Master of the Soul Forge, whose skin glowed from within like cooling metal; and finally, in the corner, Mara—the Wild Cartographer, whose maps showed places that didn’t exist yet.

And with them came the Tainted. Creatures neither human nor beast, twisted by the Hollow’s corrupting influence or by choice. Some had once been enemies. Now they served, whether by loyalty or binding or desperation.

Reed stood at the center of the chamber, the glyph on his chest pulsing slowly, rhythmically.

"The Lords’ Council has extended an invitation," he said. "To the Convergence."

Murmurs rippled through the assembly.

"It’s a trap," Krait said flatly.

"Of course it’s a trap," Elisara replied, rolling her eyes. "The question is: what kind?"

Reed raised a hand, and silence fell immediately.

"They fear what we’ve built here. What we’ve become." He looked at each of them in turn. "Three Lords dead. Their territories absorbed. Their essence claimed. The System rewrote itself for us."

"For you," Vex corrected.

Reed ignored him. "The Convergence is held once every hundred years. All Lords must attend. Protected by the Lucent Seal—a binding covenant that prevents direct violence during the gathering."

"Direct violence," Mara spoke for the first time, her voice melodic despite the spines protruding from her throat. "Such an interesting limitation."

Reed nodded. "We will prepare. And we will attend."

Huren stepped forward, his molten eyes narrowing. "What about the message? The Archon?"

The room grew colder at the mention. Even the Tainted shrank back.

"A coincidence," Krait muttered, but didn’t sound convinced.

Reed’s face remained impassive. "Nothing about the System is coincidental."

He walked to a crude map spread across a stone table. The territories were marked with blood and ash, borders drawn and redrawn as conquests changed them. The Hollow was a dark blot at the center, growing outward like a stain.

"Graeven," he said, pointing to an ancient city marked with a silver rune. "The Convergence will be held in the Hall of Mirrors. I need to know everything about it. Every entrance. Every shadow. Every weakness in the Lucent Seal."

Mara approached the map, her fingers—too long, too many joints—tracing invisible lines. "I will require materials. Rare ones."

"List them. Krait will provide."

Elisara laughed softly. "You intend to break covenant. In the heart of their power."

It wasn’t a question.

Reed’s eyes gleamed in the torchlight. "I intend to survive. Breaking them is optional."

Later, in the deepest chamber beneath the Hollow, Reed descended alone. The Soul Forge pulsed with harvested essence—the power drained from the three Lords he’d slain, purified and contained in vast crystal vessels.

This place was secret, even from his inner Circle. Even from Shia.

The room was circular, lined with runes that would burn the eyes of anyone unauthorized to see them. At its center stood a pedestal of black glass, and upon it, a fragment of something ancient.

Reed approached slowly, reverently. The fragment—no larger than his palm—was neither metal nor stone. It seemed to shift between states, between dimensions. Looking at it directly caused pain, so Reed observed it from the corner of his eye.

He placed his hand over it, not touching.

"Why now?" he whispered. "Why the Archon?"

The fragment vibrated. Reality trembled.

SYSTEM CONNECTION UNSTABLE

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED

WARNING: CLASS OMEGA ENTITY APPROACHING

Reed snatched his hand back as the fragment pulsed once, violently. Then he saw it—a hairline crack running through its surface, leaking golden light.

He cursed under his breath and stepped back. The crack sealed itself slowly, reluctantly.

When he returned to the upper levels, Shia was waiting.

"You look troubled," she said.

"We need to accelerate our plans." Reed’s voice was tight. "The tithes from the southern territories—double them. I want every combat-capable follower armored and enhanced within the week."

Shia tilted her head. "They won’t survive the process. Not all of them."

"They won’t survive what’s coming either way."

She studied him carefully. "What did you see down there?"

Reed looked past her, to the night sky visible through a broken section of wall. The stars were moving again, rearranging themselves into patterns that hurt to comprehend.

"The game is larger than we thought," he finally said. "The Lords are only pieces, not players."

"And the Archon?"

Reed’s hand moved unconsciously to the glyph on his chest. It burned beneath his touch.

"A consequence. Or a cause." He turned to face her fully. "We have thirty days until the Convergence. Whatever we’re going to become, we need to become it before then."

Shia nodded once and vanished into shadow, leaving Reed alone with his thoughts and the System’s warning.

NEW OBJECTIVE UNLOCKED: ASCEND BEYOND LORD STATUS

WARNING: CURRENT VESSEL INTEGRITY AT 67% AND DECLINING

RECOMMENDATION: SEEK THE SEVENTH GATE

Reed closed his eyes. The Seventh Gate. A myth within the System—a backdoor to godhood, or destruction.

Either way, the path forward was clear now. The Lords’ Council, the Convergence, even the Archon—all were becoming pieces in a much larger game.

And Reed had stopped being a pawn the moment he’d killed his first Lord.

Now it was time to decide what he would become instead.

Three days after Valen’s departure, the skies above the Hollow turned crimson.

Reed stood on the battlements, watching as reality itself seemed to bleed. The crimson wasn’t clouds or dust—it was a spreading fracture in the firmament, a wound in the world.

"It’s beautiful," Elisara whispered beside him, her eyes reflecting the unnatural light. "The mathematics of apocalypse."

Reed didn’t respond. He was watching the border of their territory, where something new had appeared.

Figures. Hundreds of them. Standing motionless, facing the Hollow.

"What are they?" Krait growled, joining them with heavy footsteps.

Reed’s enhanced vision focused, zooming in on the distant forms.

They were humanoid, but wrong—too still, too perfect in their symmetry. Their skin reflected the crimson sky like polished mirrors. And where faces should be, they had only smooth, featureless masks with single vertical lines down the center.

"Sentinels," Reed said quietly. "The Archon’s first wave."

"They haven’t attacked," Elisara noted.

"They’re measuring. Just like Valen was."

As if in response to his words, all the Sentinels turned their faceless heads upward simultaneously. The vertical lines on their masks split open, revealing nothing but darkness within.

A sound emerged—not from their non-existent mouths, but from the air itself. A single, perfect note that made the stones of the Hollow vibrate in resonance.

Reed’s System interface flickered wildly.

COMMUNICATION ATTEMPT DETECTED

TRANSLATING...

"THE HOLLOW-THIEF WILL SURRENDER THE FRAGMENT OR BE UNMADE."

Reed’s expression hardened.

"Krait," he said without looking away from the Sentinels, "sound the war horns. All forces to the perimeter."

"You’re going to fight them?" Elisara asked, curiosity rather than fear in her voice.

"No." Reed’s eyes gleamed with amber fire. "I’m going to consume them."

The glyph on his chest flared brightly as he raised his hand toward the horizon. The System responded:

SOUL FORGE ACTIVATED

HARVESTING PROTOCOLS ENGAGED

TARGET COUNT: 347

Across the battlefield, the Sentinels began to glow from within, their mirror-like bodies catching fire with amber light that matched Reed’s eyes.

As one, they screamed—a sound that tore through dimensions.

Then they exploded into motes of golden energy that streamed across the distance, funneling into Reed’s outstretched hand, into the glyph on his chest.

Reed’s body convulsed, his back arching as the energy poured into him, through him, channeling down into the Soul Forge below.

When it was over, nothing remained of the Sentinels but scorched earth where they had stood.

Reed collapsed to one knee, breathing heavily. Blood trickled from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes.

"Was that... wise?" Krait asked, actually sounding concerned.

Reed wiped the blood from his face and stood unsteadily. "No. But necessary."

His System interface updated:

VESSEL INTEGRITY: 58%

SOUL FORGE CAPACITY: 89%

ARCHON AWARENESS LEVEL: ELEVATED

TIME UNTIL NEXT INCURSION: ESTIMATED 72 HOURS

Elisara studied him with newfound interest. "You’re preparing for more than the Convergence."

Reed looked to the horizon, where the crimson sky was slowly fading back to normal.

"The Lords think they’re inviting me to a gathering," he said softly. "They don’t realize they’re witnesses to a coronation."

Behind him, in the depths of the Hollow, the Soul Forge burned brighter than ever before, feeding on the essence of creatures that had never been truly alive.

And somewhere, beyond the veil of reality, the Archon stirred again.

The game was changing. The pieces were moving.

And Reed was no longer playing by the rules.