The bridge between worlds hummed with an uneasy equilibrium, its iridescent surface rippling like the skin of a soap bubble stretched too thin. Raine's boots sank into the shimmering path as if it were made of sand, each step sending faint echoes through the fabric of reality.
The refugeest- hose who had survived the Chrono-Walkers unravelingelung to one another, their eyes wide with a mix of awe and terror. Behind them, the ruins of the Conclave's sanctum smoldered, its blackened spires clawing at a sky now stitched together with threads of violet and gold.
Kaios walked beside her, his silver hair no longer bleached white but still streaked with the remnants of temporal exhaustion. His mismatched eyeson e gold, one violetflickered between the bridge and the horizon, where the Rift's maw had once yawned hungrily. Now, it was sealed, but not gone.
*"Balance,"* Lyria had called it.
Yet balance felt fragile.
Lyria herself lagged a fewsteps behind, her amber eyes dull with exhaustion. The merging had left her hollowed, her essence woven into Raine's like a patch over a wound. She clutched her ribs, where the Conclave's chains had bitten deepest.
*"It's holding,"* she murmured, her voice hoarse.
*"For now."*
Raine flexed her crystallized fingers, the Embers' power thrumming beneath her skin. Fire, Wind, Earththeir energies coiled like restless serpents, waiting to strike. The Void's absence ached, a hollow space where Lorst's essence had briefly resided before dissolving into the bridge's foundation.
Where do we go from here?"* Kaios asked, his voice low.
The answer came not from Raine, but from the bridge itself.
A sound like shattering glass split the air, and the path beneath them*fractured*, cracks spiderwebbing outward from a single pointa- figure standing at the bridge's center.
Tall. Hooded. Golden-eyed.
*Lorst.*
But not as he had been.
His form was translucent, flickering like a dying flame, his edges fraying into smoke. The bridge's light passed through him as if he were a mirage.
**You,"* Raine snarled, the Fire Ember flaring in her palm.
Lorst raised a handnot in threat, but in surrender. *"I am no longer your enemy, little spark. Thanks to you, I am... free."*
His voice was softer now, stripped of the Rift's hunger. *"But freedom has a price."*
The bridge trembled. At its edges, the refugees gasped as the ground beneath them *shifted*, the path dissolving into motes of light.
**The bridge is unstable,"* Lorst said. *"lt needs an anchor. A covenant.**
Kaios's dagger was in his hand before Raine could blink, though the blade was little more than rust. *"What kind of covenant?"*
Lorst's golden eyes locked onto Raine. *"A vow. A sacrifice. A promise to uphold the balanceor the bridge collapses, and the Rift returns."*
Lyria stepped forward, her breath ragged. *"He's right. The Embers are in chaos. They need order."*
*"Then give me order,"* Raine snapped.
Lorst's smile was a knife-slash. *"You already have. The Fire, the Wind, the Earththey are yours. But the Void... the Void must be *claimed*."*
A memory surgedtorsts hand piercing Kaios's chest, the temporal energy
leaking like sand from an hourglass.
The Void Ember's whisper:*Balance.**"How?"*
Lorst extended a translucent hand. *"Take my place."*
Silence.
Then-
*"No,"* Kaios growled.
But Raine was already stepping forward. *"Explain."*
*"The bridge is a threshold,"* Lorst murmured. *'It needs a guardian.
Someone to stand between worlds, to ensure neither side grows too powerful. The Conclave meant for *me* to be that guardiana warden of the Rift.
But you... you could be its *bridgekeeper*."*
The weight of his words settled like stones in Raine's gut.
To stay here, forever balanced between realms, neither fully in one world nor the other-
*"There's another way,"* Lyria interrupted. Her fingers brushed Raine's wrist, her touch ice-cold. *"The Embers are tied to the elements. To the land. If we bind them *to* the land, the bridge wont need a guardian. Itil sustain itself."
Lorst's form flickered. *"A clever idea. But the land is wounded. The Conclavesexperiments, the Rift's hungertheyvescarred it. The Embers would *fester*."*
The bridge shuddered again. A chunk of its surface crumbled into the abyss, taking a screamingrefugee with it.
*"Were out of time,"* Kaios said.
Raine's gloves crackled, the Fire Ember's flames licking up her crystallized arms. She looked at Lyria, at Kaios, at the terrified faces of the refugees.
Then at Lorst.
*"What happens to you if I agree?"*
His golden eyes dimmed. *"I fade. As all echoes must."*
A choice.
Again, always a *choice*.
Her mothers voice whispered: *"The crystals in our blood arent a curse. They're a choice."*
Raine clenched her fists.
*"Then we do it Lyria's way."*
Lorst's form wavered, his edges dissolving. *"Youll need to act quickly. The bridge wont hold much longer."*
Kaios grabbed Raine's shoulder. *"How?"*
Lyria's answer was a whisper. *"The Ember Shrines."*
---
The shrines were scattered across the realmsfeur ancient monuments built where the first gods had fallen. Raine had seen them in visions: the Fire Shrine in the heart of Valrokh's molten domain, the Wind Shrine atop the Stormkeep's ruins, the Earth Shrine buried beneath the Shattered Peaks. And the Void Shrine-
*"Where the first god's blood became stone,"* Lyria said. *"The Hollow Core."*
The very place they'd fought Dermont. The place where the Void Ember had been born.
**Well never make it in time,"* Kaios said.
Lyria's smile was grim. *"We dont have to."*
She pressed her palm to Raine's chestand the world *twisted*.
---
Raine stood in a cavern of living crystal, its walls pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat. Before her stood four altars, each carved from a different element: flame, storm, stone, and shadow.
At the center of the chamber hovered a figurehooded, golden-eyed. The same one from her visions.
*"The Embers are not just power,"* it whispered. *"They are *memory*. The memory of the land. Of the gods. Of *you*."*
The altars *reacted*, their surfaces glowing as Raine's crystallized arms flared in response.
*"To bind them is to bind yourself,"* the figure warned. *"You will be tied to this world. To its wounds. To its pain."*
Raine didnt hesitate.
She stepped forward-
And plunged her hands into the altars.
The vision shattered.
Raine gasped, her knees buckling as the bridge *lurched* beneath her. The Embers in her veins *erupted*, their energies surging outwardnot in chaos, but in *harmony*.
Fire to the molten rivers.
Wind to the storm-lashed skies.
Earth to the trembling peaks.
And the Void-
The Void to the abyss, where Lorst's fading form smiled one last time.
*"Goodbye, little spark."*
Then he was gone.
The bridge *stilled*, its surface solidifying into a road of shimmering crystal. The cracks sealed. The refugees wept in relief.
And Raine-
Raine *screamed*.
The crystals in her arms *spread*, creeping up her shoulders, her neck, her*face*-
Then *stopped*.
The Embers were bound.
The bridge was stable.
And the Rift-
The Rift was *watching*.
Kaios caught her as she collapsed, his arms tight around her. *"Raine"*
*"It's done."* she whispered.
But as the bridge's light bathed the survivors in its glow, a shadow lingered at the edge of Raine's visiona- flicker of gold in the darkness.
A whisper:
***"For now."***