The Storm Plains howled around them, a desolate expanse where the wind carried whispers of the dead. Raine clutched the Earth Shard, its jagged edges biting into her palm, the faint pulse of its energy syncing with the crystalline corruption creeping up her arms. Beside her, Kaios stood motionless, his silver hair rippling as if caught in a temporal tide, his mismatched eyes fixed on the horizon where the sky bled into the abyss.
*"The Conclave will hunt us,"* Raine said, her voice barely audible over the gale.
Kaios smirked, though his gaze remained hollow,
*"They already are."* He lifted his hand, and a sliver of time fragmented above his fingertipse- fleeting vision of armored figures materializing from the storm, their weapons crackling with lightning.
*'Temporal Enforcers. Faster than I expected."*
Raine tightened her grip on the shard. "Then we move now."
Kaios nodded toward the distant peaks, where molten rivers cut through the cliffs like veins. *"The Fire Realm. The first Ember lies there, guarded
by the last of the Pyre Drakes."*
---
The journey was a blur of scorched earth and suffocating heat. The air itself burned, each breath searing Raine's lungs. Her gloves, now half-crystallized, shimmered with unstable energy, the runes flickering between control and chaos. Kaios moved ahead, his form occasionally phasinga-side effect of his curse, she guessed.
Then, the earth split open.
A chasm yawned before them, its depths glowing with liquid fire. At its heart stood an obsidian altar, and atop it, the Pyre DrakeValrokh. The beast was colossal, its scales not of flesh but of solidified flame, each plate shifting between molten gold and blackened rock. Its eyes, twin suns, locked onto them.
*'Who dares tread the Ember's path?"* Its voice was the roar of a wildfire, the crackle of dying stars.
Kaios stepped forward, his silver hair flaring like a banner. *"We seek the Arkalos Ember. Not to hoard, but to seal the Rift."*
Valrokh's laugh sent tremors through the ground. *"Lies. The Conclave sent you. They always come for the Embers, to feed their hunger."*
Raine's gloves pulsed. The corruption had reached her elbows now, the shards glinting like fractured mirrors. She stepped forward, her voice raw but steady. "The Conclave lied. About the Rift. About *everything*." She raised her arms, the crystalline growths catching the firelight. "They used us. Just like they used you."
The drake's molten gaze flickered. For a moment, the flames dimmed.
Then, the ground erupted.
Temporal Enforcers materialized from the air itself, their lightning-whips lashing out. One struck Kaios in the chest, sending him sprawling. Another coiled around Raine's wrist*pain*, white-hot and blindingas the Enforcer yanked her forward.
*"Unstable element detected,"* the Enforcer droned. *"Containment protocol initiated."
Raine snarled, twisting her arm. The crystalline shards *reacted*, lancing outward like spikes, impaling the Enforcer's visor. Black fluidnot blood, but something thicker, darkergushed from the wound.
Valrokh *moved*.
The drake's tail slammed into the remaining Enforcers, crushing them into the molten rock. Its maw opened, and a torrent of white fire engulfed the battlefield, reducing the attackers to ash.
Silence.
Then, the drake turned to Raine, its voice a whisper now, like embers settling.
*"Your blood. Let it touch the altar."
Kaios staggered to his feet, clutching his ribs. *"Raine"*
She didn't hesitate.
A slash of her palm, a spill of crimson onto the obsidian.
The altar *screamed*.
Fire erupted, not from the drake, but from the stone itselfa-pillar of flame that twisted into shapes: robed figures, a golden blade, a child screaming. The visions coalesced into a single, searing truth:
*The Conclave had not created the Rift.*
*They had* awakened *it.*
And the first sacrifice had been a Pyre Drake's hatchling.
Valrokh's roar shook the realm. *"They took my kin. Fed them to the void."*
The flames parted. At the altar's core lay the Fire Emberapulsing shard of crimson light, its surface etched with the same runes as Raine's gloves.
Kaios's breath hitched. *"It's not just a tool. It's a* key. *One of many."*
Raine reached for it.
The moment her fingers brushed the Ember, the world *split*.
*She stood in a hall of mirrors, each reflection a different version of herself: some crystallized, some consumed by shadow, one wreathed in flame. At the center stood a figurehooded, golden-eyedholding a blade of molten time.*
*"You are the spark,"* the figure said. *"But will you burn or illuminate?"*
The vision shattered.
Raine gasped, the Fire Ember now fused to her glove, its energy threading through her veins like liquid fire. The corruption receded slightly, the crystalline shards glowing with newfound warmth.
Valrokh bowed its massive head. *"Take it. But know this: the Embers remember. And they* hunger *for justice."*
Kaios's hand closed around Raine's shoulder. *"The Conclave will come harder now. They can't let us gather the others."*
Raine met his gaze, the Ember's pulse syncing with her heartbeat.
"Then let them try."
The Fire Realm trembled as they left, the echoes of Valrokh's roar a promiseor a warning.
Somewhere, in the depths of the Rift, something *stirred*.
And it knew their names.