Elyria turned. Her face briefly softened. "I’m not your queen here, child. Just a mother who’s seen too much. Go well, and guard your heart, especially from your own doubts."
Thaelyn left the tower with her steps steady. Below, Thorne waited. Above, Nyxariel watched the clouds split apart, as if even the sky knew a reckoning approached.
Ashiver of silver light brushed across her mind.Do not fight it, child. You must remember what was lost to know what must be mended.Thaelyn dreamed in light. This was light thathurt.It pulsed through her bones, searing the edges of memory. When she opened her eyes, she stood on a high parapet of white stone, the world sprawling beneath her like a kingdom carved from starlight. Stormclouds churned in the sky. The city stretched below her like a constellation fallen to earth. She saw the City of Aeromir, alive and whole. The banners of the five elements rippled in the wind, and above them towered two dragons, Nyxariel, radiant in silver-blueflame, and beside her, Vornokh, scales black as night and eyes molten gold.
This was before the fall,Thaelyn realized, before the Veil. A woman stood at the edge of the balcony, in robes of pale indigo and armor inscribed with sigils of Aether. Her hair was the color of stormlight; her eyes shone with a violet hue that mirrored Thaelyn’s own, Elirien.
Across the courtyard stood another figure, his presence as steady as stone: a tall man in crimson and gold armor, the sigil of House Veyrath blazing on his breastplate. His fire-red hair was braided back, his expression resolute, proud, yet shadowed with grief.
Commander Cael Veyrath, husband to Serenya, who was the bonded rider of Vornokh.
Serenya Veyrath descended the steps beside him.Where Elirien was wind and light, Serenya was flame and dusk, and beauty edged with steel. Her armor bore the seal of the Fire Order, but her eyes carried the weight of foresight.
Thaelyn felt Nyxariel’s sorrow deepen.They were as we were, Vornokh and I. Storm and flame. Balance and ruin.
Time passed, and the battle raged on. From beyond the city walls came the sound of war, the shrieking cries of creatures not born of this world. The sky blackened. The horizon cracked with red lightning. Thaelyn’s heart twisted. The Riftwas opening.
On the citadel’s highest terrace stood Elirien Taranveil, armored in silver and indigo, her hair whipping in the rising wind. Nyxariel coiled behind her, radiant and furious, wings spanning the sky like a living aurora.
Across the terrace, a tall figure waited, his presence calm, commanding, and older. It was King Caer Aeromir. His robes bore the royal crest of Aeromir, and his staff pulsed faintly with Aether fire.
Nyxariel’s voice deepened, almost somber.He was the last true ruler of Aeromir. He who closed the wound that I could not.
Elirien turned to him, anguish twisting her features. “The Rift won’t hold. Morcarion’s army breaches the eastern wall. Even Nyxariel cannot shield us forever.”
King Aeromir’s eyes were calm, but grief hollowed them. “Then we make our stand here. If the world must burn, let it burn, buying the realm one more breath.” He lifted his staff, its head crowned with a blazing crystal of Aether. The air thrummed around it. “The Veil can still be sealed, but not by me alone.”
Elirien’s gaze flickered toward the horizon, where two dragons spiraled together, Nyxariel and Vornokh, storm and flame united against the tide of shadow. On the ground below, she saw Serenya Veyrath and her husband Cael, rallying the fire legions at the breached gates. Every soldier in Aeromir was fighting and losing.
“We can’t close the Rift while they still fight,” Elirien whispered. “They’ll be trapped outside.”
The King placed his hand over hers. “Sometimes the realm demands the unthinkable.”
The earth trembled. A sound like a thousand screams split the air. From the storm’s center rose Morcarion, Shadow King Sovereign, his form vast and jagged, a shape cut from night itself. His voice was everywhere and nowhere. “Light cannot hold forever.”
Elirien lifted her blade, white fire spiraling up its edge. “Watch me.”
Morcarion laughed, and the sound broke the clouds.
The dragons rose. Nyxariel’s wings shattered the storm clouds as she struck, lightning bleeding from her talons. Vornokh met her side by side, his fire carving paths through the shadow. For a heartbeat, the two ancient beings burned so bright the darkness fled.
Then came the curse. The necromancer, Maelor, appeared upon the battlefield, chanting in a voice that twisted the wind. The chains of shadow he summoned lashed around Nyxariel’s throat, searing into her scales. Vornokh roared and tore at them, but every blow only tightened the bindings.
Thaelyn felt it like her own skin ripping. The Prime Bond began to strain, to scream.
Above the chaos, Elirien’s voice cut through the storm. “Serenya, fall back!”
But Serenya did not. Fire blazed from her palms as she hurled itat Maelor, incinerating his mortal form even as his spell continued. Her scream echoed with fury and despair. “You’ll not have them!”
Elirien turned to the King. “The seal, we must cast it now!”
He nodded, lifting his staff high. The Aether crystal flared so bright that the sky turned white. “I’ll anchor the Veil,” he said. “You complete the lock.”
“No, you’ll die.”
He smiled faintly. “You are my legacy, Elirien. Let them remember a king who held the sky.” Before she could answer, he drove his staff into the heart of the tower.
The world shook.
