The sound came first—a soft hissing, like sand slipping through glass. Kael's head snapped up. His body, honed by years of training in the Realm Guard, tensed instantly.
"Elira," he whispered, his hand reaching instinctively for the sword at his hip, "wake Lysena. We're not alone."
Elira didn't hesitate. She gently shook Lysena awake, and the woman's hand was already gripping a dagger beneath her cloak before her eyes fully opened.
"I felt it," she said, voice low. "Something breached the runes."
Kael stepped into the shadows at the chapel's broken entrance. Outside, ash danced in the air like falling snow. The ruins of Velmorra looked no different—but something had shifted.
There was a hum in the air. Not from nature, but from magic.
Old, dark magic.
---
Lysena threw a small crystal sphere into the center of the chapel. It exploded silently, sending a ripple of pale blue light over the entire structure. The protective runes pulsed briefly… then cracked.
"Damn it," she hissed. "It's not just one. There's more than one Shadow Seeker. Maybe three."
"Can we fight them?" Elira asked, her heart pounding.
"We can try," Kael said grimly. "But if they're full-blood Seekers, it won't be easy."
Lysena drew a second dagger and faced Elira. "If anything happens, don't use the Crystal Heart unless absolutely necessary. If they sense its full power, they'll call more. It's a signal fire for those things."
Elira nodded. Her fingers trembled, but she steadied them. She wasn't the same frightened girl who had once lived unaware of her destiny.
---
Outside, the shadows moved.
At first, they looked like hunched figures—cloaked in black, creeping through the ash. But then they rose—twice as tall as any human, with long limbs, skin that shimmered like oil, and eyes like molten gold.
Shadow Seekers.
Born from forbidden necromancy and shadow-binding, they existed only to serve the High Caste of the Magic World—and to hunt.
Elira stepped back instinctively. The air around her thickened, suffocating.
"They know I'm here."
Kael stood in front of her. "Then they'll have to get through me first."
---
The battle was chaos.
Lysena moved like a dancer through the ash, her blades slicing the air in silent fury. One of the Seekers lunged, mouth splitting open to reveal needle-like teeth, but Kael intercepted it with a slash of his blade, enchanted with sunsteel—a rare metal known to disrupt shadow-bound creatures.
Elira held her ground. Her hands burned, the crystal inside her pulsing with light.
She could feel the Seekers pulling at her mind—trying to manipulate her with visions.
Her mother's death.
Her father's betrayal.
Kael bleeding in her arms.
"ENOUGH!" she screamed, and light burst from her chest.
The nearest Seeker shrieked, its body erupting in silver flames.
Kael turned, wide-eyed. "You used it…"
"I didn't mean to," she said, breathless. "It just… it reacted."
Lysena ducked a swipe and stabbed upward, taking down another Seeker. "You're waking it up, Elira. The Crystal Heart isn't just inside you anymore—it's aware."
Suddenly, the remaining Seeker stopped.
It stared at Elira—not in fear, but in recognition.
Then it vanished into a cloud of ash.
---
They waited. For minutes. Then hours.
But no more came.
The silence that followed was almost worse than the fight.
"We have to move," Lysena said, wiping blood from her lip. "They'll be back. That one escaped—and it'll bring others."
Elira sank to the ground, her body trembling. "That light… it wasn't just mine. It was something else."
Kael knelt beside her. "You said the crystal spoke to you before. In dreams."
She nodded. "It told me I'd have to choose. That I couldn't awaken it without giving something up."
Lysena crossed her arms. "That's because the Crystal Heart isn't just a power source. It's an ancient soul. A sentient one."
Elira stared. "You knew?"
"I suspected. Only the oldest magical artifacts have that kind of influence. And the Crystal Heart was forged by the Magi of the First Flame. It's not just a stone—it's a being."
Elira felt her heartbeat stutter.
"Then what happens… if I let it awaken?"
Lysena looked away. "You stop being just Elira."
---
They left Velmorra that night, traveling north through the ruined woods toward a hidden sanctuary called Wyrmshade—a place where the last rebel Magi still lived in secret.
Kael held Elira's hand as they walked in silence. She didn't speak of the fire in her chest or the dreams that were growing stronger.
But deep down, she feared something was changing.
Not just outside her.
But within.
---
Far away, in the Magic World, high above the storm-covered capital of Virellan, a figure in a silver mask stood at a balcony, overlooking the glowing pools of prophecy.
A voice emerged behind him.
"She's awakening."
The masked man didn't move. "And the Shadow Seekers?"
"Defeated."
He turned slowly.
"Send the Nullborn," he said coldly. "If the Crystal Heart is no longer dormant… then it's time we remind the world who its true masters are."