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The wind howled through the broken trees of the ninth realm—**Kael'Vorran**, a land once lush with crystalline rivers and singing peaks, now desecrated into a hollowed wasteland. The sky was a bruised purple, as if the heavens themselves were bleeding from battle. The air held the sting of ash and magic—raw, heavy, and ancient.
Aria walked ahead, her boots crunching over dried roots that once pulsed with life. Lyrien walked beside her, silent, his gaze scanning the terrain with sharp eyes. Arinthal followed a few steps behind, staff in hand, her cloak billowing with quiet power.
They had fought six-eight of Lord Xandros's minions already. Each encounter left deeper scars—physical and emotional. Aria bore a fresh cut on her shoulder, the blood dried in jagged lines beneath her torn sleeve. Lyrien's arm was bandaged tightly, a bite from a shadowbeast having nearly shattered his forearm. Arinthal—though outwardly composed—carried the exhaustion of casting spells that strained even her well of power.
But this realm... it was different.
The Echo fragment here pulsed strongly through Aria's palm. The mark—now more than a symbol—seemed to burn beneath her skin, guiding her, warning her. The mark always responded to Echoes. But now, it throbbed with a strange intensity, almost… afraid.
"Something's here," Aria whispered, her hand curled into a fist to contain the burn.
Lyrien stopped walking and turned to her. "The mark?"
She nodded. "It's reacting more than ever before. It feels… wrong."
Arinthal looked up at the sky, eyes narrowing. "Not wrong. Opposed. Something powerful is interfering with the Echo's resonance. Something ancient."
They moved forward cautiously, their footsteps muffled by the dust covering the landscape. The ruins of what once was a city came into view—arches of blackened marble stood like ribs of a dead god, broken towers jutted from the earth at awkward angles. In the center of it all, a spiraling temple—half-sunken into the earth—stood shrouded in a mist that crawled like living fog.
As they approached, Arinthal raised a hand, halting them. "This place is sacred," she said softly. "Or it was."
And then the attack began.
Without sound, without warning, the air shattered around them as **Xandros's new minions** descended—creatures cloaked in molten stone and armor made from fractured light. Their faces were featureless masks, their movements coordinated with eerie precision.
"Move!" Lyrien shouted, drawing his twin blades with a shimmer of silver.
Aria surged forward instinctively, feeling the energy in the air. She summoned it through her body, her curse and power entwining like wildfire. She thrust her palm toward the closest creature, and a pulse of blue flame burst from her hand, sending it flying.
Arinthal struck with precision, her staff carving sigils in the air, calling down blasts of celestial energy. Lyrien was a storm, moving with brutal grace, each strike of his blade ringing like a bell in a graveyard.
But they were not winning.
For every enemy they felled, two more took its place.
Aria spun, narrowly dodging a slash aimed at her throat. Her hand reached out—too slow. A burning fist struck her side, sending her crashing into a ruined pillar. Pain bloomed, white-hot.
"Aria!" Lyrien's voice cracked with panic.
But Aria pushed up, her body trembling. She wasn't done. Not yet.
She dug deep, into the well of energy inside her—the same power she had feared for so long. It surged in response, the mark on her palm erupting with light.
Time slowed.
The battlefield blurred as she unleashed a scream, not of fear, but of defiance. A wave of force rippled from her, tossing back enemies in a violent arc. For a breath, silence followed.
And then, everything stopped.
Literally stopped.
The creatures froze mid-attack. The mist ceased swirling. Even the wind fell silent.
From the center of the temple ruins, a ripple in space twisted open like a wound, and from it stepped a figure—cloaked in robes darker than shadow, face hidden behind a mask carved with runes that flickered red like embers.
**LordXandros.**
The air turned electric. Arinthal stepped in front of Aria instinctively, staff raised.
Lyrien stood beside them, breathing hard, one hand bleeding, the other tightening around his weapon.
"Aria," Arinthal said, her voice steady. "Don't do anything reckless."
But Aria didn't hear. She was staring at Xandros. Not with fear. With recognition. Somehow, her mark pulsed in rhythm with his arrival—like it *knew* him.
Lord Xandros took a step forward, his presence pulling the very light from the realm.
"So this is the key," he said finally, his voice like a thousand whispers inside her mind. "The girl with the mark."
Aria's hand trembled, her palm burning under the skin.
"You've watched us," Arinthal said coldly. "Fought us from the shadows. Why show yourself now?"
Xandros tilted his head. "Because I wanted to see what you'd become. And…" his gaze moved to Aria. "Because she is nearing the point of no return."
"No return?" Lyrien growled. "You mean her death?"
Xandros chuckled. "No. Her choice."
He raised a hand, and the minions backed away as if leashed by unseen chains. The battlefield fell still.
"I could end this here," he said. "Snuff out your rebellion. Take the key."
Aria braced herself. The power was there, ready to ignite her very soul.
But then—Xandros lowered his hand.
"I won't."
Silence.
Arinthal blinked. "What?"
Xandros's voice was calm. "I want to see what the key will choose. I want her to *earn* her fate. Power given is hollow. Power taken—fought for—is real."
His words weren't a threat.
They were a challenge.
"Why?" Aria found her voice. "Why do you care what I become?"
Xandros turned slightly, as if the question amused him. "Because your power is part of mine. Your mark is not only the key to defeating me. It is the remnant of what I once was."
Aria's breath caught.
Lyrien stepped forward, furious. "What are you talking about?"
Xandros's voice lowered. "The Echoes of Eternity are not only fragments of a weapon. They are fragments of me. Of who I was before I became… this."
A crack appeared in the air behind him—a portal. "Collect them all," he said. "See for yourself."
He stepped through the rift, vanishing without a trace.
The silence that followed was deafening.
The minions faded like smoke, the spell holding them evaporating into thin air.
Aria fell to her knees, overwhelmed, the weight of truth pressing on her.
Lyrien was at her side in an instant, catching her.
"Are you alright?"
She nodded, but tears welled in her eyes. "He was *part* of the Echoes. Of the mark. Of me."
Arinthal knelt beside them, her expression somber. "It explains everything. Why the mark reacts. Why the curse is so intertwined with the fragments."
Lyrien wrapped his arms around her gently. "We'll figure this out. Together."
Aria leaned into him, not romantically, but with the weight of someone who needed to be held. "I don't know what's happening to me," she whispered.
He didn't have the answers. But his grip tightened. "You're not alone."
As the sun began to rise over the wasteland of Kael'Vorran, the trio gathered themselves. Their path was no clearer, but their bond was.
They had faced stronger enemies.
They had faced Lord Xandros himself.
And he had let them live.
The question now wasn't just *how* to stop him.
It was *why* he wanted to be stopped.
And what it would cost Aria to do it.
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