The crypt trembled as the shadows swallowed them whole. Ethan clutched Liora's dagger, its blade humming with cold starlight, while the Keeper's laughter slithered through the dark—a sound like rusted nails dragged across bone.
"That blade obeys me, boy. Always has."
Ethan struck blindly. Steel met something solid—a flicker of static-edged robes.
The Keeper hissed, shadows recoiling like burned flesh.
Mara fired her crossbow, bolts punching through the darkness, their tips flaring with witch-oil fire. In the brief bursts of light, Jarek's face contorted in pain as he lay pinned beneath fallen rubble.
"The journals!" he choked, blood flecking his lips. "Burn them—the pact's inside—!"
A clump of living shadow lashed out, gagging him mid-sentence.
Ethan's dagger flared in response, and suddenly—Liora's memory surged through him.
Decades past, she stood in this very crypt, the Keeper's voice honeyed poison in her ear.
"Your soul will save them all."
Her hands shook as she plunged the dagger into her own chest. Light erupted. The Keeper smiled.
"You lied to her!" Ethan roared. The dagger's glow burned brighter, burning his palm. "You tricked her into becoming the Star's anchor!"
"And you'll follow," the Keeper sneered, his form flickering between man and monstrosity. "The dagger hungers. Strike true."
Ethan's corrupted arm trembled, veins blackening further as the blade pulsed in his grip—urging him, not toward the Keeper, but himself.
Mara jumped, tackling him just as the dagger's tip grazed his ribs. The blade sliced her arm instead, and her sleeve froze over, starlight crawling up her skin like frost.
"Fight it, damn you!" she snarled, her breath ragged.
The Keeper dived, claws outstretched, his voice a twisted mockery of comfort.
"Become the anchor. Save your world."
Ethan wrenched the dagger away—and drove it into the crypt floor instead.
The impact cracked the ancient stone like thunder. Liora's journals erupted in spectral flames, pages tearing free in a whirlwind of fire and light. The Keeper screamed as the flames peeled away his shadows, stripping him down to something raw and human.
Mara froze.
"Father?"
The man's face—Jarek's face, but older, drained—twisted in shock.
"Mara...?"
The vision shattered. The Keeper reeled, his form unraveling at the edges.
"No! I am more than him! More than flesh!"
Jarek staggered free of the rubble, his eyes wide with horrified recognition.
"He's a shade. Our ancestor. The first traitor."
Above them, the ceiling groaned. The Star's eye turned, its gaze pressing down like a physical weight.
Ethan gripped the dagger, its hilt slick with blood—his or Mara's, he couldn't tell.
"This ends now."
Mara seized his wrist, her fingers digging in.
"You'll die."
He met her gaze.
"Then help me make it count."
The Keeper surged forward, a storm of spite and shattered pride—
—and Ethan plunged the dagger into his own chest.
Light exploded.
The world tore apart at the seams.