Chapter 30
The explosion left them scattered.
Kian awoke in a field of fractured glass, each shard reflecting a different shard of Lian's soul—Aria's sorrow, the Fractured's rage, the Flame's hollow gaze. The boy lay beside him, breathing but changed. His skin shimmered like oil on water, fragments of his identity bleeding into the air like smoke.
"Lian," Kian rasped, reaching for him.
The boy recoiled, his voice returning in a fractured whisper: "Don't… see me."
Above them, the Voidspire's shadow deepened, its tendrils stitching the sky into a tighter, suffocating grid.
The Divided
Jin Yue stumbled through a forest of petrified trees, her Spark-scarred arm now encased in crystalline gold. The Voidspire's whispers coiled around her thoughts:
"You could end this. Burn the chaos. Burn them."
She clenched her fist, the crystal biting into her flesh. "I'm not your weapon."
"Aren't you?" The Spark flared, projecting a vision: Kian and Lian lying dead at her feet, the world pristine and silent under her command.
A figure stepped from the shadows—the Weeping Hierophant, their glass mask repaired. "The Voidspire offers peace. Why do you resist?"
Jin Yue's crystal arm ignited. "Peace isn't worth his smile." She lunged.
The Warden's Lament
Liangu stood before the Voidspire's base, the Warden's void-lit blade at his throat.
"You look older, Father," she said, her voice stripped of warmth. "Time has not been kind."
"Aria—"
"Aria is gone." The Warden pressed the blade deeper. "What remains is the Voidspire's will. And you will serve it."
Liangu's hands trembled as he pulled a vial from his robe—a relic of the First Flame, preserved in ash. "I failed you once. I won't fail them."
He shattered the vial.
The Crimson Note
Kian dragged Lian into the ruins of a shrine, its walls carved with the same symbols that now pulsed on the boy's skin.
"This place… it's hers," Lian whispered. "Aria's prison."
The air hummed as the Warden materialized, her void-blade dripping with Liangu's blood. "You shouldn't have come here, Kian. This is where her song ended."
Lian staggered forward, his fractured soul unraveling. "Let me… remember."
He pressed his palm to the shrine's altar.
The Memory
The vision struck like a blade:
_A young Aria, laughing as she wove poppies into Liangu's beard.
The monastery burning, Liangu screaming as he bound her to the First Flame.
Her final words, seared into the Voidspire's core: "I'll make them all listen."
Lian collapsed, the memories tearing through him. "She didn't… choose this."
"No," the Warden said. "But you can." She offered her blade. "Merge with the Voidspire. Become the harmony she couldn't."
Kian stepped between them, his crystallized arm blazing crimson. "He's not yours to claim."
The Warden smiled. "He already is."_
The Unraveling
The battle was brief and brutal.
Kian's crimson flames clashed with the Warden's void-light, each strike echoing like a shattered chord. Lian writhed on the ground, his soul splintering further with every clash.
"You'll kill him!" the Warden hissed.
"Then stop!" Kian roared.
A blade pierced the Warden's chest—Liangu's trembling hand gripping the First Flame's relic.
"Forgive me," he whispered.
The Warden dissolved, her final breath a sigh. "Father…"
The Aftermath
The Voidspire shuddered, its grid-like patterns fraying. Jin Yue arrived, her crystal arm cracked and smoking, the Hierophant's mask clutched in her hand.
"We need to go. Now."
Lian lay motionless, his body translucent, edges fading into the air.
"He's not gone," Kian said, more plea than fact.
Liangu placed a hand on the boy's chest. "The Voidspire's hold is broken, but his soul… it's too fractured to stay."
"Then we mend it," Kian snapped.
"How?"
Jin Yue lifted her crystal arm. "With this." She drove it into the ground, unleashing the Spark's stored energy.
The Voidspire's shadow recoiled.
And Lian gasped, solid once more.
The Price
The Spark's blast left Jin Yue's arm inert—a skeletal husk of gold. Liangu aged decades in moments, his hair white, skin paper-thin.
Lian stared at his hands, now scarred with Aria's symbols. "I remember… everything."
Kian helped him stand. "Then let's finish this."
Above, the Voidspire's heart pulsed—a discordant note in the silence.