Location: Silver City – Nightbound HQ
Stillness inside the Nightbound HQ was suffocating. Monitors flickered in the dim light. Maps of Silver City and beyond glowed with warnings—energy spikes, weather shifts, mass evacuations.
Helena leaned her elbows on the table in the center of the room, palms down, tense shoulders. Her knuckles were raw where she'd gotten into a fight earlier, but she wasn't feeling the pain. She just felt the hollowness left by Zara.
"We were too late," said Eira quietly, standing across from her.
Myles exhaled, tapping on the holo-map. "Not too late yet. But. she's not lost in the storm. She is the storm now. Her energy signature keeps shifting. like she's shattering."
"No," Helena's voice cut across the room. "She's still clinging. I know she is."
They all turned to her, observing the raw determination burning behind her eyes.
"She's not the enemy," Helena continued, her voice low and activist. "The Eclipsed Order did this to her. They're the ones who let loose the Shardkiller. They wanted her cracked."
"And they're targeting her now," Myles grumbled, sweeping his hand across the map to indicate the larger picture. Across the globe, blinking red markers spat out along a massive web—new Shard aberrations flickering into being. "They're awakening the Old Shards. Preparing to do something huge."
Helena rose to her feet. "Then we strike first."
Eira winced. "You mean. war?"
Helena nodded once. "War."
---
Location: Eclipsed Order Stronghold – The Ascendant Vault
The High Herald strode through the Vault, her robes billowing dark energy. The air resonated with the presence of the first bearer's soul—the first Shardkiller, sealed for centuries but now whispering through reality's seams.
The Herald crouched on a fissured obsidian altar, resting her palm upon its surface. It throbbed beneath her palm.
"Awayaken, Vessel," she whispered. "The storm lies in our grasp."
Twelve black-arming acolytes behind her inclined their heads. Each of them bore a sliver of the Old Shards in their breasts, with bad foreboding red light radiating within them.
The Herald rose, her lip curling in a smile.
"Tonight, the Nightbound fall," she stated. "And the world follows."
---
Location: Silver City – Nightbound HQ, War Room
Helena summoned the team.
Myles, beyond regular hours, had second-guessed the Order's likely next move: a Shard convergence point hidden deep in the depths of the long-abandoned Arcadia District—Silver City's ancient heart, avoided for decades.
"They'll try to summon the Shardkiller in full," Myles described. "With Zara as its foundation. If they succeed, it won't just reduce Silver City to ashes—it'll shatter everything."
Helena looked around at the faces of the Nightbound—Eira, Myles, Orion, Nova, and the others who had been with her since the beginning.
"This is it," she said. "We rescue Zara—or we lose everything."
A heavy silence followed. Then one by one, they nodded.
"We're with you," Eira said.
"To the end," Myles added.
Helena tightened her gloves, her voice steady. "Then let's bring her home."
---
Location: Arcadia District – Beneath the City
The Nightbound moved through the ruins like ghosts, silent and deadly. Strange lights flickered in the cracked streets. Shard anomalies hovered in the air like broken stars, twisting gravity itself.
In the distance, the Order's ritual location huddled behind the menacing black tower. Storm clouds brewed overhead, and lightning crackled through the air, tinting everything a sickly purple.
"We don't have much time," Myles cautioned over comms. "The energy buildup is accelerating. If we don't disrupt the ritual before the final convergence. there won't be a Silver City to rescue."
Helena clenched her fists. "We stop them. Whatever it takes."
They advanced into the darkness.
And high above them, unseen, Zara watched from within the storm.
Her heart cracked as she saw them—her friends, her family. Part of her wanted to scream, to reach out, to beg them to run. To save themselves.
But the Shards twisted her will.
They whispered:
They will betray you.
They will abandon you.
They fear you.
Zara closed her eyes to the voice of the storm, clutching at her chest.
"No." she panted. "I won't let them fall. I won't be your weapon."
But she knew in her heart that the final battle was inevitable.
And it was coming sooner than anyone could know.
---