Dawn broke pale and uncertain over the lowlands, its light filtering through the lingering Aether haze like a reluctant witness. The villagers Mae and Nijuil had freed were escorted toward safer ground by Luminara scouts, their expressions a fragile mix of gratitude and fear. Some bowed, others could barely meet Nijuil's eyes, as if sensing the weight of the relic bound to him. He didn't blame them. Even now, Noctyrix pulsed quietly against his arm, no longer raging—but watching.
They made camp on a ridge overlooking the ravine, far enough to regroup but close enough to feel Obsidian's shadow still stretching across the land. Mae tended to the injured with practiced efficiency, her touch gentle despite the faint tremor in her hands. The encounter had shaken her more than she let on. Nijuil noticed it in the way her wings twitched when she thought no one was watching.
"That ally," Mae said at last, breaking the silence as she wrapped a glowing bandage around a villager's arm. "They weren't fighting willingly."
"No," Nijuil replied. His gaze drifted back to the ravine. "They were bound. Just like Noctyrix tries to bind me."
Mae looked up, studying him carefully. "But you didn't let it."
He wasn't sure that was entirely true—but he nodded anyway.
As the scouts returned with grim expressions, the truth became harder to ignore. Obsidian's raids weren't random. Crystal convoys. Villages. Relic bearers. He was drawing lines across the map, shaping something larger. Something ritualistic.
"He's preparing a convergence," one scout reported. "Multiple Aether nexuses—if he destabilizes them all at once…"
"He could force a mass Ordeal," Mae finished, horror creeping into her voice.
The words settled like ash in Nijuil's chest. A forced trial. Thousands pushed to the brink, relics awakening through suffering alone. Noctyrix stirred at the thought—not in hunger, but anticipation.
That night, Nijuil couldn't sleep.
He sat apart from the others, staring into the dim glow of his gauntlet as memories surfaced unbidden—his brother standing where he now stood, stronger, surer, believing control came from denial. The whispers returned, quieter than before but sharper, more deliberate.
You felt it today, Noctyrix murmured. Balance is fragile. Judgment is eternal.
"For once," Nijuil said under his breath, "I don't need you to tell me that."
The relic fell silent.
When Mae approached, she didn't speak at first. She simply sat beside him, close enough that he could feel her warmth, steady and real. "You're afraid," she said gently. Not an accusation. An understanding.
"Yes," he admitted. "But not of Obsidian."
She followed his gaze to the gauntlet. "Power doesn't corrupt," she said. "It reveals. And what I saw today wasn't a tyrant."
Nijuil exhaled slowly. For the first time since his Ordeal, the fear didn't feel like a weakness. It felt like a warning—and a promise.
Far away, deep within a fractured nexus, Obsidian stood before an ancient construct carved from corrupted crystal. The cloaked Judicator knelt beside him, newly awakened eyes burning with hollow light.
"The False King resists," the ally rasped.
Obsidian smiled. "Good. Resistance tempers the flame."
He placed a hand on the crystal, and the land screamed.
The Ordeal was coming.