As though some distant part of him remembered her, remembered this moment, though he knew he'd never seen her before.
"You carry a spark," Shiva said.
Her voice was whisper, soft, yet it drummed through the frozen ravine like a chorus of chimes. Serra stiffened, clutching Moss's sleeve, staring wide, eyed.
Shiva continued. "A spark not born of my domain. A spark that answers another."
Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
"The Titan's."
Moss's blood went cold, not from the frost, but from the truth of her words.
Serra's voice trembled. "You… know about him? About the other Eidolon?"
Shiva's gaze slid over Serra, acknowledging without interest. "I know all that stirs within my realm. I feel the tremors, the shifts of balance. The Titan's awakening has rippled far beyond its cavern."
Her eyes returned to Moss, brighter now, crystalline pupils dilating.
"And it has taken root within you."
He tried to steady his breathing. "I don't want it. I didn't ask for it."
"That does not matter you were chosen."
The air tightened, the ravine walls groaning under growing frost. Moss felt Serra press closer behind him, her shaking nearly matching Bran's.
Shiva extended one hand.
Not toward Moss, toward his chest.
"To walk with a fragment of an Eidolon is to be marked. You cannot hide from us. Not from our senses. Not from our purpose."
Her fingers curled slightly.
"And not from the one who seeks you even now."
Cold washed over Moss's spine, sharper than any blade.
"You mean the Wardens?" he asked.
Shiva lowered her chin, strands of silver hair drifting like snow. "No."
Moss felt the world contract.
"Another Eidolon," Shiva whispered.
Then the ice beneath Bran's talons cracked.
And the ravine split open.
The crack beneath Bran's feet widened with a deafening split, the icy floor shattering into jagged plates. Bran shrieked, wings flaring uselessly for balance as the ground buckled.
"Hold on!" Moss shouted, grabbing Serra tighter.
The ice gave way.
They plunged.
For a moment Moss saw only white, spinning frost, glinting shards, the blurred forms of Miqo'te hunters leaping away from the collapse. Bran's claws scraped desperately against the falling ice, but there was nothing to grip.
Cold devoured the world.
They hit a slope of packed snow, sliding violently down its length. Moss clamped his arms around Serra and steered his weight to keep them from tumbling. Bran slid ahead, talons scrambling as he tried to dig into the incline.
The slope spat them out into a wide hollow beneath the ravine floor, a frozen cavern lit by pale blue light filtering through the fractured ceiling above.
Moss gasped for breath, pulling Serra upright. She shook violently but was conscious, her hands flying instinctively to the device. It pulsed with frantic signals, louder, faster, harsher than before.
"Moss… Moss, look," she whispered.
He did.
Shiva was descending through the opening above, not falling but floating, a slow, deliberate drift as if gravity bent politely around her.
Frost gathered beneath her feet as she landed, the cavern floor blooming with ice in a perfect circle.
Bran finally found his footing and limped immediately to Moss's side, feathers puffed and shivering. Moss stroked him once in reassurance, never taking his eyes off Shiva.
She did not appear alarmed by the fall.
If anything, she seemed… expectant.
"The two of you should not have come here," Shiva said softly. Her voice echoed in the cavern like a haunting melody, layered with something primordial. "But fate has brought you all the same."
Serra swallowed hard. "We, we didn't mean to intrude. We were just, investigating the readings. We didn't know, "
"Intent has little meaning in the realm of Eidolons," Shiva murmured. "Only resonance does."
Her gaze fell once more on Moss, piercing beyond flesh into something deeper.
"The Titan's echo thrums louder in you with each passing day. You cannot yet control it. You can barely endure it."
Moss found his voice. "Then why target us? Why chase us down?"
Shiva stepped toward him, each footfall blooming a flower of frost. "Because an uncontrolled spark threatens the balance of all things."
Serra bristled. "Threatens it, how? He hasn't done anything wrong!"
"If a storm is born unaware of its nature," Shiva replied, "it still destroys whatever lies in its path."
Serra hesitated, then shuffled half a step in front of Moss, small, trembling, but protective in her own desperate way. "He's not a storm. He's, he's Moss."
Shiva tilted her head, studying Serra with cool curiosity. "And you are the scholar trying to measure the sea with a cup."
Serra's face flushed with insult and fear.
Moss took a small breath. "If I'm a danger, then what do you intend to do?"
Shiva's expression softened, not with kindness but with inevitability. "To bind the spark. Contain it. Still it until it may be safely extinguished."
Moss felt the blood drain from his face. "You mean kill me."
"No," Shiva corrected quietly. "Kill the Titan within you."
Cold surged outward from her, crackling across the cavern floor. Bran squawked and backed away. Serra's breath hitched.
Shiva raised her hand.
Ice spiraled around her fingers, forming a crystalline lance of pure frost.
Serra grabbed Moss's sleeve. "Moss, run, "
The cavern shook.
A deep, subterranean rumble rolled through the ice, low, resonant, unmistakably alive.
Shiva paused, her eyes narrowing.
From beneath the frozen ground, a pulse of golden light flared, brief but violent. Moss staggered, clutching his chest as heat surged under his ribs. Serra caught his arm, staring in alarm.
"The Titan answers." Shiva's voice was no longer cold, it was wary.
The golden light pulsed again, stronger.
Shiva thrust her lance downward.
A massive eruption of ice spikes exploded outward, racing toward Moss in a jagged wave.
"Moss, move!" Serra screamed.
But before Moss could react, before he could drag Serra aside or throw himself clear, the golden pulse struck again.
His skin burned and seemed to crack.
The cavern floor seemed to ripple.
And a wall of earth, raw stone, jagged and pulsing with faint amber glow, burst up between him and the incoming ice, shielding both him and Serra. The ice spikes shattered against the barrier, sending shards sparkling like broken stars.
Shiva stared, eyes widening in a flash of surprise.
"The Titan awakens to defend its vessel."
"Vessel!?" Moss gasped. "I'm not, I don't want, !"
Shiva moved with sudden urgency. "Then reject it. Now. Before it binds deeper."
"I don't know how!"
The frost beneath her feet surged, crawling toward the stone wall, cracking it with white tendrils.
Serra yanked Moss back. "We have to go!"
The cavern trembled again, louder, harder. Cracks raced across the ceiling. Chunks of ice rained down. Bran screeched in panic.
The Miqo'te above began shouting for the first time, fearful cries in a tongue Moss didn't understand.
Shiva looked up sharply.
The cavern was collapsing.
She formed another lance.
"Go," she said simply. "Run while the Titan shields you. My judgment is not yet finished."
The choice wasn't his.
Another pulse from deep beneath the ice, wilder, hotter, shook the cavern violently, knocking them all off balance. Shiva braced herself with a blast of frost. Moss grabbed Serra and Bran's reins.
"Come on!" he shouted.
They sprinted toward a narrow passage that had cracked open during the collapse, a jagged tunnel sloping upward through the ice. Moss didn't know where it led. He didn't care.
Anything was better than staying.
Behind them, Shiva's voice echoed like breaking crystal.
"This is not over, vessel of Titan."
The tunnel constricted, forcing Moss to duck low. Bran squeezed through with frantic, scraping steps. Serra clung to the chocobo's feathers, device pressed to her chest, its lights flickering wildly.
The air grew colder, so cold Moss's tears froze at the corners of his eyes. His breath came in painful bursts. Frost crawled up the tunnel walls.
They burst out of the passage into the night forest, tumble, sliding down a short embankment. The sky above was full of swirling snow, unnatural, spiraling from the direction of the lake.
Moss didn't stop running.
Serra didn't protest.
And Bran, bless him, thundered forward with every scrap of strength he had left.
Not until they reached a thicket dense enough to swallow them in shadow did Moss finally pull Bran to a trembling halt. The chocobo collapsed onto his haunches, wheezing clouds of mist.
Serra leaned against him, shaking violently, eyes wide with terror and exhilaration.
Moss pressed a hand to his chest.
The Titan's echo thrummed still, a deep, warning heartbeat beneath his own.
"Moss…" Serra whispered. "She knew you. She knew him. She knew everything."
He swallowed hard. "Yeah."
"And she let us go."
"Only because that… thing inside me reacted. If it hadn't, "
Serra nodded weakly. "We'd be frozen statues right now."
Snow drifted around them, soft and quiet.
The woods creaked with settling frost.
Finally, Serra exhaled a trembling breath. "We need to prepare the settlements for this. About the Miqo'te tribe. About Shiva. About… all of this."
Moss didn't answer at first.
He stared into the forest, the direction of the lake, the direction of the ritual grounds, the direction Shiva still watched from.
A chill shuddered through him.
"She said another Eidolon is looking for me."
Serra went still.
"Another," she echoed softly.
Moss tightened his grip on Bran's reins.
"Then we go back to Narshe," he said. "Now. Before anyone else finds us."
Together, silent, shivering, they guided Bran deeper into the shadowed woods, the storm behind them growing brighter, colder, more violent as the night swallowed their trail.