The corridor became a battlefield of ghosts.
The shadow constructs didn't roar or snarl. They moved in eerie silence, only the dry scrape of broken bond threads against stone announcing each lunge.
Glacia struck first.
She launched upward despite her injured wing, trailing frost and fury. A spiraling cone of ice shards met the nearest shadow—a twisted mockery of a griffin with half its wings missing. The collision produced no blood, only a violent hiss as frozen mist swallowed corrupted darkness. The construct shattered into drifting filaments that writhed for a few seconds before fading.
But for every one they destroyed, two more rose from the floor.
Kairos fought with ruthless economy. His ice sword didn't swing in wide arcs; it stabbed, sliced, parried—precise, lethal, conserving energy. Every strike that connected left a thin layer of frost on the target. The frost spread, slowing the constructs until they moved like insects trapped in amber. Then one clean cut ended them.
"Keep moving toward the book!" he called over his shoulder. "We need that page!"
Elara nodded.
She and Drakon fought as one mind now.
Wherever she stepped, emerald vines erupted from the stone—thicker, stronger, more alive than any she had summoned before. They didn't merely entangle; they devoured. Tendrils pierced the shadow forms and pulled the corrupted threads apart like unraveling yarn. Each time a construct dissolved, Drakon let out a low, mournful rumble, as though he were grieving the pieces of what had once been true bonds.
Jax and Luna danced through the chaos like twin shadows.
Luna didn't attack head-on. She slipped between the constructs, teeth and claws finding the places where the corruption was thinnest—joints, eyes that weren't really eyes, places where the silhouette flickered. Wherever she struck, darkness bled away like ink in water.
Jax followed her pattern, daggers flashing in tight, economical cuts. He didn't waste motion. He didn't shout. He simply worked.
But the numbers kept growing.
"They're feeding off the broken crystals," Elara realized, voice tight. "Every time we destroy one, the others get stronger."
Kairos spared a glance at the cracked cylinder on the table.
"Then we stop feeding them."
He pivoted, ice sword sweeping in a wide arc that cleared space for a heartbeat.
"Elara—can you reach the book?"
She looked.
The table was fifteen paces away, but between them and it stood a wall of shifting darkness—dozens of half-formed creatures now merging into larger, more solid shapes.
Drakon answered before she could.
Hold on.
He lowered his shoulder.
Elara grabbed a ridge of scales along his neck and swung herself onto his back.
Drakon charged.
Wings half-spread for balance in the narrow space, he barreled forward like a living siege engine. Vines exploded outward in a protective sphere around them both. Constructs threw themselves against the barrier and were torn apart on crystalline thorns.
They reached the table.
Elara slid off Drakon's back and slapped her palm down on the open page.
The moment her skin touched the ancient dragon-hide cover, the world lurched.
Vision blurred.
Sound vanished.
She wasn't in the vault anymore.
She stood on a vast, cracked plain beneath a sky the color of old bruises. Wind howled, carrying the scent of ash and blood.
Before her stood a figure.
Tall. Cloaked in shadow so deep it seemed to drink light. The hood concealed the face, but two points of pale, cold fire burned where eyes should be.
In its right hand it held a long, thin blade made of black glass.
In its left—coiled around the wrist like a living chain—was the ghostly outline of a dragon.
Not Drakon.
Larger. Older. Scales the deep green of ancient forests.
The dragon's eyes were empty.
Its mouth opened in a soundless scream.
The figure turned its hooded head toward Elara.
A voice spoke inside her skull—not words, but meaning shaped like razors.
The Verdant line ends with you.
When the last true dragon chooses death over servitude, the Hollow King will walk again.
Choose wisely, child of forgotten oaths.
The vision snapped.
Elara staggered backward, gasping.
Drakon was roaring—real, physical sound now—his wings spread protectively over her.
The constructs had paused.
All of them.
As though something had just given them a new command.
Kairos appeared at her side, sword still raised.
"What did you see?"
Elara's voice shook.
"The Hollow King. It… spoke to me. It said the Verdant line ends with me. That when the last true dragon chooses death over servitude, he'll rise."
Kairos's expression went very still.
Jax slid up beside them, breathing hard.
"Great. So we're the main course in someone's apocalypse recipe."
The constructs began to move again—but differently now.
They no longer attacked randomly.
They formed a circle.
A perfect ring around the four of them and the table.
Slowly, deliberately, they knelt.
All at once.
Then they bowed their heads.
And began to speak.
Not with voices.
With fragments of old oaths, torn and bleeding.
"I swear to stand as equal…"
"My life for yours, my strength for yours…"
"Until the last breath, we are one…"
The words overlapped, grew louder, became a chorus of broken promises.
Elara felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.
Drakon snarled.
They are calling it.
Kairos lowered his sword a fraction.
"They're summoning the Hollow King. Right here. Right now."
Jax spun, daggers ready.
"We can't let that happen."
Elara stared at the cracked crystal cylinder.
The emerald scale inside was glowing brighter now—pulsing in time with the chant.
She understood suddenly.
That scale wasn't just a trophy.
It was a key.
A living fragment of Drakon's bloodline, used to anchor the summoning.
She reached out and closed her hand around the cylinder.
The moment her fingers touched the crystal, pain lanced through her entire body—like lightning made of grief.
She didn't let go.
Instead she poured everything she had into the bond.
All the verdant energy she could channel.
All the trust she had built with Drakon.
All the stubborn refusal to let anything take him from her.
Green light erupted from her hand.
It poured into the crystal.
The crack widened.
The scale inside trembled.
And then—very gently, very deliberately—the scale cracked in half.
A pulse of pure, clean emerald light exploded outward.
The chanting stopped.
The kneeling constructs shattered like glass.
The green mist vanished.
The torches reignited—normal orange this time.
Silence.
Absolute, ringing silence.
Elara dropped to her knees, still clutching the broken crystal.
Drakon lowered his head beside her, breathing hard.
You… broke the anchor.
Kairos knelt on her other side, good hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded shakily.
"I think… I just killed something that was already dead."
Jax let out a long, trembling breath.
"Can we leave now? Before the next wave of zombie ex-pets shows up?"
Kairos looked at the sealed door.
Then at the book.
Then at Elara.
"We take the book. We take the broken crystal. And we get out before the academy wards finish waking up."
He stood.
"Move."
They moved.
The door bolts retracted with a grinding screech as Kairos placed his bloodied hand on the inner seal.
They ran.
Up the spiral stairs.
Through the forgotten passages.
Out into the cold night air of the academy.
No one spoke until they reached the shadow of the eastern dormitory tower.
Only then did Elara stop, lean against the stone wall, and look down at the two halves of the emerald scale still clutched in her palm.
They were warm.
And they were singing—very faintly, very softly—a melody only Drakon and she could hear.
A lullaby.
A mother dragon's lullaby.
She looked up at the others.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I think I just declared war on the Hollow King."
Kairos met her gaze.
"Then we fight a war."
Jax gave a tired, crooked grin.
"Guess we're officially a team now."
Glacia trilled once—soft, tired, but proud.
Drakon rumbled agreement.
And somewhere, far below the academy, in depths no living student had ever seen, something ancient stirred.
It had no eyes.
It had no heart.
But it felt the breaking of its anchor.
And it smiled.
(to be continued…)