The world went white—then black—then nothing.
Nyra's scream was swallowed by silence. No wind. No ground. No sky. Just a weightless void, pressing on her from every direction.
She tried to breathe. There was no air, yet somehow, she wasn't suffocating. Her dagger floated in front of her, spinning lazily before dissolving into dust.
And then she heard it.
"Kiel…" Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it echoed, warped, like it was being spoken by someone else far away.
A second voice answered.
Not Kiel's.
"You shouldn't be here."
---
Shapes began to form in the dark—giant pillars of bone, twisting vines of black flame, and a distant horizon of molten gold. At the center stood two figures.
One was Kiel. Or at least, the man she remembered—scarred, breathing hard, but unmistakably him. His eyes were his own.
The other was the thing that had taken him—towering, clawed, its body a silhouette filled with galaxies and storms. Its eyes burned like twin stars.
They stood facing each other, unmoving, as if locked in a standoff that had lasted centuries.
---
"Kiel!" Nyra ran toward him, but the air thickened like syrup. Every step felt like wading through wet stone.
His head jerked toward her, and for an instant, relief crossed his face. "Nyra? How—"
The shadow chuckled, a deep, rolling sound that vibrated in her bones. "She came to save you. How quaint."
Nyra glared at it. "I'm here to end you."
The shadow tilted its head. "End me? Little spark, you don't even understand me. I am not inside Kiel. He is inside me."
---
Kiel stepped forward, chains of light snapping taut between him and the shadow. "It's been trying to break me since the core fused. I've kept it out of my mind, but…" He glanced at her. "…it's getting stronger."
Nyra's fists clenched. "Then let's kill it."
The shadow leaned closer, its grin stretching impossibly wide. "You can't kill me without killing him. We are one now."
It raised a claw, and the world shifted violently.
---
Suddenly, Nyra and Kiel stood on a battlefield—not stone and fire, but memories.
They were surrounded by fragments: the cabin where they first met, the cliffs they had trained on, the blood-soaked ruins of the first city they'd fought to save. Each memory was crystal clear, yet blurred at the edges like it might dissolve at any moment.
The shadow loomed above them, growing taller until its head brushed a sky made of black glass. "Choose," it said. "One of you walks out. The other stays here forever."
---
Nyra's jaw tightened. "I'm not choosing."
The shadow's grin faded into something worse—a slow, predatory stillness. "Then I'll choose for you."
The memories around them began to shatter like glass. Each one that broke made Kiel stagger, as if pieces of him were being ripped away.
He fell to one knee. "Nyra… don't let it—"
The shadow struck. Its claw shot forward, wrapping around Kiel's chest, squeezing until the chains of light shattered.
---
Nyra's instincts took over. She leapt, driving her knee into the shadow's head. The impact barely made it flinch, but it loosened its grip just enough for Kiel to wrench free.
He grabbed her wrist. "We can't fight it here. It's its world."
"Then we take it back," she shot back.
---
The shadow's laughter filled the void. "You want my world? Then survive it."
The ground dropped away, and suddenly they were falling through an endless storm—shards of memory spinning around them, some bright and warm, others dark and suffocating. Each one that touched them pulled at their minds, trying to trap them inside.
Nyra's hand tightened around Kiel's. "Stay with me!"
His eyes met hers, desperate. "If I lose myself—don't follow me into the dark."
She didn't answer.
Because she already knew she would.