The Guardian Wyrm struck like the end of a prayer.
Its emerald scales no longer shimmered with borrowed magic—they burned, rippling with raw, unrestrained power. The roar that tore from its throat shattered the Crucible of Echoes, sending fractures through obsidian stone and memory alike. The River of Echoes surged violently, shadowy tendrils and serpent-creatures spilling from its depths, answering their master's rage.
Kaelan met the charge head-on.
His sword—Sunstone awakened—blazed gold as it collided with the Wyrm's descending maw. Light and darkness screamed against each other, the impact throwing Kaelan backward across the slick obsidian floor. He rolled once, twice, came up on one knee, breath sharp, eyes blazing.
Hold. Don't falter. Not now.
"Elara—stay behind me!" he shouted.
But Elara was already moving.
The Cleansing Flame flared in her hands, silver-gold fire blooming from her palms as she turned toward the swarming serpent-creatures. Each breath she took burned. Each pulse of magic carved something out of her chest she couldn't name.
It hurts. But this is what I am for.
She released the Flame.
The creatures shrieked as light devoured shadow, dissolving into ash before they could reach Kaelan. The air filled with heat and echoes—old screams, old griefs—until Elara's head rang with them.
"Kaelan!" she cried. "The Wyrm—its power—it's feeding from the Tree!"
Lord Gareth stood his ground near the fractured pillar, his staff glowing faintly as he deflected a lashing tendril. Blood streaked his temple, but his eyes were sharp, desperate.
"She's right," Gareth barked. "The Tree of Whispers is bound to it. Sever that bond, or the Wyrm will never fall!"
Kaelan didn't answer.
He was already moving.
The Wyrm struck again, tail slamming into the obsidian where Kaelan had stood a second earlier. He vaulted over it, boots skidding, sword raised. The runes along the blade flared brighter, humming as if recognizing the threat.
He saw it then.
The emerald eye.
Too bright. Too aware.
That's its heart.
Kaelan lunged.
The Wyrm twisted impossibly fast, jaws snapping shut inches from him. The force of its movement sent him crashing into the cavern wall. Pain exploded through his shoulder. His sword clattered across the stone.
"Elara!" Gareth shouted. "Now—create an opening!"
Elara's vision tunneled.
The world narrowed to Kaelan on the ground. Blood on his jaw. His breath too shallow.
No. Not him. I won't lose him too.
She screamed—not in fear, but defiance—and drove the Cleansing Flame into the ground.
Light erupted outward in a blinding ring.
The River recoiled. The serpent-creatures disintegrated. Even the Wyrm staggered, its emerald eye flickering, its roar breaking into something closer to pain.
Kaelan didn't waste the moment.
He grabbed his sword and surged forward, channeling everything—Sunstone, fury, grief—into one strike.
The blade pierced the emerald eye.
The scream that followed wasn't sound. It was existence tearing.
The Wyrm thrashed violently, smashing into the River, into the walls, into the sky itself. Dark energy bled from the wound, tendrils lashing blindly as the cavern shook.
"Elara!" Kaelan shouted. "It's breaking!"
The emerald glow fractured, splintering like glass.
Then the Wyrm began to dissolve.
Shadow and light spiraled together, collapsing inward as its massive form unraveled. The River of Echoes screamed as the corruption binding it snapped.
"The Tree—" Elara gasped, clutching her chest. "I can feel it. It's free."
For one fragile heartbeat, hope lived.
Then the void opened.
It tore through the Crucible like a wound that refused to close—black, endless, devouring. The Devourer's Heart surged outward, swallowing the River, consuming the walls, erasing the sky. Stone vanished. Light vanished.
Reality thinned.
Kaelan found himself standing on a shrinking island of obsidian, Elara beside him, Gareth barely holding his footing.
"It's not retreating," Gareth shouted, voice raw. "This is its true form—it's consuming Havenwood itself!"
Elara's amulet burned against her skin, silver light flickering weakly. The Cleansing Flame trembled in her hands, stretched thin.
This isn't a battle anymore. This is a demand.
"Elara…" Kaelan said quietly, reaching for her hand.
The moment his fingers brushed hers, the world dropped away.
She fell.
Not physically—but inward.
The void welcomed her like an old memory.
No pain. No sound. Just weightless darkness threaded with whispers.
Come.
Elara floated, suspended between nothing and everything. Images drifted past—Havenwood whole and breathing, the Tree of Whispers in bloom, Kaelan laughing once, before grief hardened him.
This is my fault. I'm the door.
Something pulsed ahead.
A shimmer.
The Eye of Aethel.
It hovered within the void now, no longer a reflection but a living presence—golden, immense. At its center, a black slit opened, not watching, but measuring.
"You stand within me," the Eye spoke, its voice layered with countless echoes. "And within loss."
Elara swallowed.
"What do you want?" she whispered.
"Balance."
Images crashed into her—Havenwood collapsing, the Tree withering, Kaelan standing alone over ash.
"Victory demands a cost," the Eye said. "One bound to the void. One who remembers, so others may forget."
Her breath hitched.
It means me. Doesn't it?
"Elara!"
Kaelan's voice cut through the darkness, distant but fierce.
She turned—and saw him at the edge of the void, reaching, eyes wild with fear she'd never seen before.
"No," he said hoarsely. "Whatever it's asking—you don't answer it."
Tears burned her eyes.
If I don't… everyone burns.
The Eye pulsed.
"What will you offer?" it asked. "Your life? Your memory? Or the one you love?"
The void surged.
Kaelan stepped forward, light blazing around him. "Take me," he said without hesitation. "I'll pay it."
Elara screamed his name.
The Eye stilled.
"Choice," it murmured. "At last."
The void tightened, closing in, as the weight of the decision crushed her chest—and Elara realized, with sickening clarity, that whatever she chose…
Havenwood would never forgive her.
And neither would Kaelan.