The obsidian fragment Corin had found became, over the following days, the alliance's only real lead — a piece of evidence that suggested the Hollowing wasn't simply a wandering, formless hunger, but something tethered, however loosely, to the remnants of Jeanne's failed ritual. Liora's scholars worked around the clock analyzing the fragment, cross-referencing its strange, pulsing residue against every text her library possessed on binding rites and their aftermath.

"If it's connected to the rite," Liora explained, studying the fragment alongside three of her most trusted scholars, "then it may be tethered to wherever the rite's original power source still lingers. The shrine itself, most likely, or somewhere connected to...