The sun bled red over the horizon as Mo and Aylen crossed the edge of the Dustwind Expanse. For the first time in days, no scouts trailed them, no coded messages interrupted their march, and the weight of the Shamshir at Mo's back no longer whispered with feverish urgency.
They rode in silence, the terrain brittle and cracked beneath the hooves of their mounts. The Expanse was a dead land—emptied long ago by war, stripped of color and sound.
But Mo wasn't listening to the wind or watching the sky. He was remembering his father's stance—how he had moved in the vision days earlier. That rhythm. That terrifying precision. The way time itself bent around him when he attacked.
That same power slept in Mo's blood.
It scared him more than he would admit aloud.
They reached the half-ruined chapel just past dusk. Stone walls half-devoured by age. A collapsed tower like a snapped tooth. Ash blanketed the courtyard. The place had no name now—just a mark on Erix's map. Mo knew what was buried beneath it.
Aylen dismounted and examined the entrance. Her voice was low. "It hasn't been disturbed in months. No footprints. No magic residue."
Mo nodded. "Then we dig."
They found the old stair beneath a collapsed pew, sealed by firestone and ancient glyphs. Aylen set to work disabling them. Mo stayed alert, hand on the hilt.
"You haven't asked about the vision," he said quietly.
"You didn't look like you wanted to talk."
"I saw my father."
Aylen paused, glancing at him. "And?"
"He was alive. He wielded this blade like it was part of him."
"He was one of the Sealbearers. It makes sense."
Mo didn't respond right away. He was watching the stairs as the last glyph cracked and peeled open.
"He wasn't afraid," he said at last. "Not even when death came for him."
Aylen looked at him for a long moment. Then she descended into the dark without a word.
Mo followed.
The air below was thick with soot and old magic. The vault hadn't been touched in a generation, maybe more. Runes hummed faintly along the archways, and stone benches lined the walls where monks had once meditated.
At the far end was a dais, cracked and scorched. And on it, embedded in the stone, was the second fragment.
It shimmered faintly—a dull red core, pulsing like a dying star.
Mo stepped forward.
The Shamshir responded instantly. A quiet vibration hummed through the scabbard. As if the blade were reaching for its twin.
"Be careful," Aylen warned, her hand brushing her own weapon.
Mo placed his hand on the fragment.
The vault shuddered. Not violently. Like an echo returning from a great depth. Mo felt heat behind his eyes—no vision this time. Just pressure. Heavy.
He pulled the fragment free.
As soon as it left the stone, the lights in the vault died.
A silence followed. Deep and absolute.
Aylen's voice was a whisper. "Something's waking."
Mo didn't speak. He slid the fragment into the slot along the Shamshir's edge. The sword accepted it. Seamless. Silent.
He could feel it. The weapon was heavier now. More present. Like it had one eye open.
They left quickly, neither of them speaking as they climbed into the night.
When they mounted again, Aylen glanced at him under the moonlight.
"You look like you've aged ten years."
Mo's voice was rough. "Feels like twenty."
She gave a dry smile. "At this rate, you'll be a corpse before we find the third."
"Maybe," he said. "But I'll be a corpse with a sword no one can stop."
The wind carried the sound of his words away, but the weight of them hung between them all the same.
They rode on.
The hunt was far from over.