"The guardian vines lay coiled, their leaf-tendrils quivering with anticipation watching the flowers grow beneath them. Nurture is the true way to growth."
The morning light of Eldrath Prime's twin suns had barely crested the jagged peaks when Kallus Eldrath found the Voidwalker and his daughter arriving to the lowest terrace of the Nexium Sanctuary. Mist curled around their boots like living wraiths, and bioluminescent vines pulsed faintly as though greeting the day. In the silence, broken only by distant waterfalls.
"This hour is sacred," Kallus murmured, voice low enough that only his pupil could hear. His silver hair, bound by ceremonial cords, shimmered beneath a fading star. "Before the world stirs, we commune with the Nexirial currents. Are you prepared?"
The Voidwalker bowed once, shoulders straight, cloak still damp with dew. Under his hood, his eyes glowed with something more than reflected dawn. He had been chosen by the Nex themselves, and whispers said he would bring balance to the universe. Yet for all his destiny, he remained nervous—no training session had yet revealed anything beyond the basics of Prime Nexomancy.
Artemis Eldrath would have been here to assist, as she had in previous sessions, but today she was pursuing her own studies in the upper tiers of the sanctuary, delving into advanced nexirial topology. Kallus trusted her implicitly—and trusted her students—even when he withheld the deeper reasons for the timing and structure of this particular lesson.
"Today," Kallus said, unrolling a slender scroll of vinelum, "we move from conjuration of static constructs to dynamic gateways. The Tri-portal is the cornerstone of dimensional Nexomancy. It is how the Nexomancer's Guild threads space, moment, and essence into a single strand."
He rose and led the Voidwalker deeper into the temple, passing tiers choked by blooming orchids that glowed like stars fallen to earth. On the third terrace, Kallus paused before a carved dais, etched with runes that danced with shifting blue light.
"Observe," he commanded, stepping aside. With a delicate flourish, he traced a triangular pattern in the air. A faint hum rose from the dais, and three lines of radiant azure light extended outward, converging at an equilateral triangle that hovered before him. Within its bounds, the world beyond seemed warped—colors shimmered, gravity wavered.
"This," he said, his tone proud but measured, "is the standard Prime tri-portal. Blue—because Prime Nexomancy is essence of pure Nexium refined by the Eldrath Dynasty. Through this gateway, I can pass to any sanctum within reasonable distance on the planet. Remember: the geometry, the hand gestures, the rhythm of your heartbeat—all must align with the pulse of Nex."
He withdrew back into the Temple's carved alcove, leaving the portal to collapse into a font of drifting motes.
The Voidwalker drew from his satchel the spell-guide handbook he had carried since arriving on Eldrath Prime. Its pages were bound with crystalline glyphs and inscribed by generations of Eldrath scholars. He flipped to the chapter on tri-portals—where diagrams showed each step: the precise alignment of fingertip angles, the curl of the index finger toward the heart center, the exhale that released stored nexirial energy into the mouth of the dais.
He aligned his right palm, fingertips tracing an invisible triad in the air. His left hand hovered over the dais, as if coaxing a melody from sand. He closed his eyes, synapses sparking to life as he tuned to the universal resonance. He felt the thrumming of his own energies—his own lifeforce—and coaxed in the universal currents that bound stars to void. Finally, he tapped the dimensional wellspring, the hidden seam between places, and spoke the lost syllable of Nex in an inaudible whisper.
A crackle of light, then three lines of energy shot forth. But they were not Eldrath blue. The lines shimmered between violet and deep purple, forging a triangle that glowed with uncanny radiance. For a long moment, Kallus and the silent vines watched. Then the new portal inhaled the swirling morning mists, and its surface rippled like oil on water, weakly pulling its creator towards it.
The Voidwalker took a step back, Kallus's breath caught. "By God…" he whispered.
But at that moment, the portal shuddered. Its edges destabilised, fracturing into jagged cracks of light that shot sparks into the air. The vines quivered. A low hum burgeoned into a roar, and the sanctuary trembled as though a distant star itself had awakened.
Kallus shot a glance at the Voidwalker. "End it!" he shouted.
With an urgent gesture, the Voidwalker poured all his will into sealing the portal. The violet flame imploded, drawing in stray motes and leaving only a faint echoed pulse. The dais darkened. The crack of silence that followed was absolute.
Students and guardians alike exhaled. Even the waterfalls paused in their descent.
The Voidwalker opened his eyes. His heart hammered. He lowered his hands. The violet-tinted tri-portal dissolved with a sigh, scattering flecks of absent light into the air.
Silence reigned. The only motion was the gentle undulation of the vines and the hushed patter of waterfalls far below.
Kallus recovered first. He laid a hand on the Voidwalker's shoulder. "Remarkable… and unprecedented," he murmured. "Never have I—nor any Eldrath student—produced a purple tri-portal like this. Prime tri-portals are blue, reflecting the spectrum of pure Nexium as harnessed through our dynasty's mastering. But this… why could this mean?"
The Voidwalker swallowed. He'd never seen such a knowledgeable person so confused, judging by his reaction, he didn't think anyone had. "Master, I followed the glyphs exactly. The geometry, the breath, the syllables… it all matched."
"A variation in your personal nexirial signature, perhaps," Kallus said, stroking his chin. "Or an echo of a deeper Dominion energy. I must consider—"
"But will it hold?" the Voidwalker asked, nodding toward the space where the portal had been. "Could I have opened a gateway to something… else? Something dangerous?"
Kallus studied him in silence, eyes narrowed. "It collapsed prematurely," he noted. "The instability suggests you did not fully bond the portal to your essence. That—" he looked past the Voidwalker, toward the distant canopy of the jungle, "—is fortunate. A stabilised red or purple portal might be a conduit to an Abyssal realm. Or worse, to the God Emperor's own domain of reality glitches."
The Voidwalker's pulse quickened. The God Emperor's portals were legendary—fractures in existence themselves, driven by raw will and bound by no strict laws. And Artemis's moniker, the Echo Realm, hinted at pockets of reality folding upon themselves. But those were deliberate examples of controlled gateways, this was something entirely different. Entirely new.
"Master," the Voidwalker ventured, "could my tri-portal irregularity be… a gift? A variant of Nexirial energy unique to me? Or a flaw we must correct?"
Kallus let the question hang. The scent of iridescent orchids drifted between them. Finally, he exhaled, a plume of mist swirling in his breath. "The Nex chooses its heralds, not we," he said quietly. "Your Purple Portal may be a harbinger of your destiny—and also your greatest hazard. We will study its properties. Later, we will be going over your choice of Nexirial weapon, hopefully that will lead to a soft path. For now, rest."
As the Voidwalker bowed and turned, Kallus called out, "And inform Artemis. This anomaly may require her Echo Realm expertise to understand the overlap of dimensional and prime energies."
At around midday, in a private chamber lined with ancient tomes, Artemis and Kallus sat alongside crystal instruments that glimmered with built-in nexirial sensors. The vaulting windows looked out onto a canopy alive with flashing biolights. The air thrummed with the residual echoes of portal experiments.
Artemis, brilliant and composed, traced patterns on a sliding lens that charted the last tri-portal's spectral signature. "Purple," she said, as if tasting the word. "A blend of Prime's azure and—what else? Some form of Abyssal Magenta? That can't be good, this isn't right it's not one of ours."
"Our classification holds three domains: Personal, Universal, Dimensional," Kallus replied. "Prime Nexomancy draws primarily on Universal currents. Our research hints that tapping too deeply into Dimensional energy bleeds into other forms of Nexirial power—sometimes unpredictably."
Artemis frowned, sleeves falling as she leaned closer to the readout. "His personal aura… the Voidwalker is a chosen one. The Nex mark him. This could be a sign that his natal connection spans beyond our set of the Nex. Could he be allied to… an uncharted resonance?"
Kallus let that speculative fear and subtle anger sink in. "If so, he could unlock new paths of magic—or unleash something beyond our control."
Artemis did not look convinced that caution alone would suffice. They both paused for a moment, Artemis cast her mind back to when they first met the Voidwalker on the Nexus Station, that same darkness—no surely not—she didn't want to admit it; no doubt her father did either. "I will join you in his weapon choosing," she said breaking the silence, "between the Echo Realm theories and the Prime frameworks, perhaps we can calibrate a controlled trial. If we can isolate the wavelength that shifts blue to purple, we may replicate or suppress it at will."
"Understood. Leave this matter to me, I shall go to the Grand Library to see if any texts hold the answer. But for now we must continue to train him regardless - continue on the God Emperor's plan."
They left the chamber just before mid-afternoon, each lost in thought. Neither noticed the faint shimmer in the corridor's end: a silent ripple of violet, like a dying echo of the tri-portal itself.