# Chapter 665: A Three-Way Battle
The roar of the fire was a physical beast, a living thing that clawed at the air and devoured the light. Steam, thick as smoke, billowed from the floor, hiding pools of still-molten iron that glowed like malevolent eyes. Nyra pushed herself up from the shattered control panel, her shoulder screaming in protest. Every breath was an effort, scalding her lungs. Through the shimmering heat haze, she saw it: the Shard of Betrayal. It lay on the cracked stone floor, no longer pulsing with dark energy but seeming to drink in the firelight, a sliver of perfect, absolute black. It was just ten feet away. Ten feet across a landscape of certain death.
A groan from the wreckage nearby drew her attention. Rook Marr, his body a ruin of burns and blood, was trying to push himself up. His eyes, wide and unseeing, were locked on the shard. "The fire..." he gurgled, a trail of black drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. "It's not enough... I have to... finish it..."
Before Nyra could move, the heavy iron doors to the foundry shuddered. They didn't open; they exploded inward, torn from their hinges by a force that shook the catwalks above. Through the breach poured the Ashen Remnant. They were no longer chanting; they were howling, a discordant, feral sound that grated against Nyra's nerves. Leading them was a figure in tattered crimson robes—the High Priest, his skin pale as parchment, his eyes burning with a fanatical light that rivaled the furnace.
"The vessel!" the priest screamed, his voice cutting through the roar of the flames. "The shard cries out for its master! Seize it! Let the fire consume the unworthy!"
Rook Marr reacted not with fear, but with a convulsive surge of rage. He saw them not as enemies, but as thieves trying to steal his redemption. "No!" he roared, hacking up blood. "My penance! My fire!"
He scrambled to his feet, his body moving with jerky, unnatural speed. He didn't use a weapon; he used his Gift. The air around him superheated, and with a scream of exertion, he slammed his hands onto the floor. A wave of concussive force, laced with thermal distortion, rippled outward. It caught the front rank of the cultists, lifting them off their feet and tossing them like ragdolls into the pools of molten slag. The smell of searing flesh filled the air, a sickly sweet scent that turned Nyra's stomach.
The cultists behind the fallen didn't hesitate. They vaulted over their burning brethren, their eyes fixed solely on the shard. They were armed with jagged blades and rusted pikes, weapons meant to maim and kill in the name of their dark god.
Nyra was caught in the crossfire. A cultist lunged at her, a rusted knife sweeping toward her throat. She ducked, the blade hissing through the air where her neck had been a split second before. She drove her elbow into the attacker's ribs, feeling bone snap, and shoved him into the path of a jet of steam erupting from a ruptured pipe. He shrieked as the scalding vapor blinded him.
She had to move. The shard was the prize. If the Remnant took it, they would unleash the Withering King. If Rook reached it, he would likely vaporize the entire district trying to destroy it. She reached into her coat and pulled out the Stasis Field generator. It was a heavy, cube-like device, pulsing with a faint blue light. One charge. That was all she had.
"Isolde!" she screamed into her comms, though she doubted the signal would penetrate the interference. "I need a path!"
As if in answer, the northern wall of the foundry—already weakened by the furnace's instability—imploded. Dust and debris billowed outward in a cloud, and through the haze strode a mountain of a man. ruku bez, the mute giant, roared, a sound that seemed to vibrate in the chest. He was covered in grey dust, his eyes wild with protective fury. Beside him stood Isolde, her Inquisitor's blade drawn, her face a mask of cold calculation.
"Clear the center!" Isolde barked, her voice amplified by her Gift.
ruku bez didn't need to be told. He charged, his massive fists swinging like siege hammers. He plowed into the flank of the Ashen Remnant, scattering them like leaves. He grabbed two cultists by their throats, one in each hand, and slammed them together with a sickening crunch, then hurled them into the furnace pit.
The distraction was enough. Nyra sprinted. She vaulted over a fallen beam, her boots skidding on the slick, ash-covered stone. The heat was intense now, a physical weight pressing down on her. The air shimmered, distorting her vision of the shard.
Rook Marr saw her. He turned, his face a mask of hatred. "You!" he spat. "You brought them! You defile my sanctum!"
He raised a hand, and the molten iron in the nearby channels surged, defying gravity, forming a whip of liquid metal that lashed toward her.
Nyra rolled, the whip passing inches above her head, the heat singing her hair. She came up running, dodging a second cultist who tried to intercept her. She didn't stop to fight; she slashed at his legs with her short sword, severing his tendons, and leaped over his falling body.
"Rook, stop!" Isolde shouted, her voice cutting through the chaos. She was engaging the High Priest now, her blade sparking against the priest's nullifying staff. "The shard is unstable! You'll kill us all!"
"Death is the only purity!" Rook howled back. He ignored her, his entire being focused on Nyra. He sent another blast of superheated air, forcing her to dive behind a rusted anvil.
Nyra crouched behind the anvil, gasping for breath. The Stasis Field was slick in her sweat-slicked palm. She checked the charge indicator. It was holding steady, but the ambient magical interference was causing it to flicker. She had to get closer. Ten feet had become an impossible gauntlet.
To her left, ruku bez was holding the line against the remaining cultists, but they were swarming him, climbing onto his back, burying their knives in his thick hide. He roared and shook them off, but he was slowing down.
To her right, Isolde was locked in a deadly dance with the High Priest. The priest was chanting, his body glowing with a sickly green light that seemed to dampen the very fire around him. Isolde's movements were becoming sluggish, her Gift being suppressed by the priest's aura.
And in front of her, Rook Marr was gathering power. The air around him was beginning to warp, the stone at his feet turning glassy from the heat. He was preparing to unleash everything he had left.
It was a three-way deadlock. The Remnant wanted the shard to worship. Rook wanted the shard to destroy. Nyra wanted the shard to contain.
She had to break the stalemate.
She looked at the furnace. The heart of the foundry was glowing with a terrifying intensity. The metal housing was groaning, expanding under the pressure. The shard's energy was reacting to the furnace, feeding it, pushing it toward critical mass.
If she could use that.
Nyra keyed her comms again. "Isolde! The furnace supports! Take out the north pillar!"
Isolde risked a glance over her shoulder. She saw Nyra's position, saw the pillar Nyra was staring at—a thick, iron-strengthened column that was already glowing red hot. It was the only thing holding back the massive crucible of molten metal above them.
"You're insane," Isolde hissed, but she moved. With a desperate burst of speed, she disengaged from the priest, parrying a desperate strike that would have taken her head, and sprinted toward the pillar.
The High Priest screamed in rage and lunged after her, but ruku bez intercepted him. The giant wrapped his massive arms around the priest, pinning his arms to his sides, and squeezed. The priest's chanting turned into a wheeze.
Isolde reached the pillar. She didn't use her sword; she used her Gift. She focused all her will on the structural integrity of the metal, finding the microscopic fractures already present in the overheated steel. *Break,* she commanded silently.
With a sound like a gunshot, the pillar snapped.
The effect was instantaneous. The floor above the furnace tilted. The massive crucible, heavy with tons of molten iron, shifted. A seam in the metal casing burst open.
A torrent of white-hot liquid iron erupted from the furnace, not as a trickle, but as a flood.
The Ashen Remnant cultists screamed, but the sound was cut short as the molten wave washed over them. The heat was so intense it turned their robes to ash before their bodies hit the ground.
Rook Marr turned, his eyes going wide with horror. "No! The fire! It's mine!"
He threw his arms up, trying to command the metal, to push it back. But there was too much of it, and it was moving too fast. The molten iron slammed into him, knocking him backward. He hit the ground hard, sliding across the stone until he crashed into the far wall, his body smoking and blackened.
The wave of death surged toward Nyra. She scrambled up the anvil, climbing higher as the metal flowed beneath her, consuming everything in its path. The heat was blistering now, singing her eyebrows, blistering her skin.
She looked toward the shard. It was lying in the open, directly in the path of the flow.
"No," she whispered.
She jumped.
She cleared the edge of the molten river, tucking her shoulder and rolling as she hit the stone on the other side. She came up running, ignoring the agony in her shoulder. She was five feet away.
The furnace groaned again, a deep, resonant sound that vibrated in her bones. The shard began to vibrate, the black surface rippling like oil. The dark energy within it was surging, reacting to the destruction, reacting to the blood and the death. It was about to detonate.
Nyra skidded to her knees beside the shard. The air around it was freezing cold, a stark contrast to the inferno surrounding it. It was a void in the world, sucking in the light, the heat, the sound.
She raised the Stasis Field. Her hand was shaking. The device hummed in her grip, the blue light pulsing rapidly. It was struggling to lock onto the target.
"Come on," she gritted out, her teeth clenched. "Work."
A shadow fell over her. She looked up to see Rook Marr. He had survived. He was a horror to behold—his skin was gone, replaced by charred meat, his hair burned away. One of his eyes was melted shut. But he was standing. And he was reaching for her.
"You..." he rasped, his voice a sound of grinding stones. "You... take... it... to... them..."
He didn't want to destroy it anymore. He wanted to stop her from taking it. Or perhaps, in his ruined mind, he just wanted the pain to end.
Behind him, the foundry ceiling began to collapse. Massive girders twisted and fell, crashing into the molten metal, sending showers of white sparks spraying in all directions. The entire structure was groaning, a dying beast breathing its last.
Nyra didn't have time to fight him. She didn't have time to reason with him.
She slammed the activation button on the Stasis Field.
Nothing happened.
The shard's energy was spiking, creating a feedback loop that jammed the mechanism. The blue light on the device turned red.
"Damn it!" Nyra snarled. She smacked the device against the ground, a desperate, primitive attempt to fix it.
Rook was almost on her. He raised a hand, his fingers glowing with dying embers. He was going to burn her alive.
Suddenly, a massive hand grabbed Rook by the ankle. ruku bez. The giant had survived the flood by clinging to the high rafters. He dropped down, landing heavily, and yanked Rook backward.
The burned man stumbled, his balance gone. He flailed, his hand missing Nyra by inches.
"Go!" ruku bez didn't speak, but the gesture was clear. He pointed at the shard, then at the hole in the wall where Isolde was already waving frantically for them to leave.
Nyra looked back at the shard. It was vibrating so hard it was cracking the stone floor beneath it. The dark energy was visible now, a swirling vortex of black lightning that was reaching out, searching for a conduit.
The Stasis Field beeped. The light turned back to blue. It had reset.
She didn't hesitate. She slapped the device onto the shard.
There was a blinding flash of blue light, followed by a sound like the world being sucked through a straw. The vortex of black energy collapsed in on itself, folding into the single point of the shard. The Stasis Field activated, encasing the shard in a bubble of slowed time.
The roar of the fire cut out. The heat vanished. For a split second, there was absolute silence.
Then, the bubble popped.
The shockwave wasn't fire, and it wasn't wind. It was pure kinetic force. It threw Nyra backward, slamming her into the wall. She felt ribs crack. The world spun.
She saw ruku bez pick up the encased shard—it was the size of a grapefruit now, encased in a dull grey metal shell. He looked at her, his eyes wide, then turned and ran.
Nyra tried to follow, but her legs wouldn't work. She looked up.
Rook Marr was lying in the center of the room. The molten iron had stopped flowing, the furnace exhausted. But the structural damage was done. The roof was coming down. A massive section of the ceiling, a ten-ton slab of reinforced concrete and steel, detached itself with a screech of tearing metal. It hung directly over Rook.
He looked up. His remaining eye focused on Nyra. For a moment, the madness cleared. He looked tired. So incredibly tired.
He didn't try to move. He just watched her.
The slab fell.
Nyra closed her eyes.
The impact shook the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust and ash that blinded her. The sound was deafening, a thunderclap that echoed in the confined space.
Silence followed.
Nyra forced her eyes open. The dust was settling. Where Rook had been, there was now only a pile of rubble. The furnace was dead. The foundry was a tomb.
She coughed, wincing at the pain in her chest. She had to get out. She dragged herself toward the hole in the wall, her vision blurring.
Isolde was there, grabbing her arm, hauling her up. "Move! The whole place is coming down!"
They stumbled out into the cool night air. They collapsed on the dirt outside the foundry, gasping, covered in soot and blood.
Behind them, with a final, mournful groan, the foundry collapsed in on itself. The walls buckled, the roof caved in, and the structure was swallowed by its own weight. A massive plume of grey dust rose into the sky, blotting out the stars.
Nyra rolled onto her back, staring up at the cloud. She was alive. They had the shard.
But as she watched the dust settle, she saw a faint, pulsing light coming from the center of the ruins. The Stasis Field was holding, but the energy inside it was still raging. The foundry was gone, but the danger was far from over. The shard was awake, and it was angry.