The air trembled with a charged silence. A low hum vibrated across the broken stone floor of the long-abandoned temple in the ruins of Old Liranth. Liam tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade, sweat running down his brow, breath held. Across from him, Nyra's hands hovered just above the cracked ground, her fingers glowing with summoning sigils, trembling from the strain of holding her current creature at bay—an obsidian hound formed from shadow and smoke, pacing protectively in front of her.
Kael's windward blade spun in his palm, a vortex of air forming around him as he prepared to dash forward. Aeris stood still, her violet eyes glowing, one hand on the crystal pendant at her neck—the same one that brought them from the realm to the human world. She wasn't casting. She was remembering.
The enemy had arrived.
Dozens of darkspawn poured from the shattered archway, creatures of malformed limbs and twisted masks, eyes glowing like coals. At their center was the beast known as Sirthrak—a brute nearly twice the size of any man, covered in jagged armor made of bone and rusted iron. It dragged a cleaver forged from broken mirror shards.
"They're here for the fragment!" Liam shouted.
Sirthrak snarled, and his voice echoed with several tones at once—male, female, and something else. "You've come too far, little shards. You should've stayed lost."
"Nyra, now!" Aeris commanded.
Nyra released the sigils with a shout, and the obsidian hound leapt, maw opening wide. It collided with the front lines of the darkspawn like a comet, scattering them as its body exploded into a pulse of shadow spikes.
Kael vanished from where he stood, reappearing in a gust beside Sirthrak, slashing upward. The beast caught the blade mid-air and kicked Kael backward into a cracked pillar. It shattered on impact.
Liam charged, blade burning with light as he clashed with the smaller creatures, ducking and slicing through their brittle forms. One clawed his shoulder. Another jumped onto his back. He grunted and rolled, driving his sword upward to impale it.
Nyra wasn't finished. She dropped to her knees and began another summoning. This time, her aura flickered as she drew blood from her palm—too much magic was draining her. "Come to me... guardian of forgotten ash... rise again!"
A swirl of fire and ember lit the room, and from it rose a burning hawk with wings as wide as the chamber. It shrieked and dove, scattering enemies with waves of heat.
Sirthrak laughed. "You think summons will save you?"
He swung his cleaver into the ground. Cracks raced outward and split the earth like spiderwebs. One struck under Nyra's feet, flinging her off balance. Liam jumped in front of her, deflecting a strike from a masked creature before helping her up.
"You okay?"
"I'm not done yet," she hissed, sweat rolling down her temples.
Aeris, still unmoving, finally blinked.
"I know this place," she whispered.
Liam heard her over the chaos. "What do you mean?"
She turned toward the group. "This temple... I was here. When I was a child. Before I was taken to the realm."
Kael coughed, crawling out from rubble. "You're from the human world?"
"Yes," she said, power coiling around her fingers now. "But someone erased it from me... until now."
Behind them, Sirthrak howled and grew larger, absorbing the shattered darkspawn. His cleaver now dripped with liquid shadow.
Aeris stepped forward.
"No more hiding."
She raised her hands, and the pendant glowed white-hot. Lines of runes traced themselves in the air, wrapping around Sirthrak's limbs. He roared, trying to pull free. But her magic held—barely.
"Hit him—now!" she screamed.
Liam, Kael, and Nyra attacked together. Liam's blade shone as he stabbed through the beast's chest. Kael's wind cut through his limbs. Nyra's firehawk exploded in a final burst that engulfed Sirthrak.
Silence.
Then the beast collapsed into a pile of ash and shattered iron.
Everyone panted, bruised and scorched.
"Is it over?" Nyra asked.
Aeris didn't answer. She walked to the altar at the temple's center, brushing away dust.
There lay a cracked stone tablet—ancient, but not dead.
Etched upon it were the same symbols from the fragment map they carried.
"No," Aeris said quietly. "This was never the third fragment... but it's the map to where it is."
She looked up, eyes shimmering. "And we're not the only ones looking for it."