The silence after the quake was deafening.
I stood in the shattered courtyard, dust thick in the air, the portal still buzzing faintly behind us. Around me, chaos began to settle — bodies scattered, rubble still falling from the upper decks, and the sky tinted red from the light the Queen's second portal left behind.
Kael grabbed my wrist and yanked me behind a half-fallen column.
"They're regrouping," she said. "We've got ten minutes, tops."
Ten minutes until what, I didn't know. But the way her voice cracked? It wasn't good.
My Mark glowed hotter than ever, lines of light snaking down my arm, pulsing like veins. The others — Ashi, Eryn, Niko, even little Mael — stood around us, bleeding, tired, but not broken. Not yet.
"We need to shut it down," I said. "That portal."
Kael shook her head. "We need to understand it first. If we move too fast—"
"We've already lost too much time."
She flinched at that, and I hated myself for it. Her eyes said she knew I was right. Her silence confirmed it.
The second portal wasn't like the first.
It shimmered darker, like obsidian swallowing stars. And it whispered. Not out loud — inside my head. Like memories that weren't mine, thoughts I never had. It wasn't a door. It was a voice. A presence.
The Queen called it the Gate of Reclamation. Said it was her salvation. But the way my Mark ached near it? It didn't feel like salvation.
It felt like hell.
We retreated to the underground base beneath the mountain ridge, the only place our signals could stay hidden from the Queen's Watch. Kael pulled together what remained of Command. We were barely thirty strong now.
"We have no more allies," she said.
"We still have the people," I whispered.
But even I knew it might not be enough.
That night, I dreamed.
Not of fire.
But of him.
Ren.
He stood in a field of light, smiling, no blood on his hands, no pain in his eyes. His Mark was gone. And yet he looked more whole than I'd ever seen him.
"You're doing it," he said.
"Doing what?"
"Changing everything."
"Then why does it feel like I'm losing more than I'm saving?"
He walked toward me, slowly, like the air itself pulled him back. "Because power always comes with loss. But love... Rae, love doesn't vanish. Even in death."
I reached for him. He vanished.
I woke with a scream stuck in my throat.
"You okay?"
Kael sat beside me, holding a tin of water. Her hair was loose. Rare.
I took the water and nodded.
"I keep seeing him. Ren."
She didn't flinch. Just looked down.
"You loved him," she said.
"I love you too," I replied quietly. "But that doesn't erase him."
"I don't want it to," she whispered.
I didn't know what to say after that. So I held her hand.
And for once, we just sat there. No war. No portals. No fate. Just Kael and me, breathing the same air.
Two days later, we had a plan.
Ashi, now our tactical lead, laid out the schematics we stole from the Queen's secondary base. The portal — the Gate — was powered by a Marked artifact. Something older than anything we had ever seen.
They called it the Ember Heart.
A black crystal pulsing with crimson veins, housed beneath the city's central tower. According to the Queen's notes, it didn't just power the portal — it chose who could pass through.
"We destroy that," Ashi said, "and we shut down her plans. Maybe forever."
"Or we trigger something worse," Eryn muttered.
Kael glanced at me. "Your Mark reacts to it. You'll be the one to get close."
I nodded, trying not to tremble. "Then let's get moving."
Getting into the tower was suicide.
Laser sensors, three levels of encryption, drones that didn't sleep — and worst of all, the Queen's newest hounds. The Echoborn. Creatures made of shadow and bone, half-alive, bred to tear through resistance cells.
We snuck through the old subway systems. Kael fought off two Echoborn with a homemade EMP grenade and a dagger the size of my forearm. We lost Niko. His last words were, "Make it count."
It almost broke Ashi. But she kept moving.
We reached the inner chamber at sunrise.
The Ember Heart floated above a silver pedestal, glowing with a heartbeat that echoed in my bones. I stepped forward. My Mark screamed.
And then — she appeared.
The Queen.
Not an illusion. Not a projection. In the flesh. Her hair flowed behind her like ink in water, and her eyes? Still that liquid mercury.
"I was wondering when you'd come," she said.
"Let them go," I demanded. "This ends now."
"No, Rae. This begins now. You don't even understand what you carry."
I lifted my blade. She didn't even blink.
Kael moved behind her, silent as a ghost. Ashi flanked left.
"You think I didn't see this coming?" the Queen hissed. "Fools. I built this world. I bled for it. And I will not let it end."
Then she summoned her Mark.
And everything exploded.
I don't remember falling.
Just heat. Screams. Light.
I opened my eyes in darkness, floating.
The Ember Heart glowed before me, cracked.
The Queen's voice echoed all around. "You broke it. You broke me."
Kael's hand found mine in the dark.
We weren't dead.
But we weren't whole either.
Not yet.
To be continued.....