The Nightingale breached the veil of the Sable Crescent with a thunderous hum, the fabric of reality bending as the ship entered the broken realm. Immediately, alarms flared across the bridge — not from enemies, but from the realm itself.
Riven's hands danced across the controls "Temporal stability's below threshold. We're flying through a fractured present. This place is—alive."
Outside the ship's viewport, the Sable Crescent stretched in haunting beauty. Half the realm floated above itself — a crescent-shaped landmass ringed in obsidian mist, its other half mirrored beneath, upside down and burning in slow-motion flame.
Lightning arced sideways through the void.
Time here didn't flow. It twisted.
In the war room, the team studied the projected coordinates.
"The shard's signal is pulsing from the center of the Crescent," Kaela said, pointing to a floating citadel drifting between the broken sky and shattered sea. "We'll need to move in fast before the realm resets."
Kaelen cracked his knuckles "Reset?"
Riven nodded grimly "This realm replays its final day every few hours — collapsing in on itself before starting again. Like a loop. Only the dead remain… until we enter."
Lyra stepped forward, flames pulsing at her fingertips "Then we break the loop."
They descended in the Aether Fang, a smaller scout vessel launched from the Nightingale. As they neared the surface, the Crescent began to scream.
Not with voices, but with echoes.
Ghosts flickered across the ruins — soldiers frozen mid-charge, civilians forever reaching for loved ones already lost, a battlefield repeating a war none remembered.
Lyra felt her breath catch.
A whisper clawed at her ear: "We burned this world for a lie…"
Kaelen gritted his teeth "This isn't memory. It's punishment."
The Aether Fang landed on a fractured plaza of obsidian stone.
The ground sparked beneath their feet — not from magic, but from trauma.
"This way," Vaelion said, pointing to a winding stair descending toward the citadel's core.
Each step they took seemed to ripple with afterimages. The past layered itself over the present.
Suddenly, Lyra froze.
A child ran through the alley ahead — transparent, flickering — pursued by something monstrous. A beast made of bone and starlight, jaws wide with silence.
Without thinking, Lyra lashed out with flame, her strike colliding with nothing… and yet everything.
The memory screamed.
And the loop glitched.
The sky above fractured.
Kaela grabbed Lyra's arm "You broke the pattern — it knows we're here."
"Good," Kaelen said, stepping forward, sword drawn "Let it try to stop us."
They reached the citadel doors — towering gates of black crystal inscribed with glyphs that shifted when stared at too long. Riven decoded them with a flick of his hand.
"Welcome, Bearers of the Flame," he read aloud "Your trial begins within."
The doors creaked open.
Inside, the citadel was a cathedral of sorrow.
Hallways filled with suspended ash. Statues of warriors turned to dust. At the far end stood a chamber with seven mirrors — each reflecting a different version of Lyra.
One wore a crown.
One held a sword of pure light.
One burned.
And one… knelt before Serian.
Lyra stepped toward the last.
It shattered.
A voice echoed from the chamber walls:
"What would you sacrifice to break the cycle?"
The fourth shard floated at the room's center — but as Lyra approached, the flame pulsed violently.
A guardian emerged.
Not a beast.
Not a person.
But a future.
A version of Lyra — older, wiser, and consumed by flame — stepped forward.
"I am what you become if you fail," she said, voice like cracking embers.
The battle began without warning.
Future Lyra moved like fire incarnate, her strikes filled with grief and fury. Kaelen intercepted one, nearly knocked to the wall by sheer force. Kaela summoned wards to slow the flame, Riven launched nullfields, and Vaelion fought blade-to-blade.
But only Lyra could match her.
Their flames clashed, light against light.
"You regret it," Lyra said mid-duel "The war. The exile. Serian."
Future Lyra sneered "I embraced it. And I burned everything to survive."
Lyra ducked a slash, twisted, and drove her palm forward — a burst of unified flame striking her future self's core.
"I won't become you," she whispered.
The echo collapsed, dissolving into embers.
The room went silent.
The fourth shard floated downward.
Lyra reached out.
And this time, the flame welcomed her.
A swirl of energy filled the chamber. The mirrors cracked. The ash settled. The loop shattered.
Outside, the Crescent's false time began to dissolve. Light returned. And the screams finally stopped.
Back aboard the Nightingale, the fourth shard pulsed gently in Lyra's palm.
"Four down," Kaela said.
"Three to go," Vaelion replied.
But Lyra looked out the window, gaze distant "The last flame isn't a relic," she murmured "It's a person. And it's waiting for me."
Far away, on a dying moon, Serian smiled as he opened his eyes.
"She's ready."