The fifth shard thrummed like a second heartbeat against Lucian's chest, its pale violet glow casting flickering shadows across the cavern walls. He stared at it as they rode the ley-tide away from Araskel, deeper into the spines of the East. Five shards.
Each one felt heavier than the last.
As they emerged through the ley-gate on a frost-slicked plateau, Laila collapsed to one knee, breathing hard. Her magic had always flowed with grace—fluid and soft like streams in spring. But now it churned beneath her skin like a tide refusing its banks.
Cassien noticed, but said nothing.
Lucian approached her quietly. "You okay?"
"I will be," she replied, straightening with effort. Her skin glistened faintly with moisture that didn't come from the air. "The shards… they're not inert. They amplify. Each one changes us more."
Cassien nodded from where he stood, eyes scanning the mountain peaks in the distance. "Because they're not just keys. They're echoes."
Lucian frowned. "Echoes of what?"
"Of the Origin Flame," Cassien said. "What the ancient mages called the First Spark. Before schools of magic, before bloodlines. The source. The shards were made from it—not just to lock away power, but to remember what that power once was."
Laila narrowed her eyes. "Then why would Hades want them?"
Cassien turned to face them. "Because if he brings them all together, he can reignite the Flame. Or… twist it."
Lucian felt a chill run through him. "Where's the sixth shard?"
Cassien was quiet for a moment. Then: "In the Maw."
They all went still.
The Maw was not a place.
It was a wound.
A canyon that ran like a scar across half the continent, carved during the Breaking—when the skies tore open and the gods themselves abandoned their creations. Nothing survived in the Maw for long. Magic faltered. Time frayed.
Laila looked at Lucian. "We'll need help."
Cassien sighed. "Then it's time to gather the scattered pieces."
🜂
They reached Virelen two days later—a city of blades and banners, nestled between crescent hills like a crown turned inward. The city had long been known as a neutral ground, ruled not by kings or councils but by contracts. It was a city of mercenaries, seers, and ghosts.
Lucian hated it.
The streets were too clean, the smiles too practiced. But they had no choice.
Their first stop was the old lodge of the Ashbound—a former rebel cell turned sanctuary for magic-born who wanted no part in empire or rebellion. Inside, the air smelled of incense and steel.
Waiting for them in the courtyard was a woman with hair like wildfire and skin marked by old burns.
"Kira," Lucian said, surprised.
The Ashbound leader offered him a grin that didn't reach her eyes. "Still chasing myths, I see."
Lucian ignored the jab. "We need fighters. Trackers. Menders. Anyone still loyal to the idea of balance."
Kira raised an eyebrow. "That idea's cost us a lot."
"This time it could cost the world."
She studied him, then Laila, then Cassien—whose face remained unreadable.
Finally, she nodded. "I'll summon who I can. But you'll owe me, boy."
"Fine," Lucian said. "I'll pay any debt."
Kira's smile sharpened. "Good. Because debts are what keep this city turning."
🜂
By dusk, they had more than just allies.
Two windrunners from the Hollow Accord arrived, summoned by Selia herself. An archivist from the Deep Colonies, pale and blind but able to read energy like ink. And—most surprising of all—a healer from Lucian and Laila's own village: Tista.
Their younger sister had changed. Her illness, once debilitating, had been tempered by focused training with the mountain sages. Her hair was longer now, tied back in a braid. Her hands no longer trembled.
Lucian hugged her fiercely. "Tista…"
She hugged him back. "I'm not as weak as you remember."
"You never were," Laila said, voice thick.
Tista stepped back, looking at all of them. "You'll need someone who can keep the pieces together. Magic like this—it breaks more than bones. It breaks minds."
Lucian nodded, overwhelmed but grateful.
They were no longer just two desperate siblings chasing shards. They were a force now.
A small one.
But enough.
🜂
They left Virelen under the cover of stormclouds.
The way to the Maw took them through lands torn by elemental corruption. Forests where trees bled amber. Fields where lightning crawled like insects. Creatures born from broken spells—things once human—skulked along the edges of their camp at night, whispering names no one remembered.
It took six days to reach the Maw.
And when they stood at the edge, the world stopped.
The canyon yawned before them, vast and terrible. It wasn't just deep—it was bottomless. The wind that rose from it carried voices, half-formed and hungry. The land around it warped as they watched—trees wilting, rocks floating weightlessly before crumbling to dust.
Cassien stepped forward and drove a spike into the earth. A ley-tether. "We'll descend in pairs. Anchored. Ropes and magic both."
Lucian felt the weight of the five shards on his chest. The sixth was down there. So was Hades.
And something else.
He could feel it.
Waiting.
Breathing.
Calling.
Laila took his hand and squeezed it once. "You ready?"
Lucian looked down into the endless dark and nodded.
"No. But we go anyway."
One by one, they descended into the Maw.
🜂
The world below the world was not silent.
It screamed.
Not aloud—but through the senses, through the bones. Lucian felt time sliding around him like oil on stone. His memories warped at the edges. The wind whispered versions of his life that never happened.
But the shard was close.
They found it embedded in a broken spire—an obsidian fang half-buried in a river of molten time. Around it stood figures cloaked in flame.
And at their center—Hades.
He turned slowly, eyes glowing with an intensity beyond madness.
"You came," he said softly. "Just as I hoped."
Lucian stepped forward. "This ends now."
Hades smiled. "Yes. It does."
🜂
The battle didn't begin with a clash.
It began with a choice.
Hades extended his hand toward the shard. "Join me. Not to destroy. To reshape. You've seen the world's rot. We can end it."
Lucian stared at him. At the brother who once held his hand on stormy nights. Who once protected him from monsters under the bed. Who now was the monster.
He stepped back.
"I choose the world. Even broken."
And then the world exploded.
Magic tore through the canyon.
The sixth shard ignited.
And the final reckoning began.