Location: Neo-Tokyo Ruins – Storm Belt
The Nightbound's aircraft cut through the edge of the world's most unpredictable weather system—a zone known as the Storm Belt. Formed during the last collapse of global power grids and the Aether Wars, Neo-Tokyo had been swallowed by decades of constant lightning storms, electrical anomalies, and time-warped echoes. No one came here. Not even scavengers.
Except them.
"Systems are glitching," Myles said from the cockpit. "We're flying half-blind."
Helena, sitting across from Zara, stared out at the swirling black clouds. "You sure the Shard's here?"
Zara nodded. "It's calling."
Eira, now fully synced with her Ice Shard, narrowed her eyes. "I feel static in the Aether. Like it's warning us."
They landed on the cracked roof of an old highrise—once a skyscraper, now half-submerged in an inland sea of broken neon and concrete. The second they stepped out, thunder rumbled overhead. Lightning stitched across the sky like veins.
Zara's skin prickled. The Shards within her buzzed like tuning forks near a powerline.
They descended into the city through shattered elevator shafts, moving fast. Electrical arcs danced across metal railings. At times, the air shimmered with echoes—faint voices, flickers of people who weren't there.
"Temporal bleed," Helena muttered. "The Shard must've warped reality around itself."
When they reached street level, they found it.
A crater in the center of an old plaza, ringed with statues of forgotten heroes. At its center floated a sphere of pure lightning—white-hot and pulsing like a heartbeat. The Thunderheart.
And below it, chained in arcs of living electricity, stood the Warden.
He wasn't unconscious. He was fighting the Shard.
His entire body crackled with volts, muscles twitching, veins glowing blue. He screamed with every breath—but he was still resisting. He hadn't merged with it. Not yet.
Zara stepped closer.
"Let me help you," she called.
He looked up—and in his eyes, there was terror. "Run."
The Shard responded to Zara's presence.
A scream of thunder shattered the air as bolts of energy surged out in all directions. The team scattered, taking cover as concrete exploded and debris rained down. The Warden broke free for a second—and in that instant, he launched himself at Zara.
She didn't raise a weapon. She stood her ground.
When he collided with her, shadow met lightning.
For a moment, they were suspended in a dance of light and darkness. Zara saw his memories—the day he was chosen, the moment the Shard struck him like a lightning rod, the years he'd spent fighting it alone in the ruins, terrified he'd destroy what was left of the world.
"You've been suffering," Zara whispered. "But you don't have to anymore."
The Thunderheart flared above them, screaming in soundless fury.
Then Eira struck—raising a dome of frost that anchored the lightning in place, giving Zara the time she needed.
Zara reached for the Shard—and this time, she didn't resist.
She invited it.
The bolt of pure energy that struck her should have killed her a hundred times over.
But it didn't.
It merged.
The storm entered her, and the shadows absorbed it. Her body lit up like a thunderstorm at midnight—tattoos of flickering white lines traced across her arms and face. Her hair sparked. Her breath came in pulses of electricity.
The Thunderheart had found a bearer.
The Warden collapsed, finally free.
Zara stood alone in the crater, lightning arcing silently across her fingers.
The fourth Shard had joined her.
---
Location: Eclipsed Order Stronghold
Vael slammed his fists into the table. "She has four. Four!"
The crimson-robed woman leaned in. "And if she acquires more, she won't just be a threat. She'll be the embodiment of the Shard Nexus."
Vael sneered. "That's a myth."
"Not anymore."
She tapped a holopad. "New coordinates have surfaced. The final Shard sites have begun to resonate. She'll be heading west. We intercept her at the fifth."
"And if she can't be stopped?" Vael asked.
The woman removed her veil, revealing a face marked by Aether scarring—and the glint of a Shard embedded in her own chest.
"Then we bring in him."
Vael's blood froze. "You can't mean—"
"I do. The first bearer. The Broken One. The Shardkiller."
And in the dark of a locked vault, something ancient stirred—something Zara had never been told about.
Someone who remembered the Shards long before she ever touched them.
---
Location: Silver City – Nightbound HQ
Zara stood in the central chamber, surrounded by crackling silence. Four Shards. Ice. Flame. Lightning. Shadow.
Each one inside her.
Each one reshaping her.
Helena stepped in, hesitant. "You're different."
Zara turned. Her eyes flashed with power. "So is the war."
---