The wind howled around Lyra Flynn as she stood at the eastern edge of Starweaver's Bridge, her boots planted firmly on the last platform of translucent stone before the void. Behind her, the bridge shimmered faintly, its magic beginning to dissolve now that the trial was passed. Before her, only sky remained—cloud-choked, violet-blue, and pierced by rays of fading starlight.
And beyond it, like a mirage seen through the veil of time, floated the silhouette of Eldarath.
But Lyra's gaze wasn't on the legendary city.
It was on the fleet of black, angular skyships drifting in from the east like vultures.
Kael stood at her side, the wind tugging at the dark scarf wound around his neck. His usually sharp green eyes were filled with something rare: concern.
"They're imperial," he muttered. "Not Aethorian. Not anymore."
Lyra tightened her grip on Cael, the enchanted artifact pulsing with heat at her side. "I thought the Aerthys Empire was gone."
Kael's brow furrowed. "Some parts of it... maybe weren't buried deep enough."
Behind them, the last of the Starweavers vanished into starlight, and the bridge's final platform began to melt into mist.
"We must fly," Cael warned, voice urgent. "The eclipse draws near, and the Gate will seal."
Lyra unfurled her wings, the thin silver membranes catching what little breeze remained. "Then let's move."
She leapt first — slicing through the sky like a falcon.
Kael followed, his glide sharp and fast, matching her descent.
They dove into a realm of storm-kissed clouds and weightless silence, weaving through shafts of light as the floating peaks of the eastern horizon rose to meet them. Far below, the Starlight Lakes glittered in the dark, casting strange reflections of the sky that didn't quite match reality.
The path to Eldarath was not direct.
Cael guided them along a narrow, shifting corridor of currents — a skyway known only to those who could read the winds of Aethoria. For hours, they flew in silence, breath pluming in the cold, mist flecking their faces.
Then, as the sun crept low and the first curve of the moon eclipse kissed the sky, they saw it.
Suspended over a chasm of open air was a titanic structure — vast rings of stone and crystal rotating in slow, celestial rhythm. Light flared between the rings, pulses of ancient magic flashing in rhythm with a heartbeat no longer living.
It was not a city, nor a ruin.
It was a mechanism.
And at its heart, a gate.
A portal formed of arcane runes and violet flame, pulsing with the same energy that once animated the lost Aerthys Empire.
Lyra's breath caught. "The Eclipse Gate…"
Kael hovered beside her, eyes narrowed. "If that's our entrance… where's the key?"
Before Cael could answer, the wind screamed.
And from the clouds below rose a beast.
It was not natural.
It had no name in Skystrider records.
Its wings were made of shadow-stone, its eyes burning suns. Its body, long and serpentine, shimmered with mirrored scales that bent light around them. It moved like oil in water — wrong, rippling, hungry.
"Guardian of the Gate," Cael whispered.
The creature roared, and the sky fractured.
Part II: The Guardian of the Eclipse
The creature's roar shook the sky itself, sending ripples through the air like waves across water. A nearby cloud burst apart from the force of it, revealing the shimmering outline of the Eclipse Gate, its rotating rings now accelerating in frantic motion. The beast — a sentinel of forgotten magics — circled them slowly, its immense wings stirring hurricanes in its wake.
Lyra didn't wait.
She dove.
Wind screamed past her ears as she plummeted toward the Guardian, drawing her twin wind-cutters in a flash of silver light. Her braid whipped behind her, her violet eyes locked on the creature's glowing maw. At her side, Cael gleamed like a comet, its core blazing with charged energy.
"Kael, flank right!" she shouted through the storm.
Kael peeled off, his sword already ablaze with blue flame — the same fire he had drawn from the forge at Cloudhaven during his exile. His long coat billowed behind him, and his eyes were focused, cold.
The Guardian twisted mid-air and opened its jaws — a beam of searing, violet energy erupted forth like lightning made liquid.
Lyra banked hard to the left, narrowly avoiding the blast. She felt the heat graze her arm, the hair on her skin singeing as the energy tore past. Below, the Starlight Lakes rippled unnaturally, mirroring the battle in reversed colors.
"Strike the mirrored heart!" Cael's voice echoed. "That's where it stores the essence of the Gate's memory!"
She spotted it — beneath the creature's shadow-slicked scales was a pulsing orb of swirling color, positioned at the base of its neck. The problem was reaching it.
Lyra flipped her wings and launched into a vertical spiral, climbing with desperate speed. The Guardian chased her, snapping its wings and tearing through clouds like tissue. It moved impossibly fast for something its size.
Kael swept beneath it, drawing its attention with a flash of flame. "NOW, LYRA!"
She dove — an arrow of wind and steel — both blades crackling with the amplified power of Cael. The enchanted artifact's runes lit up along her arms, fueling her strike with raw aetherial energy.
The world narrowed to a single point: the mirrored heart.
She struck.
Twin blades plunged into the Guardian's chest just beneath the orb, and with a cry of fury and desperation, she twisted. Cael's voice rose into a resonant chant, filling the sky with ancient song. The mirrored orb shattered with a sound like shattering crystal and thunder rolled through the heavens.
The beast screamed — a shriek not of pain, but release.
Light exploded outward.
The creature convulsed once, then dissolved into a cascade of feather-like scales, each drifting away on the wind, slowly fading into mist.
Silence fell.
The wind died.
Only the rhythmic chime of the Eclipse Gate's spinning rings remained, casting columns of light across the clouds.
Lyra hovered there, breathing hard, her wings trembling. Kael approached from the right, a trail of smoke curling from the edge of his coat.
"That," he said, "was a gate guardian?"
Lyra exhaled slowly. "One of them."
She floated closer to the Gate's center, now fully revealed. Between the largest rotating rings, a rift had opened — swirling violet and silver, etched with runes that seemed to shift and pulse with her heartbeat.
Cael floated up beside her, dim now from the energy he had expended. "This is the path. Eldarath lies beyond."
Kael's voice was quiet. "No turning back?"
Lyra shook her head. "No turning back."
She took his hand.
Together, they passed through the Gate.
The sensation of crossing the Gate was unlike anything Lyra had ever experienced. It wasn't falling or flying — it was remembering. She saw flashes of cities long buried, towers of floating crystal, forests of light. She heard voices — laughing, crying, singing — and felt the heat of ancient forges and the chill of forgotten storms.
She glimpsed herself, but not herself — dressed in armor of silver and indigo, her wings made of light. Kael stood beside her in those visions, older, harder, but still with the same fire in his eyes.
And then—
—they emerged.
Into Eldarath.
The Lost City was not ruined.
It was preserved.
Suspended over a hollow of sky and cloud, Eldarath stretched for miles — a floating metropolis of impossible beauty. Towers carved of white stone curved like harp strings into the sky, while bridges of translucent crystal connected domed sanctuaries, markets, amphitheaters, and gardens of glass-leafed trees.
Everything glowed faintly with moonlight.
Yet all was still.
No voices.
No wind.
Only echoes.
Cael hovered silently beside Lyra, dim now, but pulsing softly. "This is only the outer sanctum. The city core lies deeper. And so do its guardians."
Kael looked around, one hand resting on his sword. "We're being watched."
Lyra felt it too — a prickling sensation along the back of her neck. She turned to find a figure emerging from the shadows beneath a broken arch.
A woman.
Or what had once been a woman.
Her eyes glowed gold, her armor flowing like ink. Her hair was pale silver, her skin etched with runes that flickered as she moved. She carried no weapon — she didn't need one.
She was Aevara, Warden of Eldarath.
And she had not forgotten the bloodlines of those who had once abandoned the city to ruin.
The wind howled around Lyra Flynn as she stood at the eastern edge of Starweaver's Bridge, her boots planted firmly on the last platform of translucent stone before the void. Behind her, the bridge shimmered faintly, its magic beginning to dissolve now that the trial was passed. Before her, only sky remained—cloud-choked, violet-blue, and pierced by rays of fading starlight.
And beyond it, like a mirage seen through the veil of time, floated the silhouette of Eldarath.
But Lyra's gaze wasn't on the legendary city.
It was on the fleet of black, angular skyships drifting in from the east like vultures.
Kael stood at her side, the wind tugging at the dark scarf wound around his neck. His usually sharp green eyes were filled with something rare: concern.
"They're imperial," he muttered. "Not Aethorian. Not anymore."
Lyra tightened her grip on Cael, the enchanted artifact pulsing with heat at her side. "I thought the Aerthys Empire was gone."
Kael's brow furrowed. "Some parts of it... maybe weren't buried deep enough."
Behind them, the last of the Starweavers vanished into starlight, and the bridge's final platform began to melt into mist.
"We must fly," Cael warned, voice urgent. "The eclipse draws near, and the Gate will seal."
Lyra unfurled her wings, the thin silver membranes catching what little breeze remained. "Then let's move."
She leapt first — slicing through the sky like a falcon.
Kael followed, his glide sharp and fast, matching her descent.
They dove into a realm of storm-kissed clouds and weightless silence, weaving through shafts of light as the floating peaks of the eastern horizon rose to meet them. Far below, the Starlight Lakes glittered in the dark, casting strange reflections of the sky that didn't quite match reality.
The path to Eldarath was not direct.
Cael guided them along a narrow, shifting corridor of currents — a skyway known only to those who could read the winds of Aethoria. For hours, they flew in silence, breath pluming in the cold, mist flecking their faces.
Then, as the sun crept low and the first curve of the moon eclipse kissed the sky, they saw it.
Suspended over a chasm of open air was a titanic structure — vast rings of stone and crystal rotating in slow, celestial rhythm. Light flared between the rings, pulses of ancient magic flashing in rhythm with a heartbeat no longer living.
It was not a city, nor a ruin.
It was a mechanism.
And at its heart, a gate.
A portal formed of arcane runes and violet flame, pulsing with the same energy that once animated the lost Aerthys Empire.
Lyra's breath caught. "The Eclipse Gate…"
Kael hovered beside her, eyes narrowed. "If that's our entrance… where's the key?"
Before Cael could answer, the wind screamed.
And from the clouds below rose a beast.
It was not natural.
It had no name in Skystrider records.
Its wings were made of shadow-stone, its eyes burning suns. Its body, long and serpentine, shimmered with mirrored scales that bent light around them. It moved like oil in water — wrong, rippling, hungry.
"Guardian of the Gate," Cael whispered.
The creature roared, and the sky fractured.
Part II: The Guardian of the Eclipse
The creature's roar shook the sky itself, sending ripples through the air like waves across water. A nearby cloud burst apart from the force of it, revealing the shimmering outline of the Eclipse Gate, its rotating rings now accelerating in frantic motion. The beast — a sentinel of forgotten magics — circled them slowly, its immense wings stirring hurricanes in its wake.
Lyra didn't wait.
She dove.
Wind screamed past her ears as she plummeted toward the Guardian, drawing her twin wind-cutters in a flash of silver light. Her braid whipped behind her, her violet eyes locked on the creature's glowing maw. At her side, Cael gleamed like a comet, its core blazing with charged energy.
"Kael, flank right!" she shouted through the storm.
Kael peeled off, his sword already ablaze with blue flame — the same fire he had drawn from the forge at Cloudhaven during his exile. His long coat billowed behind him, and his eyes were focused, cold.
The Guardian twisted mid-air and opened its jaws — a beam of searing, violet energy erupted forth like lightning made liquid.
Lyra banked hard to the left, narrowly avoiding the blast. She felt the heat graze her arm, the hair on her skin singeing as the energy tore past. Below, the Starlight Lakes rippled unnaturally, mirroring the battle in reversed colors.
"Strike the mirrored heart!" Cael's voice echoed. "That's where it stores the essence of the Gate's memory!"
She spotted it — beneath the creature's shadow-slicked scales was a pulsing orb of swirling color, positioned at the base of its neck. The problem was reaching it.
Lyra flipped her wings and launched into a vertical spiral, climbing with desperate speed. The Guardian chased her, snapping its wings and tearing through clouds like tissue. It moved impossibly fast for something its size.
Kael swept beneath it, drawing its attention with a flash of flame. "NOW, LYRA!"
She dove — an arrow of wind and steel — both blades crackling with the amplified power of Cael. The enchanted artifact's runes lit up along her arms, fueling her strike with raw aetherial energy.
The world narrowed to a single point: the mirrored heart.
She struck.
Twin blades plunged into the Guardian's chest just beneath the orb, and with a cry of fury and desperation, she twisted. Cael's voice rose into a resonant chant, filling the sky with ancient song. The mirrored orb shattered with a sound like shattering crystal and thunder rolled through the heavens.
The beast screamed — a shriek not of pain, but release.
Light exploded outward.
The creature convulsed once, then dissolved into a cascade of feather-like scales, each drifting away on the wind, slowly fading into mist.
Silence fell.
The wind died.
Only the rhythmic chime of the Eclipse Gate's spinning rings remained, casting columns of light across the clouds.
Lyra hovered there, breathing hard, her wings trembling. Kael approached from the right, a trail of smoke curling from the edge of his coat.
"That," he said, "was a gate guardian?"
Lyra exhaled slowly. "One of them."
She floated closer to the Gate's center, now fully revealed. Between the largest rotating rings, a rift had opened — swirling violet and silver, etched with runes that seemed to shift and pulse with her heartbeat.
Cael floated up beside her, dim now from the energy he had expended. "This is the path. Eldarath lies beyond."
Kael's voice was quiet. "No turning back?"
Lyra shook her head. "No turning back."
She took his hand.
Together, they passed through the Gate.
The sensation of crossing the Gate was unlike anything Lyra had ever experienced. It wasn't falling or flying — it was remembering. She saw flashes of cities long buried, towers of floating crystal, forests of light. She heard voices — laughing, crying, singing — and felt the heat of ancient forges and the chill of forgotten storms.
She glimpsed herself, but not herself — dressed in armor of silver and indigo, her wings made of light. Kael stood beside her in those visions, older, harder, but still with the same fire in his eyes.
And then—
—they emerged.
Into Eldarath.
The Lost City was not ruined.
It was preserved.
Suspended over a hollow of sky and cloud, Eldarath stretched for miles — a floating metropolis of impossible beauty. Towers carved of white stone curved like harp strings into the sky, while bridges of translucent crystal connected domed sanctuaries, markets, amphitheaters, and gardens of glass-leafed trees.
Everything glowed faintly with moonlight.
Yet all was still.
No voices.
No wind.
Only echoes.
Cael hovered silently beside Lyra, dim now, but pulsing softly. "This is only the outer sanctum. The city core lies deeper. And so do its guardians."
Kael looked around, one hand resting on his sword. "We're being watched."
Lyra felt it too — a prickling sensation along the back of her neck. She turned to find a figure emerging from the shadows beneath a broken arch.
A woman.
Or what had once been a woman.
Her eyes glowed gold, her armor flowing like ink. Her hair was pale silver, her skin etched with runes that flickered as she moved. She carried no weapon — she didn't need one.
She was Aevara, Warden of Eldarath.
And she had not forgotten the bloodlines of those who had once abandoned the city to ruin.