The ride back to the Obsidian Citadel was a descent into a nightmare.
The sky over the Carcalidum kingdom had turned the color of a fresh bruise, and the air was thick with a static charge that made the hair on Andrea's neck stand on end.
They rode in a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight.
Behind them, the Whispering Marches remained a frozen graveyard; ahead, the Citadel glowed with the unnatural orange of the dying archives, a beacon of failed history.
Theroren rode like a man possessed.
The black veins on his neck had faded to faint, silvery scars, but the light in his eyes was different now no longer the cold embers of a predatory king, but a focused, incandescent rage.
Beside him, Andrea felt the absence of her magic as a screaming void, yet she gripped the blackened Lumen Stone in its lead-lined pouch with a white-knuckled intensity.
She was the only one who understood the spiritual geometry of their enemy.
"The Grand Witch will know we're coming," Andrea shouted over the roar of the wind. "She felt the resonance when I used the ash leaf dust. She knows the King still breathes."
Theroren didn't look back.
"Let her know. I have spent twenty years ruling a kingdom of shadows. It is time I brought the sun into the cellar."
They did not enter through the main gates. Theroren led them through the Grave-Pass, a subterranean tunnel used only for royal funerals.
The air here was stale and smelled of incense and old stone.
As they emerged into the lower levels of the Citadel, they found a scene of carnage.
The guards Theroren's elite leather-clad warriors lay slumped against the walls.
They weren't dead; they were hollow.
Their eyes were wide and vacant, their skin a translucent grey.
The Nixorath had already begun its harvest.
"The spirit in the stone was just a shard," Andrea whispered, her horror mounting. "The Grand Witch has unleashed the source.
Suddenly, the shadows in the corridor began to peel away from the walls.
They didn't move like shadows; they drifted like ink in water, coalescing into a tall, skeletal figure clad in the tattered green and silver of the Stiltwort Wards.
"Grand Witch Duskevil," Theroren hissed, his hand flying to his sword.
But it wasn't the Grand Witch.
It was the Chief Keeper, Varas. His skin was pulled tight over his skull, and his eyes were twin pits of oily darkness.
"The King returns to a house of glass," Varas said, his voice a chorus of a thousand dead whispers.
"The Nixorath is not an enemy, Theroren. It is the evolution. Why burn with a heart that can be broken, when you can be a part of the eternal cold?"
With a flick of his wrist, Varas sent a wave of entropic energy toward them.
Theroren lunged, his Burning Heart erupting in a violent flare of crimson light.
He met the shadow-magic head-on, his body acting as a shield for Andrea.
The collision sent a shockwave through the tunnel, cracking the ancient stones.
"Go!" Theroren roared, his voice straining. "The throne room! My father's hammer the Aethel-Breaker it's hidden beneath the Obsidian Throne. Only a Stiltwort's touch can release the wards!"
Andrea didn't argue.
She turned and ran, her lungs burning, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm.
She sprinted up the spiraling stairs, past the Great Archives where the smoke still lingered, and into the grand, echoing Hall of Silent Judgment.
The throne room was freezing. The obsidian floor was covered in a layer of black frost. In the center stood the Obsidian Throne, and perched upon it was the Grand Witch Duskevil.
She looked ancient far older than when Andrea had last seen her.
Her silver hair was wild, and she was clutching a staff topped with a massive, pulsing Lumen Stone that dwarfed the shard Andrea carried.
"Child," Duskevil said, her voice surprisingly soft.
"You bring the King's spark to a feast. Do you think your little books and your stolen dust can stop the inevitable? The Nixorath is the true heir to this world. We are merely the stewards of its arrival."
"You killed them," Andrea gasped, reaching the base of the throne.
"You poisoned the King and Queen not for power, but for a god that doesn't even know your name."
"I saved our lineage!" Duskevil screamed, her composure breaking.
"The Nixorath demanded a tithe. I gave it the Carcalidum royalty so it would spare the forest! I am a savior!"
She raised her staff, and the darkness in the stone flared. Andrea dove behind the base of the throne.
She felt for the hidden latch Theroren had described a small, vine-shaped indentation in the obsidian.
She pressed her thumb into it.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the stone recognized her blood the genetic signature of the Stiltwort lineage that had once been the Kings' closest allies.
The floor beneath the throne slid open with a heavy, grinding sound.
Resting in a bed of white velvet was the Aethel-Breaker. It wasn't a hammer of iron, but a massive, blunt instrument of SunGlass, etched with runes of purification.
It glowed with a steady, warm amber light that seemed to push back the black frost.
"No!" Duskevil shrieked.
She lunged from the throne, her shadow-magic clawing at the air.
At that moment, the doors to the hall burst open. Theroren stumbled in, his armor scorched, his face bloodied. He saw Andrea with the hammer and let out a guttural cry of triumph.
"Andrea! The Stone! Strike the Stone!"
Andrea grabbed the Aethel-Breaker. It was impossibly heavy, yet as she lifted it, she felt a surge of warmth a residual echo of the alliance that had once held this kingdom together.
She didn't have her magic, but she had the intent of her entire lineage.
Duskevil fired a beam of pure void-energy from her staff.
Theroren threw himself in the way, his Burning Heart igniting in a final, desperate explosion of power. The two energies clashed, creating a blinding sphere of red and black.
"Now!" Theroren screamed.
Andrea didn't hesitate. She swung the SunGlass hammer with every ounce of strength she possessed.
She didn't aim for the Grand Witch; she aimed for the massive Lumen Stone at the top of the staff.
The impact was like a star being born.
The Sun-Glass shattered the corrupted stone on contact.
A shockwave of pure, purifying light erupted from the point of impact, sweeping through the Hall of Silent Judgment.
It wasn't a physical blast, but a spiritual one.
The Nixorath spirit, caught between the hammer and the throne, let out a final, agonizing shriek as its vessel disintegrated. The oily darkness was vaporized by the amber light of the Aethel-Breaker.
Duskevil was thrown backward, her staff reduced to splinters.
The shadows that had infested the Citadel vanished, replaced by a sudden, jarring silence.
The light faded.
Andrea sat on the floor, the Aethel-Breaker lying beside her, its amber glow now a soft, comforting hum.
Across the room, the Grand Witch lay motionless, her connection to the Void severed.
Theroren slumped against the Obsidian Throne, his breathing heavy and ragged.
The black veins were gone, replaced by the healthy, pale hue of a vampire king. He looked at Andrea, and for the first time, he smiled a small, tired, but genuine expression.
"The hammer," he managed to say.
"My father always said it would take a witch to swing it."
"And a king to hold the line," Andrea replied, her voice shaky.
They were a mess a magicless witch and a battered vampire king sitting in a ruined throne room.
The Great Archives were gone, the Grand Witch was defeated, and the secret of the Nixorath was finally out in the open.
Theroren stood up, offering a hand to Andrea.
As she took it, she felt a familiar, warm thrum in her own veins. Her magic wasn't gone; it had been suppressed by the shadow, and now, in the presence of the Aethel-Breaker, it was returning purer and stronger than before.
"The kingdom will need to be rebuilt," Theroren said, looking out over the moonlit cliffs.
"And the history... we will have to write it together. The true history."
Andrea looked at the iron key still hanging from her neck.
"The Lesser Archives are still there. And I think I know where to start."
As the first hints of dawn touched the horizon a dawn that no longer felt like a threat, but a promise the King and the Witch stood side by side.
The era of the frozen heart was over.
The era of the Burning Heart had just begun.