The world dissolved into a scream—Alex's, the scar's, the temple's. His hand fused with the soul anchor, the shard's crystalline edges slicing through flesh and spirit alike. Violet and gold light warred in the chamber, each pulse a detonation that shook the temple to its roots. The priestess was shouting, but her voice drowned in the roar of unraveling magic.
You fool, the scar snarled, its voice a helix of malice and desperation. You'll kill us all!
Alex's vision splintered. Faces flickered in the shard's facets—members of the Order, their mouths stretched in silent screams as their souls fragmented. Deeper still, the void yawned, and within it, something shifted, a presence vast and ravenous turning its attention toward the breach. The Devourer's eye.
"Hold the anchor!" the priestess barked, her dagger plunged into the floor. Its feeble glow tethered her to the crumbling sanctum. She pressed her palms against the plinth, blood from her temple smearing the carvings. Golden light flared beneath her hands, threads of the Order's ancient power lashing against the violet rot. "I can't… sustain it alone!"
Alex tried to speak, but his throat was ash. The scar's tendrils had spread, veins of corrupted light now mapping his entire body. He felt the Devourer's gaze like a physical weight, probing the cracks in his soul. Mine, it whispered, and the scar sang in answer.
The priestess met his eyes. For the first time, he saw fear in them—not for herself, but for him. "You have to choose, Alex. Now. Let it consume you, or burn it out."
Burn. The word kindled something. A memory, not the scar's—his own. A campfire in the hinterlands, his mother's voice: Embers endure. Even in ash.
He clenched his mangled hand deeper into the shard. "Do it."
The priestess nodded. With a guttural cry, she ripped her dagger from the floor and slashed her palm. Blood splattered the anchor, her chant rising above the chaos: "By breath and blade, I bind the light. By blood and bone, I break the night!"
The anchor erupted.
Gold fire engulfed the chamber. The scar shrieked as the flames seared through Alex—a purging heat that scorched the violet tendrils from his veins. The pain was exquisite, a forge hammering his fragments into something new. The priestess's blood sizzled against the plinth, her incantation weaving with the anchor's resonance.
No! the Devourer roared. The temple shuddered. Above them, stone cracked as the cyclopean eye's pupil dilated, its gaze piercing the sanctum. The priestess faltered, her chant stuttering as violet mist thickened.
Alex felt the void's pull, the Devourer's hunger gnawing at the edges of his mind. But beneath it, fainter—a chorus. The Order's last echoes, their fractured souls still clinging to the anchor. Remember, they whispered. Remember the covenant.
He did.
The Order's ritual rushed through him: not a binding, but a sacrifice. Their souls splintered not out of hubris, but hope—a hope that one day, a shattered soul might become a weapon. A prism to refract the Devourer's own power against it.
"You're… wrong," Alex rasped, blood bubbling on his lips. He gripped the anchor tighter, its light now blazing through his scars. "I'm not your vessel."
He pulled.
The scar came apart.
Violet shards tore free from his body, suspended in the golden fire. The Devourer's howl shook reality, the eye's pupil constricting in rage. Alex glimpsed the priestess, her face gaunt but triumphant, as she drove her dagger into the plinth.
"Sunder!" she screamed.
The anchor exploded.
A supernova of light and shadow consumed the sanctum. The scar's fragments disintegrated, their malevolent glow snuffed out. The Devourer's roar cut off abruptly, the eye vanishing as if slammed behind a door. Then—silence.
Alex collapsed. His body was a map of charred flesh and glowing seams, but the scar was gone. The sanctum's walls were blackened, the soul anchor reduced to smoking slag. Across the ruins, the priestess lay motionless, her dagger still embedded in the plinth.
"Hey," Alex croaked, crawling toward her. His hands left smears of ash and blood. "Hey, wake up."
Her eyelids fluttered. A faint smirk twisted her lips. "Never… do that… again."
A laugh choked out of him, raw and disbelieving. Outside, the sulfurous sky had cleared to a bruised twilight. The temple's spires still stood, though their rot had halted, the blackened stone now studded with flecks of gold. The wards, perhaps—not healed, but stabilized.
The priestess struggled upright, wincing as she yanked her dagger free. "The anchor's gone. The bond…" She eyed Alex. "You should be dead."
"Yeah." He touched his chest, where the scar had once throbbed. Only smooth skin remained, though it ached as if hollowed out. "What now?"
She stood, swaying slightly. "Now, we rebuild. The wards won't hold forever." She nodded to the stairs, where pale dawn light filtered down. "And the Devourer won't stay banished."
Alex followed her gaze. Somewhere beyond the temple, the world waited—broken, but breathing. He rose, his legs trembling, and took a step. Then another.
Behind them, the sanctum's ruins whispered, Remember.