Serida coughed blood.
She crawled from the smoking ruins of the cliff shrine, her arm numb, her body screaming. The Cradle's ambush had been surgical, devastating.
And they took Kael.
She should've died.
But the old glyph Kael had placed—probably without realizing—had triggered a fractured ward, shielding her in a dome of blue fire.
Now she was broken.
Alone.
But alive.
She staggered down the mountain with a single goal: find him.
---
She made it to the riverside town of Rundel's Hollow three days later, half-conscious and bleeding from reopened wounds. Locals avoided her. Fear clung to them — not of her, but of who might be following.
That night, as she collapsed near the ruins of a broken fountain, someone dragged her into shadow.
She woke to firelight.
And a man sitting nearby, sharpening a broken blade.
He had one eye. A deep burn across his throat. And a strange medallion with a black sun etched in silver.
"Name's Ashbourne," he said without looking at her. "And you're lucky I still believe in causes."
Serida tried to rise. "I don't need—"
"You need rest. Then you'll want answers. And maybe revenge."
She froze. "How do you know—?"
"Because the Cradle doesn't miss," Ashbourne said grimly. "And I've seen their black work before."
---
Later, he took her deep beneath Rundel's Hollow.
Into a vault hidden behind a ruined chapel, where torchlight revealed a symbol scorched into stone:
The Sigil of the Umbra Accord.
Serida's breath caught.
"They were wiped out during the Echo Purges."
Ashbourne smirked. "So were dragons. Doesn't mean they're not sleeping."
The Umbra Accord—a secret coalition of rogue mages, oldblood knights, and former Echoes—had once stood against the Cradle's rise. Betrayed and shattered, they had scattered to myth.
Until now.
"We've been rebuilding," Ashbourne said, leading her through a war room of old maps and flickering memory-crystals. "Waiting for the right weapon."
"You mean Kael."
Ashbourne nodded. "The Cradle wants him for what he contains. We want him for who he is."
Serida's voice cracked. "Then we get him back."
---
Ashbourne tossed her a sealed parchment.
"Interrogations from a defector. It says Kael's being held beneath a place called Labyrinth Station Theta."
Serida stared.
She could still see Kael's face as he unleashed his flame.
She had sworn to never let anyone get close again.
But he had broken that.
And now…
She would break the world to bring him back.