The child's green glow pulsed like a dying heartbeat.
Ethan's breath hitched as the small figure wobbled on the outskirts of Blackstone's ruins a boy no older than six, his shabby tunic hanging off skinny shoulders.
The same sickly light that had once radiated from the Thirteenth Star now glowed beneath his skin.
Mara's grip tightened on her dagger.
"No."
Jarek staggered forward, his bandaged stump pressed to his side.
"The Star implanted itself in children?"
The boy whimpered, green tears cutting tracks through the ash on his cheeks.
Behind him, more small figures emerged from the rubble dozens of hollow eyed children, their hands clasped like beggars.
The air hummed with gathering power.
Ethan's corrupted veins flared in response. He stumbled back, colliding with a collapsed pillar.
"They're conduits. The Star's... last anchors."
The Keeper's voice crawled through Ethan's mind, faint but venomous.
"You should have died in that cathedral. Now watch as your mercy dooms them all."
Mara edged toward the nearest child, hands raised.
"It's alright. We're here to—"
The boy screamed.
Green fire erupted from his mouth, piercing toward Mara. Jarek yanked her aside as the blast incinerated a pile of rubble where she'd stood.
"Don't touch them!" Ethan roared, clutching his searing arm. "The Star's protecting itself!"
The children advanced, their glowing eyes vacant.
The ground trembled.
Jarek dragged Mara behind a shattered wall.
"We need to contain them. Now."
She reloaded her crossbow with trembling hands.
"How? We can't just—"
"Not kill." Jarek's gaze locked on Ethan. "Cleanse."
Ethan understood. The void in his veins buzzed not with hunger, but recognition.
The Star's energy in the children called to its counterpart within him.
Mara grabbed his wrist.
"If you try to absorb that power…"
"It'll kill me." Ethan met her gaze. "Or make me strong enough to end this."
The first child reached for them, small fingers crackling with emerald energy.
Ethan moved.
He seized the boy's hand, void stems erupting from his palm. The child shrieked as the green light pulled from his body into Ethan's, a torrent of burning power that scorched his nerves.
The other children wailed in unison, their glow intensifying.
Mara shouted something lost in the roar of energy.
Ethan's vision whited out. The world was reduced to agony and the Keeper's howling laughter.
"YES! FEED THE VOID! BECOME WHAT YOU HATE!"
Then….silence.
Ethan collapsed, his body wracked with tremors. The children lay scattered around him, breathing but no longer glowing.
His corruption had stabilized, the black veins now interlaced with faint green light.
Mara knelt beside him, her dagger at his throat.
"Ethan?" Her voice shook. "Are you... you?"
He coughed, green-black spatter sprinkling the stones.
"Mostly."
Jarek nudged an unconscious child with his boot.
"You cleared the Star's remnants. But it's still in you now."
Ethan's fingers curled around a shard of broken stained glass. His reflection showed eyes flecked with emerald.
"Then I'm the last anchor."
The decision came swiftly.
They would take the children to the ruins of Valenmoor, the one place warded against the Star's influence. Mara would guard them. Jarek would hunt any remaining Order members.
And Ethan?
He studied the horizon where the first stars twinkled in the twilight. The void and Star's energy ravaged inside him, an unstable equilibrium.
"I'll go east," he said quietly. "To the Obsidian Wastes. If the Star tries to reform..."
Mara's jaw tightened.
"You'll contain it."
Or become its new vessel, which went unspoken.
At dawn, they parted ways. Mara watched Ethan's silhouette disappear into the rising sun, his shadow stretching long and twisted behind him.
In his wake, a single green ember flickered in the ashes.
It pulsed once.
Twice.
Then, it went dark.