The Burnlight Protocol was never meant to be used.
It had been designed centuries ago as a myth of deterrence—an absolute fail-safe stored in the deepest sanctum of the Accord, beneath the city of Solspire. A chamber called The Prism Vault, lined with crystal mirrors and memory conduits that could channel the full force of all ten shards at once into a single beam of "purity."
To ignite it would erase not only the bearers of shadowlight—but all ambiguous truths. Doubt. Complexity. Compassion born from contradiction.
The light would become a blade.
And yet, High Seer Andrelis stood before the ignition seal, hands trembling not from fear—but devotion. "Better the world be singed," he murmured, "than blurred."
Far away, the Circle of Shadowlight felt a tremor. The seventh shard of Reckoning pulsed harder, throwing arcs of memory across the Hollow Names. Solin, now hunched with the weight of knowing too much, turned to Lysa.
"You say the Vault channels truth," he said. "What if… we give it a deeper one?"
They left that night, traveling through the broken ley-lines that once powered the age of sun. With them went not weapons, but stories—carved into stone, sung by walkers, painted in ash and lullabies. At every village they passed, people joined—not to fight, but to remember.
They arrived as the Protocol prepared to fire.
Andrelis saw them—dozens of figures in silence, standing unarmed before his tower. Children. Healers. Former Lightbearers. Even Maelon.
"Their truth is corruption," Andrelis said, fingers on the ignition
rune.
But it was Revek who stepped forward. And he spoke a name.
And then another.
And another.
Thousands of names of those lost not to shadow—but to expectation. To the weight of light. Names the Accord had forgotten. Some who had died in silence. Some who had lived despite it.
And the Vault, which only knew absolutes, listened.
The mirrors cracked. Not from damage—but from clarity. Light, faced with too many names, too much humanity, fractured into color—into spectrum. Not white. Not blind. Whole.
The Burnlight Protocol didn't fire.
It scattered.
And in that moment, the eighth Darkshard was born—not forged by opposition, but by union. It shimmered with every hue of light once denied. They called it:
The Shard of Complexity.
And somewhere, in a place where Umbrael watched not like a god, but like an old friend waiting at a door—it smiled.
Shall we carry this into Chapter 9 next? We could explore the fate of Andrelis, or see what happens when the Circle is invited—not resisted—into the next Gathering of Light. The dusk may yet become dawn… 🕊️🌌