The Champion fell to its knees.
The sound was like mountains breaking, stone groaning against the weight of surrender. Ash and flame swirled around its colossal frame as if the battlefield itself could not understand what it had just witnessed. The creature that had brought gods to ruin, that had swallowed armies whole, bent before her with its chains scraping low into the fractured earth.
Mae's breath caught. Her hands trembled in the still air, though her violet chains no longer shook. They pulsed in quiet rhythm with her racing heart. The Fallen stared in stunned silence, each of them caught between rage, awe, and disbelief.
Lucien's voice was the first to pierce the stillness, raw and unsteady. "No. This is not victory." His chains rattled uselessly, still pinned by Mae's will. His eyes burned into her like fire meant to scorch away illusion. "It kneels because you are surrendering yourself. You are feeding it exactly what it wanted."
Riven's wings twitched against the bindings, feathers dragging sparks as they strained. His voice was hoarse, breaking under the weight of his grief. "You told us Kaine's sacrifice meant something. Do not make it mean nothing now."
Mae swallowed hard. Her throat was tight, her chest burning with an ache she did not fully understand. "You do not see it. This is the moment the orb warned me of. The decision. The one that changes everything."
Ashar snarled, flames surging wildly against her bindings. "You cannot choose this. You cannot." His voice cracked like firewood splitting, grief and fury entwined. "Mae, you are not submitting to fate. You are writing it. And you are writing it in blood."
Sethis' shadows writhed, slamming against the violet light that held him. His voice slithered like poison, sharp and desperate. "You are blind. You think the fracture bends to your will, but it is bending you. Do you not feel it? Do you not feel how it is hollowing you out?"
Mae's gaze snapped between them, torn, burning, but her feet refused to move. The Champion's head lowered further, massive chains clattering as though in deference. For the first time since its arrival, Mae did not feel like prey. She felt the fracture surge through her like a tide, an ancient current too vast to resist.
Her wings, pale constructs of violet fire, unfurled fully from her back, their glow casting the battlefield in light that stung against the ash. She drew in a long, shaking breath and whispered, "This is not surrender. This is a transformation."
The ground trembled beneath her as the Champion's chains answered, rattling in cadence with hers. Its enormous hand pressed flat to the earth, and with its head still bowed, it extended the other toward her, waiting.
Lucien roared against her hold, every muscle straining. His chains cracked with heat, sparks flying where they clashed with hers. "If you take its hand, you are lost to us."
Mae's heart twisted. His voice was not the commander's, not the warlord's. It was the plea of a man who feared losing her more than his own life. Her gaze softened, just for a moment, before her chin lifted again.
"If I do nothing, we all die," she said. Her voice was quiet, but it carried across the battlefield, undeniable. "This choice is not about Kaine. It is not about the Fallen. It is about the fracture itself. It has always been waiting for me to choose."
Riven's eyes burned with sorrow. His voice broke as he said, "And if it is the wrong choice?"
Mae's lips trembled into something that was not quite a smile. "Then let me bear it."
The Champion's hand hovered before her, vast enough to crush her with a twitch. The orb's whisper still echoed in her mind, not words, but a promise. A decision that would alter the threads of every world. This was it. Not war. Not conquest. Not even victory. A beginning.
Her chest heaved once, twice, then she stepped forward.
The Fallen screamed her name, straining against her bonds until the battlefield shook. Chains rattled, flames roared, shadows split the ground, wings cut into the smoke. But none of it reached her. The fracture had locked her path, and she knew now that she had already chosen.
Mae placed her hand into the Champion's palm.
The instant their skin met, the battlefield dissolved. The roar of chains and fire and grief fell away, replaced by silence so complete it felt like stepping into the void itself. She gasped, air leaving her lungs in a rush as light bled through her veins. Her body arched, lifted, suspended between nothing and everything.
Visions shattered through her mind like glass. A city burning beneath a violet sky. Rivers turning to flame. Fields of life blooming from ash. Children laughing in a place she did not know. And Kaine, standing far away on the other side of the fracture, smiling as though he had always known she would walk this path.
Tears stung her eyes, but she did not falter. This was not death. This was creation.
The Champion's voice entered her mind, no longer thunder, no longer distant. It was a whisper pressed directly into her soul. "Become."
Mae's wings flared, violet feathers burning brighter than ever, until the void itself seemed to bow before her. Her chains spiraled outward in patterns she could not comprehend, weaving through the darkness like veins of light. For the first time, she understood them not as weapons, not as bindings, but as threads of creation itself.
The silence broke. Her feet struck solid ground once more. She staggered forward, gasping, and blinked. The battlefield was gone. The Fallen were gone. Even the Champion itself had vanished.
She stood alone in a realm of endless black, stars pulsing faintly in the far distance. Her chains swayed softly at her sides, their glow dim but steady.
Mae drew in a shuddering breath. "Where am I?"
The void answered with no words, only the sensation of presence all around her, thick as breath, vast as eternity. The fracture had brought her here.
Her pulse thundered in her ears. She was not lost. She was chosen.
But what she did not see, not yet, was that the Fallen still fought against her bindings in the broken world she had left behind. They were watching her body stand motionless, hand still clasped in the Champion's. And as her eyes opened to this new realm, another pair of eyes opened with her, glowing violet in the dark.
She was not alone.
The battlefield had quieted, the others scattered by duty, grief, or exhaustion, but Mae remained where the smoke curled low against the earth. She felt the fracture stir, restless, as though sensing what came next. Sethis lingered at her side, his shadows curling in a restless tide, watching her more closely than the horizon. For a long moment, neither spoke, silence hanging heavy between them. Then, when the last of the footsteps faded, he leaned closer, voice like a blade dragged slowly. "Now, little fracture," he murmured. "Tell me what you've truly chosen."