Kael woke to silence—an absence so deep it rang in his ears.
The fire had gone out. The river no longer whispered. Even the forest seemed to be holding its breath.
Then he saw it.
Liora's pendant lay on the ground beside the dead embers, glowing faintly like a heartbeat fading away.
"Liora?" His voice broke the stillness.
No answer. Only the echo of his own breath.
He picked up the pendant; warmth pulsed through his palm—familiar, alive. For a split second, he felt her essence, distant but desperate, like a hand reaching from somewhere beneath the world. Then it vanished.
Kael's jaw clenched. He knew what had happened.
The Shade had found a way to pull her in.
He turned toward the ruins, now half-hidden by mist. "If you've taken her," he growled to the empty air, "then I'm coming after you."
The pendant flared once, scattering gold sparks that drifted into the forest like fireflies. They formed a faint path—north, toward the mountains of Serynth.
He followed.
The further he walked, the less the world felt real. Trees bent at impossible angles. The ground shifted like breathing earth. Time itself slowed, stretched, then snapped back. The Veil was weakening here—a border between the mortal realm and the Shadow's dominion.
Kael tightened the wraps on his forearms. The mark beneath his skin—the Flame Sigil—was stirring, burning hotter the closer he got. He hadn't called on its power since the War of Glass, but for Liora, he would risk it again.
By dusk, the path ended before a canyon split clean through the mountains. At its center floated a single shard of crystal, suspended in the air, humming with the same energy as Liora's pendant.
Kael knew what it was.
A Tear in the Veil.
He stepped closer. Wind coiled around him, whispering fragments of words in Liora's voice:
"Kael… don't follow…"
He ignored it. Plunged his sword into the earth, and with both hands, pressed the pendant against the Tear.
Light exploded outward. The world inverted.
He fell. Not through space, but through memory.
He landed hard on stone slick with mist, surrounded by towering pillars made of obsidian glass. The air was thick and humming—alive with whispers.
He wasn't alone.
A figure waited near the far wall, half-hidden in shadow. It looked like Liora—but her eyes burned gold, and her hair floated weightlessly around her as though underwater.
"Liora…" Kael stepped forward, cautious.
She smiled—but it wasn't her smile. "You shouldn't have come here."
He gripped his sword. "You're not her."
"Not yet," the figure said softly. "But she's learning. The Shadow Realm doesn't consume—it transforms. She's becoming what she was born to be."
"What are you?" Kael demanded.
The figure tilted its head. "I am her origin. The forgotten half of her soul. The song before the silence."
The ground beneath them trembled, the pillars shattering one by one.
Kael raised his blade. "Then I'll break the song."
He charged.
The world rippled—his sword cleaved air, not flesh. The figure dissolved into smoke, re-forming behind him, its voice now inside his skull.
"You can't kill what lives in her. You can only choose how much of her survives."
Kael dropped to one knee, pain searing through his chest as the sigil flared. Flames burst from his hands, wild and unstable, lighting the darkness.
Through the blaze, a second light appeared—soft, golden, fragile.
Liora.
She was kneeling at the center of the chamber, her hands pressed against the floor, veins glowing gold. The shadows circled her like a storm, whispering her name in a hundred different tones.
"Liora!"
Her head snapped up. For a moment, she looked like herself again—terrified, trembling.
"Kael… it's too strong. It's showing me everything—my mother, the truth of Elyndra… she wasn't trying to stop the Shadow."
"What?"
"She was part of it. The magic that built this world—the Light and the Shade—they were one. And she tried to fuse them again through me."
The chamber shuddered as the whispers grew louder.
Kael took a step closer, fighting against the weight pressing him down. "Then fight it! You're not her weapon—you're her hope!"
Liora's eyes glowed brighter, her tears turning to gold. "If I fight it, Elyndra will die. The balance depends on the union. But if I accept it…"
"Then you'll lose yourself."
She smiled sadly. "Maybe that's the only way to save what's left."
Before he could reach her, the shadows rose like waves and swallowed her whole.
Kael screamed her name—but the world tore open again, dragging him backward through the Veil.
He awoke on the mountain ridge under a blood-red dawn. The pendant was cold now, its light gone.
Below, the valley shimmered with a strange new glow—the edges of Elyndra pulsing with black and gold light intertwined.
The fusion had begun.
Kael stood slowly, clutching the pendant. "I'll find you," he whispered to the wind. "Even if the world burns for it."
And somewhere beyond the Veil, a single whisper answered him:
"Then let it burn."