-----
Aelira staggered to her feet, sweat slick on her brow. The chamber was silent, but inside her mind, a storm raged. The shard's power pulsed in her chest, a heartbeat out of sync, dragging her toward an abyss she could barely resist.
She closed her eyes, searching for the flicker of her own light.
Suddenly, the darkness coalesced again, this time taking the form of the Hollow Queen herself, elegant and broken, her shattered soul seeping through the cracks of time.
"Why fight me?" the Queen whispered, voice dripping like poison. "Together, we could be invincible."
Aelira's breath hitched, the shard flaring violently.
"I am not your puppet."
But the Queen's smile was a knife.
"What if I told you, your companions, your friends, would fall if you don't join me?"
Aelira's vision blurred with flickers of pain, Lyra's dagger falling, Thorne's roar silenced, Kaelon's magic fading.
"No," she whispered fiercely, clenching her fists.
The shard flared again, threatening to consume her.
But Aelira reached deep, grasping at a single memory of her mother's voice, warm and steady.
"Hold on to yourself," the voice echoed in her heart.
With trembling hands, Aelira summoned a wave of brilliant light that shattered the Queen's apparition.
The chamber calmed.
But the shard still throbbed...a ticking time bomb within.
-----
The forest was alive with unnatural whispers as the group surged forward.
Branches writhed, shadows twisted unnaturally.
"She's using the Veil to mask her trail," Oren warned, eyes darting as his wards flickered.
Lyra's keen senses caught the faint shimmer of magic flickering through the trees.
"There!" she hissed, sprinting ahead.
Kaelon's elemental energy flared in response, bright and volatile, his silence speaking volumes in the crackling air.
Thorne barreled through a thicket, his axe gleaming.
Suddenly, the woman appeared on a ridge ahead, the shard pulsing wildly in her grasp.
She turned, eyes fierce and wild.
"You cannot stop what's coming."
With a cry, she hurled the shard to the ground.
The earth trembled.
From the fractured shard, tendrils of black energy erupted, twisting into grotesque shapes, shadows born from the Hollow Queen's fragmented soul.
The group faced a tempest of dark magic, their weapons useless against such chaotic power.
"Hold the line!" Thorne roared.
Lyra darted through the shadows, searching for a weakness.
Kaelon's elemental fury met the shadows head-on, a fiery storm battling the creeping darkness.
Oren's voice rose in a spell, his feathers ruffled with effort.
But the shard's corruption spread like wildfire.
The woman's laughter echoed, triumphant and terrifying.
Behind the veil of magic, the forest itself seemed to warp, reality bending to the Queen's fractured will.
-----
Aelira's voice echoed in the distance through her mind:
"I'm coming....hold on."
The group braced as the shadows surged, hope and desperation intertwined.
------