The horns wouldn't shut up.
Big, low, gutter-throated things, rolling through Phokorus like the city itself was grumbling in its sleep. Not a song. Not a signal. It felt older than both. The kind of sound that didn't ask questions, just crawled under your ribs and said, "Move. Now."
Verek stood in the old observatory's shattered archway, next to Ezreal. Fingers clenched hard around the crumbling stone sill. His jaw locked up like he was chewing a rock. Down in the valley, siege lines sparked to life. Like snakes waking up angry. Catapults creaked like bones, fire-belchers groaned on crooked wheels. Magic buzzed underneath it all. Faint but ugly. A string pulled too tight, like the world might snap its own back just to be rid of it.
"They're testing range," Caylen said from behind. Voice flat. Not bored. Just scraped hollow.
Verek didn't glance back. "How long before they stop pretending?"
Dax was slouched against a stone pillar nearby, picking dirt from under his nails with a splintered twig. He flicked it away and grunted. "They're close. Ironcrag doesn't waste time with pokes. When they swing, it's to break something."
Tarrin paced behind them in tight, jittery circles, like his body forgot how to stand still. Fingers twitching where a sword used to hang. "Less than a thousand fit to fight. And half of those couldn't hold a line if it was painted on the street. Mages are either ash or missing. The tower's quiet. Hasn't said a word in days. The court..."
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
Verek rolled his shoulders, heavy and stiff, as if every joint hated the thought of moving again. "So we don't match them head-on. Fine. We make them hesitate. We let Ironcrag feel what we've got."
Caylen shot him a look. Not quite doubt. Not quite agreement either. Just tired. "We're really showing them? Now?"
"No speeches," Verek said. "Just the truth."
They left the observatory as the sun crawled above the rooftops, fighting through smoke that made the sky look sick. Light poured over the city in slashes of dirty gold and dried blood.
The banner above the gatehouse flapped in tatters. Kaelith's symbol, faded and torn, hung limp like even it had given up. Guards didn't salute. Most barely noticed them. The few who did just stared like they wanted to forget what they were seeing.
They walked slow.
Through the market square, once a mess of color and clamor. Now a graveyard. Stalls burned down to their nails. Crates crushed, contents long gone or rotted. A child crouched behind a broken cart, cheeks streaked with grime. She didn't look at their faces. Her eyes went straight to Ezreal's pack.
To what was inside.
The second barrage hit just as they neared the bulwark.
No warning. Just stone screaming. The outer wall cracked like it had been waiting to. A fireball hissed into the sky, trailed black smoke, and slammed into a street below. Someone shouted. Someone else didn't. Rubble spilled across a wagon. Dust clung to everything.
A bell started up. Wrong rhythm. Like the bellringer was bleeding out halfway through.
Verek climbed.
Legs burned. Knees clicked. The climb felt longer than it should have.
He set the pack down on the battlement. No words. Just unlatched it.
The shards didn't glow bright, didn't howl. They just pulsed. Quiet but too alive. Ten of them. Colors that didn't belong together. No warmth in them. No comfort.
The last one—the blue shard, the one from the Chariot trial—felt colder. Not temperature. Like it was mourning something it hadn't lost yet.
Verek raised it.
The world didn't crack. It tightened. Like breath being sucked out of the air. Like a storm looking for a direction.
Nothing burst. But mages felt it. You could see them flinch even across the valley. Ironcrag's frontline stiffened. Armor sigils lit up like flares. Every rune that had ever tasted magic recoiled.
Caylen stood next to him, silent.
Dax gave a low whistle, crooked and sharp. "They're watching now."
Across the valley, a banner went up.
Black cloth. Red gauntlet. Ugly stitchwork. The kind of symbol that didn't need style. Just fear.
A voice followed. Big. Too clean. Like it didn't come from lungs. Like it was carved into the air.
"Ezreal. Dax. Caylen. You carry what is not yours. You walk with fire. Step down and surrender the shards, or Phokorus burns before midday."
Caylen squinted. "That's not Ironcrag."
Verek's face barely moved. "Torvald."
Dax huffed. "Old dog with a king complex."
Verek didn't shout. Just spoke.
"Come take them, then."
The silence hung. Then the drums changed.
A retreat rhythm. Just enough to stall. Just enough to think.
Verek stared at the shards.
"We bought time," he said.
Caylen crossed his arms. "So we spend it."
The shards throbbed again. Some deep, weird heartbeat. Red like burned flesh. Green like sickness. Smoke licked along the stone at their feet, trying to get closer.
Dax crouched and poked at one shard—jagged, gold, cracked through the center. It had chewed through his arm once. He tapped it. Flinched.
"It's breathing."
"It is," Verek replied.
The wind twisted around, cold and stinging. And under the salt, something else. Faint. Familiar. Wrong. Like a memory that didn't belong to him.
He packed the shards up again. Gentle, deliberate. The way you handled something with teeth.
"Send a runner," Verek said.
Tarrin stepped forward from the shadows like he'd always been there. Eyes dark. Robes stiff with ash. "Where to?"
"Vaults. Deep ones. Seal them. Nobody touches these unless I say so."
"You think Torvald will strike today?"
Verek shook his head. "No. He's playing. Waiting to see if we panic. Waiting to see if we hand him the war for free."
Dax rolled his neck. "Let's not."
They left the wall.
The city was already whispering. Word spread like sparks in dry straw. Guards whispering. Streetfolk peeking through cracks. The Crucible crew had returned, and they brought something sharp enough to cut the future.
The palace looked worse in the daylight. Spire sheared off like it had been snapped in half. Chunks of roof missing. Doors sagging from hinges like drunkards. A few servants drifted around, too stunned to be useful.
Some noble, eyes wild, staggered up trying to talk. Tarrin shut him down with a look.
The vault lay behind a torn tapestry, through a damp stairwell that stank like wet bones and moldy regret.
Verek opened the old door. It groaned like it remembered pain.
The vault was circular. Runes etched into the stone walls hadn't glowed in years. A pedestal waited, smothered in dust.
He set the pack on it. Latched it.
Caylen stood just inside the doorway, hand near his hilt. "That won't stop them if they push the court."
"Then we don't let it get that far," Verek said.
Above them, the city stirred. Creaked. Breathed.
And in the vault, behind thick stone and runes that didn't remember how to burn, something inside the shards stirred.
Not hunger.
Not rage.
Something else.
A will.