The Harrowed One convulsed violently.
NO!
The scream seemed to tear through reality itself. The vortex above Earth Prime expanded in fury, and darkness exploded outward in catastrophic waves. Entire floating structures disintegrated around us.
“Now!” Zapharos roared.
The Praetor of War surged forward in a blaze of golden fire, Arkhevari warriors rallying instantly behind him. Across the battlefield, surviving legions pushed toward the fissure with renewed ferocity. Hope spread through them like wildfire. Hope that the Harrowed One could be broken. Ella grabbed Nadine’s hand beside me. Light erupted around them both immediately. Not ordinary light. Creation itself. Warmth flooded the ruined world beneath our feet as Ashera’s fragmented power awakened fully inside them.
And then it hit me too. My chest burned, but not in pain; it was more of a deep yearning. An ancient pull toward the burning figure trapped inside the darkness. Toward Caelor.
Toward the male Ashera had never stopped loving. The Harrowed One lashed out desperately. Dark tendrils erupted from the vortex and slammed toward us. This time, we moved together instinctively. Ella’s soul-light surged outward in brilliant golden waves. Nadine’s mind grasped the fracture lines in reality itself, directing the flow of power with impossible precision.
And I, I opened my heart. Completely.
To Thyros.
To Ashera.
To all the love and grief and hope spanning millions of years. Power exploded from us. Golden light burst upward in a colossal wave that tore directly into the Harrowed One. The darkness screamed. For the first time, it began pulling apart.Faces trapped within the vortex surfaced and dissolved as the corruption destabilized. Mmuhr’Rhongs across the battlefield shrieked in panic, their forms flickering violently.
Caelor emerged from the center of it all. Not fully. Not yet. But enough.
The Fire of Darkness roared upward as a male figure slowly pulled himself free from the vortex surrounding him. Stars, tears blurred my vision instantly. He was beautiful. Even burned almost beyond recognition, with his body covered in glowing fractures of gold and black. It was his eyes, the same amber-gold eyes as Thyros.
Ancient.
Exhausted.
Still fighting.
The Harrowed One screamed in pure terror now. Because Caelor was escaping.
“ASHE—”
His voice broke with pent-up emotions. The three of us stepped forward simultaneously.
Me.
Ella.
Nadine.
That's when the fragments answered. Tiny golden sparks began rising everywhere across Earth Prime. Only a few at first. But they quickly became a hundred, then thousands. Millions. They streamed from the broken world itself, from drifting ruins, from Arkhevari warriors, from the very air around us.
Every fragment of Ashera was returning to her. The Harrowed One howled. The sparks swirled around us in endless spirals of gold. And then she appeared.
Ashera.
Whole.
Not solid.
Not alive in the ordinary sense.
But magnificent.
A being woven entirely from light and memory and love.
