The Petran had left the team shaken. As Ianc scavenged gear, a cold fear settled in him that the next fight could claim those he’d grown to care for. He had never imagined losing anyone but Mirari could turn the know in his stomach. His fingers softly brushed Abby’s hair, gentle enough not to wake her. With her asleep against his chest, a rare calm settled over his thoughts. He wondered what her hair smelled like before the desert sand had dulled its scent.
“Help me braid it,” she whispered, her voice still thick with sleep. “Take one thick strand. Split it, then cross them over.”
He lifted her up and followed instructions. He stayed silent, pretending he had no idea how to braid, though he had practiced countless times on Mirari’s hair.
She looked over her shoulder, her hands still holding a new strand. “Like the view?”
“If I ever say no, bite me,” he said. “Why do you like me? I’m not big, not strong, not bright, nor handsome.”
“You have a weird serenity. Strong jaw and nose, yet soft lips and eyes.”
And you’re tasked to spy on me, he thought, but didn’t say it. He let the thought go unspoken. Some truths were better left anchored in mutual silence. “I thought my loose tongue impressed you.”
“That too. Most people freeze. You act. Don’t call it stupid or brave. It shows responsibility. You protect what you hold dear.” She paused. “What if I become dear to you?”
“You already are.” His whisper was for her ear alone. They kissed as the sun rose.
The camp stirred awake. The cactus water was just enough to wash and refresh, and their last supply of jerky vanished at breakfast. Without food, they might last another five days, yet Ianc felt this day would decide their fate. He led the way, letting Ciaran, the Aeimortis’ avatar, guide him through echoes and whispers. By midday, the terrain shifted. Sand hardened to stone, shrubs dotted the ground, and large birds circled in a sky that belonged only to them.
And then an oasis materialized behind a mirage of the desert heat—a verdant sprawl amidst the barren, lush and vibrantly alive. The sight gave Ianc and the others a second wind. They broke into a run toward this rupture of life. Thick, wet grass cushioned Ianc’s boots. Water flowed between smooth black stones, pulsing from hidden springs. The air changed, filled with freshness and cool wind, sweet like a forgotten dream. Each of them reached to touch the palm-like trees, as if needing proof. They were real.
Before them, three paths split like the prongs of a trident. To the left, a narrow trail cut into the canyon wall, climbing sharply toward the cliffs. To the right, a winding shelf of scorched scrub and twisted rock promised higher ground, but little cover. The center path dropped into a lush hollow where trees arched overhead and vines draped thick. At its far end rose a structure—uncertain if carved by hand or grown by nature—an arc framing a waterfall with no source, its veil shimmering in iridescence.
“Stay on edge,” Cley said. “We haven’t met the Heliok or Nekrai guardians yet.”
Rahorh raised a hand. “We are Solens. But if the Nekrai drives Selenais down this canyon, we’ll be cornered.”
“We split up?” Campa asked. He was scanning the area nonstop. His lips moved in a low mutter, as though calculating vantage points.
Ianc climbed the highest rock. His infravision swept through the entire oasis. “I sensed no enmity, nor magic. But that waterfall… it’s blazing with invitation.”
The group stood still, letting their speculations run wild. Clementine unsheathed her greatsword and pinned it before her, then closed her eyes. “Down,” she said. “We’ll find out.”
And so they descended. Water seeped cold into their boots, uncanny after days of sand. Among the rocks, faint wails twisted into hisses, sharp and menacing. Colorful flora sprouted at the stone’s base, mosses glowing too brightly to be natural. They gathered beneath the waterfall, but nothing could be seen beyond its shimmering veil.
Rahorh performed his magic with ink and words like he did with the huge mirror. Nothing answered. “Strange,” he muttered.
“Could it be… an inner sanctum within one?” Ianc asked. As the team turned to look at him. “I see the Aeimortis’ avatar here. It mentioned ‘a mother’. I think it means a Necrai priest who takes care of it.”
“Good guess,” Rahorh said. “Necrai always builds a mausoleum as their sacred house for magic. This could be the entrance.”
“Any lore we should know before stepping through another damn door?” Campa asked, in a tone that poorly mimicked rhys’ gravitas.
“Every tomb has a guardian.” Rahorh began inscribing archaic letters into the waterfall. Not from left to right like usual writing, but from top to bottom. “This is the song of the fallen. What is dead may never die. It began with the hubris of the Petran, and the blood they spilled upon the sky…” His voice shifted to murmurs in a strange tongue. Each mark froze into ice, until at last the whole cascade hardened to a sheet of frost. Then, soundlessly, it cracked and reshaped into a mirror that did not reflect. A stairway appeared beyond it.
Cley stepped in first and the mirror rippled as if made by liquid. The rest followed and Ianc was in the middle of the formation. Torches flickered to life in sconces, their flames shifting from blue to orange. The floor was laid in dry stone tiles. At the far end, a statue waited before a square door. With each step closer, it seemed to loom taller until it stood ten feet high. A Barghest. Yet not the usual beast. This one bore a human face where canine should be, and wings folded neatly along its body, as though resting.
As Ianc stared at it, it stared back. Its gaze was not angry, nor menacing, but disturbingly joyful. “Who walks the halls of Enodia?” Its voice was an echo of old and young, of men and women.
“Solens,” Rahorh answered.
“Hmm, the light bringer. This place could use some light,” the Barghest said. “What do you seek?”
“The tomb of Enodia?” Rahorh answered, half a question, half a guess.
“Then you need to play a game with me. What has tongue but doesn’t wet?”
The team exchanged glances. “The hell is this?” Kieran murmured out loud.
“Is that your answer?”
“No! We are discussing it,” Rahorh quickly said.
“Then answer when you’re ready.”
Campa glanced at Clementine’s sword, an idea sparking in his eyes. “A weapon’s edge. I mean a sword, or a blade.”
“Correct. What has rivers and mountains, roads and houses, castles and verdant savannah, but no people.”
Abby put a hand on her hip. “A map.”
“Well done. What is dead that never dies?”
“Are we going to stay here forever?” Clementine asked. She shifted her legs.
“Is that your answer?”
“No! We’re still discussing. You make this too difficult.,” Rahorh yelled.
“Answer when you’re ready.”
“Culture, spirit… Spirit of a past culture… Writing, letters, ideas… An artwork.” Rahorh snapped his fingers.
“Good enough. Artwork carries visions of their creator, often only praised after they are dead.” The Barghest slightly moved its head. “Last question. What is more important, victory or sacrifice?”
Ianc raised a hand-signal to the team. Don’t answer. Don’t discuss. He drew them close and whispered. “It’s a trap. Whatever we choose, one of us dies.”
They all looked at him, then slightly nodded. “What do we do now?”
“Don’t play under its rules. If we are inside an inner sanctum to wreck it, why do we play nice?” Ianc said.
Wordlessly, the team fell into formation. Ianc fixed his eyes on the clay guardian. “We’ll sacrifice you for our victory.” His grip on the hatchet tightened; his other hand conjured a fireball behind his back.
“Good answer. You’ve proven your body, mind, and spirit through the journey. You shall pass.” With that, the Barghest dried back into stone. The square door creaked open.
Ianc led, signaling them to keep eyes on the statue as he ducked under the door. They pressed deeper into the temple’s heart. The air thickened, pregnant with ancient, pulsing magic. The passage wound on, then opened into a rectangular chamber that felt less like a tomb and more like a hollowed-out lung. In the center, a black pond lay perfectly still, a dark mirror reflecting nothing but the oppressive weight of the ceiling.
At the far end stood a woman figure.
She was a jagged contradiction of nature and blasphemy. Her body was draped in nothing but a living shroud of Aeimortis leaves and parasitic vines that pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly green light. But it was her skin that held Ianc’s gaze. Tattoos, etched in the same archaic, mathematical script Rahorh had used to break the oasis catacomb, coiled around her limbs like starving snakes. They weren’t just ink; they were conduits, glowing with the bruised purple of ancient magic. Between her outstretched hands hovered a sphere of lightless glass, three times the size of the orb that had leveled Camelford. It didn’t just sit in the air; it was shackled by the pale, finger-like roots of the Aeimortis tree that descended from the ceiling like a wooden ribcage.
The sphere hummed—a low, teeth-rattling vibration that tasted of ozone and old blood. It was feeding. Ianc watched through his infravision as threads of white Solfire were stripped from the roots and forced into the orb, swirling into a dense, volatile core of Bloodfire.
“We were right,” Rahorh hissed, his own tattoos flaring in sympathetic resonance. “The Necrai Overlord is turning a god into a bomb.”
Ianc felt his mark thrum against his ribs when she turned her gaze on him. Her eyes were not eyes, but twin wells of teal dust, ancient and devoid of mercy. She didn’t speak. She simply tightened her grip on the air, and the archaic script on her skin began to scream with light. Three spectral figures emerged around her, revenants of other Umbrite leaders. Their forms shimmered with malevolent light. Though her gaze was hidden beneath her shroud, Ianc felt its weight pressing down, heavy as stone. She had been foretold of his arrival.
The Necrai Overlord’s voice broke the silence, a rasp that slithered across the pond’s surface. “He said you would bring it here, bearer of the Light. You will bring retribution for the treacherous Heliok.” Her words dripped with ancient grievance, a prophecy of revenge.
Weary to his bones but Ianc stood tall. “The lich lied. This mark brings nothing but a chain.”
A guttural hiss-snarl rose. “You don’t know what it could do. You are unworthy.” Dark energy surged from her outstretched hand, twisting the Selenai guards. Bones cracked, flesh writhed, their forms grotesquely mutating. Flaming claws burst from their hands, burning with unholy fire. They became warped mockeries of themselves. The flames fed from a dark, pulsating orb she raised aloft—a chill testament to the Bloodfire siphoned into the Aeimortis. “Your mark is mine,” she rasped, eyes blazing with fanaticism.
Suddenly, Ianc’s mark flared. A searing heat erupted on his skin, pulling him forward as if caught in an invisible current. He felt himself drawn into a magical conduit, the orb’s power rushing into him, an overwhelming, consuming force. He fought it, a struggle as futile as resisting freefall. The Overlord’s magic locked him, paralyzing him, while beneath it a deeper, more terrifying absorption began. Suspended, helpless, he floated towards the center of the pond. His eyes locked on his friends, not pleading for help, but fear for their odds without his aid.
Without a word, the group fell into battle stance. Cley, Campa, and Kieran surged forward, forming a spearhead of the wedge formation; weapons raised to take the assault’s brunt. Behind them, shielded by their line, Rahorh and Abby stood ready, hands glowing with nascent magic, prepared to heal, cast, or unleash. Aaron threw a rope around Ianc’s waist and hoisted him back. The templar raised his shield, becoming a silent guardian. Ianc clenched his teeth against the magic. He kept struggling, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The battle erupted. Selenai beasts, now monstrous with flaming claws, swarmed on them in two lanes. Steel clashed against burning flesh, magic erupted in bursts of light and shadow. The chamber became a brutal dance of death.
Clementine became a whirlwind of steel and defiance until a flaming claw shredded her hand. The stench of seared flesh filled the air. She staggered, but fought on. A pulsing black tendril tore from the Necrai Overlord. Abby and Campa hurled themselves as shields before Rahorh’s desperate chant. The impact shattered them. Three bodies hurled back, crumpling unconscious against stone.
Now only Kieran and Aaron held the line, the last defense between Ianc and the Selenai. They fought with despair-driven ferocity. Their movements blurred between parry, strike, parry. Every impact echoed in Ianc’s suspended body. Every grunt. Every streak of hot blood on cold stone.
Then Kieran fell. Aaron, screaming defiance, lunged. His shield splintered, and the broken piece of wood strapped on his arm buried deep in a beast’s muzzle.
Aaron! The warning died in Ianc’s frozen throat. Five flaming claws sank into Aaron’s chest, their afterglow dimming in the air.
Emptiness ripped through his stomach. Grief, sharp and suffocating. Guilt, a crushing weight, descended. And then, rage, pure and untamed.
His friends were dying. Because of him. Because he couldn’t control the mark.
He lost control.
The world shattered. A roar erupted—not from him, but from something ancient and primal within the mark. It blazed, a searing inferno ripping through the Overlord’s hold. Raw power surged out in unshackled fury. The torrent of annihilation slammed against the orb on the Overlord’s hand. Then it spread to her essence. Her revenant guards dashed back to her side, trying to rescue their master. A light of impossible brilliance cracked, pulsing like a dying star on the brink of collapse. The orb imploded, and a shockwave tore through the chamber.
The power receded, leaving silence echoing in its wake.
Ianc plummeted, his body a dead weight. The black mark on his chest was no longer just a charred sun. It was etched with cracked, lava-like veins. Hidden deep beneath the rough surface, the energy stirred like a thousand worms gnawing at his chest.
He hit the stone face-first. Not unconscious, but the world was a spiraling mirage. Crawling toward the pond, each movement tore him with explosive pain. He didn’t know why, only that he needed it. His fingers touched the water. A soothing sensation rushed through him, filling his lungs with breath. He saw his friends stir with spasms of pain, but Aaron lay limp. The holes in his chest no longer bled. They were seared.
A sudden realization hit Ianc. His mark was the anchor of Rahorh’s Sanguine Libertas spell. It completed the reverse cycle, giving Solfire from fed Bloodfire.
The chamber hung in stillness, heavy with devastation. The Aeimortis’ avatar appeared.
You urged me to touch the water? Ianc thought, his voice gone.
You brought fire on us again. You burnt Mother, you burnt everything.
Then why help me?
Mother was wrong. You were right about the lich. Help us.
Ciaran dissolved into the pond. Then, Ianc finally let go.