---
The blade stopped an inch from Riven's throat.
Kael exhaled sharply, his knuckles white on the hilt.
"You hesitated."
Riven didn't blink. "I heard her again."
Kael didn't ask who. He didn't need to.
They stood in the center of the Vale's subterranean training cavern, dust swirling around them like smoke. Stone pillars lined the chamber, many cracked from weeks of relentless sparring. The glowstones overhead pulsed dimly, casting flickering shadows across their sweat-soaked forms.
Riven stepped back, lowering his stance. The silver-pinned strands of his cloak fluttered with his movement.
"She called to me," he said softly. "Not in words. Not fully. But it was her."
Kael slid his sword back into its sheath. "You're sure?"
"I felt the bond. Through the shard she kept near her heart. She's alive—and she's not waiting to be saved. She's already moving."
Kael crossed his arms, expression unreadable. "Then we need to move faster."
---
Later that night, Riven stood before the Grand Circle of the Vale—those few masters who remained after the collapse of the outer towers. The chamber smelled of smoke and dust. Even the torches burned lower, as if the flame itself sensed the coming fracture.
"Lyra escaped on her own," Riven said. "But she won't make it far. The Eclipse will either recapture her—or kill her. We don't have time to wait."
"Acting without full intelligence risks more than your own life," Master Helain replied. Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed concern. "We've already lost three Scion heirs to ambush. You would be the fourth."
Riven stepped forward. "I'm not asking your permission. I'm informing you."
Silence spread like frost.
Another elder leaned forward. "You dare defy the Circle?"
"I'm not defying," Riven said. "I'm correcting a failure you were too afraid to address."
Kael, standing beside him, rested a hand on his sword. Not threatening. Just visible.
Helain sighed. "What do you propose?"
"A strike team. Three to five. Not an army—too visible. We go dark, under the glyphlines. We track Lyra's energy trail, intercept her before they do, and collapse the Eclipse's ritual site on our way out."
Helain studied him for a long moment. Then, quietly: "You've changed."
"I've remembered."
---
That night, preparations began.
Kael gathered maps from the scryers' vaults, his eyes scanning ancient borderlines drawn in serpent-ink. The glyphline tunnels twisted through forgotten terrain. Some passed under ruin-rivers. Others beneath broken sanctuaries.
Only one route pulsed with residual mana.
"It leads to the Hollow Basin," he said, tracing the red glyph mark. "An Eclipse convergence site. There's a fortress there—abandoned centuries ago during the Ashfall Wars."
Riven nodded. "Then that's where we go."
A voice spoke from the shadows.
"I'm coming too."
They turned.
A girl stepped forward, short and sharp-eyed, dark hair braided around a cluster of spirit charms.
Liora.
"The one who watched the stars for us?" Kael asked.
"I don't just watch them," she replied. "I bind them. And right now, every star on my map is trembling. Something's unsealing."
"You're not a fighter," Kael said.
"I'm not. But I'm the only one who can suppress the Ninth Seal's call when we reach it." She tapped the spirit rune on her wrist. "Or do you want Lyra detonating halfway through the escape?"
Kael looked to Riven.
Riven nodded. "She comes."
---
By dawn, their team was set.
Riven: swordsman, spirit-seal wielder
Kael: elemental duelist
Liora: starweaver, seal suppressor
Elen: shadow scout from the Outer Ward
Veyron: the voice inside, growing louder every hour
> "Are we really saving her, or chasing your guilt?" Veyron asked.
Riven ignored him.
---
They departed through the lower arches of the Vale, bypassing the main gates. No send-off. No ceremony. Only silence.
The path beneath the glyphlines was darker than expected. The old tunnels hadn't seen light in decades. Some collapsed. Others pulsed with leftover spelltraps.
Kael cleared the way with twin knives and flame bursts. Liora diffused spirit glyphs using powdered stardust. Riven led, pendant glowing softly under his shirt.
They moved like phantoms. Determined. Wordless.
Until the silence broke.
---
Day four.
The tunnel narrowed into a ribbed corridor of obsidian roots. Faint whispers curled from the walls—echoes of failed rituals. Spirit residue clung to the air like frost.
Riven paused.
Kael moved to his side. "Problem?"
"She's close."
He could feel her now. Not just as a memory. Not even just through the shard.
> Lyra's seal was bleeding magic into the world.
A sign of uncontrolled growth. Or emotional unraveling.
"She's losing control," Riven murmured.
Liora stepped forward. "Then we have less than a day. If she reaches rupture, the Ninth Seal will begin to fracture the barrier between realms."
Kael's jaw tightened. "That would mean—"
"Collapse," Liora finished. "Spirit and flesh merging. No division. No logic. Just raw essence."
"And Lyra dies," Riven added.
---
They reached the Hollow Basin at dusk.
It wasn't a fortress.
It was a grave.
Black stone ruins littered the valley, twisted by dark mana. Towers once carved to honor star gods now leaned like broken teeth. The moon hung above, smeared red by skyward glyphs that pulsed with inversion.
And in the center—chained to a fractured altar—was Lyra.
---
Riven stopped breathing.
Even from this distance, he could feel her seal screaming.
Flames. Ice. Wind. Shadow. All flickered around her in chaotic bursts, uncontrolled and violent. Her hair whipped around her like a storm's eye. Her eyes were shut tight, but the world bent around her heartbeat.
Kael readied his blade. "We go now."
"No," Liora said. "Look."
Dozens of figures moved in the shadows.
Cultists.
Masked. Hooded. Some carried inverted sigils. Others wielded broken Seals in one hand, ready to activate them like bombs.
A trap.
Riven's grip tightened on his sword.
"She didn't call for help," he whispered.
"She called for war."
---