The impact didn't kill them. But it felt like it should have.
They ploughed into a dune of grey ash, carving a trench fifty feet long before the cylinder tumbled to a stop.
Silence.
Real silence. Not the dead silence of the Void, but the quiet of a windless desert.
Kael kicked the hatch open. It fell into the ash with a soft thud.
He crawled out, coughing. The air was dry. It smelled of dust and sulfur. It smelled like home.
"Elric?"
"Alive," the scholar groaned from inside the shell. "Broker's balls, I'm alive."
Kael turned to the third passenger.
The First Sword hadn't moved. He was sitting slumped against the wall of the cylinder, his eyes closed. The gold light in his scars was fading, flickering like a dying candle.
"Hey," Kael said, reaching in to pull him out. "We made it. We're topside."
He dragged the warrior onto the ash. The First Sword was light—too light. It felt like carrying a suit of empty armor.
The warrior opened his eyes. The stars were gone. There was only grey.
"The barrier," the First Sword wheezed. Blood—red blood, finally—bubbled on his lips. "It's falling."
"I know," Kael said, gripping the man's hand. "We broke the plug."
"Days," the warrior whispered. "Maybe hours. The Void will seep up. The monsters will come. The Spire... they will panic. They will try to seal it with more blood."
He gripped Kael's hand tighter. His gauntlet was cold.
"Don't let them."
"I won't," Kael swore.
The First Sword reached into his chest armor. He pulled out a ring. It wasn't gold or iron. It was made of the same white metal as the Kinetic Driver—Star-metal.
"The Key," he gasped, pressing it into Kael's palm. "To the High Command. To the... truth."
His breath hitched.
"Tell them," the First Sword whispered, looking up at the grey sky of the Ashlands. "Tell them I didn't hold the door... for the King. I held it... for them."
The light in his scars went out. The First Sword was dead.
Kael knelt there for a long time. The wind picked up, blowing ash over the body, burying the man who had saved the world for three hundred years.
Elric limped out of the wreckage. He stood beside Kael, looking down.
"What do we do now?" Elric asked. "The Spire will hunt us. The Kingdom will hunt us. We have nowhere to go."
Kael stood up. He slipped the Star-metal ring onto his finger adjacent to the Obsidian arm.
He looked at the horizon. In the distance, rising above the smog, was the white needle of the Spire.
It looked pristine. Perfect.
A lie made of stone.
"We don't go anywhere," Kael said. His voice wasn't a growl. It was quiet. Cold.
He looked at Elric.
"We go to war."
Kael turned and started walking toward the Spire. He didn't look back at the crash. He didn't look back at the Void.
He walked into the Ash, and the Ash welcomed him home.