The Empties' shout didn't sound. It was a key.
The shadow lake emitted. The serpentine monster surged upward, shedding fluid obscurity like a moment's skin. Basalt scales sparkled beneath the Stormheart's unhinged light. Its eye—green-black and slit-pupiled—fixed on Kael. Not starvation. Acknowledgment.
"KEY-BEARER." The voice vibrated in Kael's marrow. More profound than the Empties. More seasoned.
"YOU CARRY The Primary WWalker's Stamp."
Valen dropped from the channels, landing with difficulty next to Kael. His bladed arm murmured, the metal twisting, melding with spiked indigo precious stones growing from his bear. "It's changing me," he panted, eyes wide with fear. "The void in this place—it's redoing me!"
Lyss ventured past them, uncovered feet quiet on the obsidian walkway. She didn't see the beast. She looked at the shadow lake.
"Don't!" Kael snatched her arm.
Her violet eyes gleamed. "It doesn't need me. It needs you." She pulled free. "The lake isn't water. It's quiet. The Walker's jail."
She ventured onto the churning obscurity.
And didn't sink.
The shadows coiled around her lower legs like warm cats. The beast's gigantic head swung toward her, a moo roll building in its chest.
"SILENCE-SPEAKER."
Its thought was an edge of ice.e
.
"YOU WHO Keep in mind THE Some time recently. You'll NOMeddleed."
Lyss raised her hands. Violet light spilled from her palms, not attacking, weaving. Strings of light spun over the lake's surface, shaping a delicate net between the beast and the Stormheart. "Run, Kael! To the heart! It's the as it were way!"
The beast struck.
Not at Lyss. At her net.
Teeth of condensed shadow smashed the light. The backfire tossed Lyss in reverse. She hit the walkway, blood streaming from her nose.
The Stormheart's beat spiked. Torment speared through Kael's rune-hand. The chains holding the heart flickered—one snapped.
"Choose."
The beast's command part Kael's skull.
"Smash MY CAGE OR WEAR IT. THE WALKER COMES."
Valewawas stunned, his crystal-infused arm blasting with borrowed void-light. "What is that cruel?!"
Kael knew. Soul-Sight showed him the truth:
Smash the Stormheart: The monster and the Purges break up. The void-energy detonates upward, slaughtering thousands.
Meld with it: The heart's control surges his rune. He gets to be a beacon—a beacon directing the Primary Walker straight to Soil.
The beast jumped at Lyss once more.
Valen moved. Not with tech. With void-crystal.
He hammered his changed arm into the beast's nose. Indigo light detonated. Scales split. The beast reeled, screeching.
"DO IT, Thorn!" Valen thundered, hooking the enormity. "I'LL HOLD THIS THING! Fair Conclusion IT!"
Kael ran toward the Stormheart.
Its chains snapped, one by one.
The Primary Walker's shadow fell over the world.
End of chapter 17.