The Gate's vortex churned like a wounded star, its jagged edges bleeding tendrils of corrupted ley-line energy into the sky. Captain Alastair Reid stood at the precipice of the battlefield, his boots sinking into ash that had once been Aeltherian soil. The Weaver's shadow loomed above them, a shifting collage of screaming faces and grasping tendrils that defied geometry. It pulsed with a low, dissonant hum, as if reality itself were a violin string stretched to breaking.
"Well," Williams muttered, reloading his rifle with hands steady despite the apocalyptic vista, "looks like we're fresh out of backup plans. Unless anyone's got a spare nuke in their rucksack?"
Reid ignored the gallows humor, his eyes fixed on Maeve. The druidess knelt at the heart of their crumbling defensive circle, Excalibur in one hand and the Forgotten Flame in the other. Her ley-line markings glowed so brightly they cast skeletal shadows across her face.
"How long?" Reid asked Whitaker, who crouched beside Maeve, her tablet frantically mapping energy surges.
"Minutes," Whitaker replied, her voice clipped. "Maybe. If the Flame's containment holds. If the ley-lines don't unravel. If—"
"If is all we've got," Reid interrupted.
Maeve's head snapped up, her eyes twin pools of blue-white fire. "It's here. In the lines. Whispering."
Reid followed her gaze to the Weaver's pulsating form. The entity's voice slithered into his skull—not words, but a presence, oily and cold.
Join us, it crooned. Your world is a festering wound. Let me cleanse it.
Reid spat blood-tinged phlegm onto the ash. "Not today, mate."
Valkyrie's formation tightened around Maeve as the first wave of the Weaver's minions struck—corrupted nature spirits with bark-like skin oozing black sap, undead knights whose armor hissed with necrotic energy. Singh's voice cut through the din, directing fire teams with the precision of a conductor.
"Squad Gamma—flanking left! Archers, focus on the wraiths! Williams—"
"Already on it!" The sergeant lobbed a grenade into a cluster of skeletal warriors, grinning as the blast scattered them like morbid confetti. "Party's over, lads!"
Reid moved with Gareth's dagger in hand, its druid-forged edge singing as it carved through the Weaver's horrors. Every kill brought him closer to Maeve, every step weighed down by the ghosts of choices made and lives lost.
Gareth. Jenkins. A hundred others.
He pushed harder.
Maeve's scream pierced the chaos. Reid turned to see her buckling under the strain, Excalibur's hilt searing her palm as the Flame's containment unit cracked. Whitaker lunged, slapping a patch of dwarven adhesive over the fissure.
"You're channeling too much!" Whitaker shouted. "Ease off the southern ley-node!"
"Can't," Maeve gasped. "It's feeding—taking more than I give."
Reid reached her side, yanking her back from the edge of a newly formed fissure. "Talk to me, Whitaker."
The historian's fingers flew across her tablet. "The Weaver's anchored itself to the Gate's energy matrix. Maeve needs to sever that link, but—"
"But it'll burn her out," Reid finished.
Maeve met his gaze. Her eyes were human again, if only for a moment. "It's the only way."
Reid's jaw tightened. He'd made this speech before—to rookies in Kabul, to Singh after Aleppo. He hated every syllable.
"Valkyrie doesn't leave people behind."
Maeve's smile was a fragile thing. "You're not. I'm stepping forward."
The Weaver's tendrils lashed downward, shearing through stone and bone. Valkyrie's line buckled.
"Captain!" Singh's voice crackled over comms. "We're losing the eastern flank!"
Reid turned to Maeve. "Whatever you're doing—do it now."
The druidess nodded. Her hands fused Excalibur and the Flame into a single, searing lance of light. The air screamed.
"Reid," Whitaker warned, "the energy feedback—"
"I know." He drew his sidearm. "Cover her."
Maeve rose.
The Forgotten Flame spiraled up her arms, merging with Excalibur's glow until she became a living star. The Weaver recoiled, its form unraveling at the edges.
You cannot win, it thundered.
"Watch me."
She thrust the weapons skyward.
Reality fractured.
In the heartbeat before the blast, Maeve saw them:
—Aeltherian children laughing in London's parks, their hair twined with bioluminescent flowers.
—Dwarven engineers collaborating with human scientists on fusion reactors powered by ley-lines.
—Reid, older but unbroken, teaching cadets that true strength lies in unity, not conquest.
She smiled.
Then she burned.
The Gate imploded with a sound like God's own heartbeat. Reid shielded his eyes as the shockwave ripped across the battlefield, disintegrating the Weaver's forces into ash. When the light faded, Maeve was gone.
So was the Gate.
Silence fell, broken only by the creak of cooling stone.
"Well," Williams rasped, picking a shard of obsidian from his hair, "that was… something."
Reid didn't answer. His boots crunched over glassy debris as he approached the blast crater. At its center lay Excalibur, its blade dulled but intact. Of the Flame, there was no sign.
Singh joined him, her medic's kit hanging open. "Casualty report: twelve dead, twenty-three wounded. The Aeltherians lost more."
Reid nodded. Numbers. Always numbers.
Whitaker limped over, her tablet spitting error messages. "Ley-lines are stabilizing. The Weaver's gone. Properly gone."
"And Maeve?"
Whitaker's silence was answer enough.
They regrouped at dawn. The survivors—human and Aeltherian alike—huddled around makeshift fires, their faces hollow with exhaustion and grief.
Reid found Singh stitching up a young elf's arm. "Need anything?"
"More thread. Fewer apocalypses."
He almost smiled.
Whitaker approached, Excalibur cradled like a sleeping child. "What now?"
Reid stared at the horizon, where the first true sunrise in weeks painted the ash pink and gold. "We rebuild. We remember."
Somewhere, a bird sang.
Three days later, Reid stood at what had been the Gate's threshold. The scar in reality was gone, replaced by a meadow of crystalline flowers that shimmered in the morning light.
Whitaker joined him, her glasses mended with tape. "The druids say these only bloom where pure ley-energy touches grief."
Reid knelt, plucking a bloom. Its petals hummed against his skin. "Maeve?"
"Or hope. Or both."
They stood in silence as the wind carried the scent of burning cities and new growth. Somewhere behind them, Williams joked about terrible tea. Somewhere ahead, a long road waited.
Reid pocketed the flower.
They'd earned this dawn.