Alex's sleep was a battleground. Shadows coiled into the heir's gilded face, its voice slithering through his mind. "The Devourer's heart beats in the Dead Plains. You will claim it, or I will unmake you." He woke gasping, the bond's golden veins burning like brands across his chest. Across the room, the Eclipse Shard fragments glowed faintly on Lira's worktable, their light tinged violet.
"Another nightmare?" Lira didn't look up from Mara's scorched journal, her fingers smudged with ash.
"More like a threat." Alex flexed his gauntlet, now cold and inert. "The heir's impatient."
Lira snapped the journal shut. "Then we'd better move faster. Mara wrote about a 'price paid in twin flames'—a ritual to sever godly bonds. But it requires something from the First Sanctum's core."
Alex eyed the shards. "And those?"
"They're… changing." She lifted one. Inside, a wisp of void swirled beside a flicker of gold. "Like they're alive."
The temple's hall buzzed with tension. Priestesses and survivors clustered in factions, their debates sharp as blades.
"The heir is our salvation!" argued Kael, a broad-shouldered smith. "It purged Alex's rot. We should follow it!"
"Purged?" Lira shouldered into the circle, holding up the shard. Its light cast warped shadows. "It shifted the corruption. Look closer."
The crowd recoiled as the shard's glow revealed the golden veins beneath Alex's skin—thin, pulsing threads leading toward his heart.
Mara's second-in-command, Yara, stepped forward. "The heir demands we march to the Dead Plains at dawn. Those who stay will be left undefended."
"Those who go will be used," Lira countered.
The hall erupted. Alex slipped out, the heir's voice hissing, "Weakness divides them. You must lead."
At dawn, the heir materialized atop the temple steps, its starlight cloak blinding. "The Devourer's heart awaits. Follow, or fall."
Half the survivors fell into line. Lira gripped Alex's arm. "We need to find Mara's ritual component—a 'star's tear'—in the Sanctum's core. It's our only chance to break the bond."
The heir's gaze snapped to them. "Stay close, Alex. Or the rot returns."
The Dead Plains stretched before them, glass shards crunching underfoot. The heir led, its mere presence parting the acidic mists. Behind, the loyalists marched in lockstep. Alex lingered at the rear with Lira and the dissenters—Yara among them, her face taut with suspicion.
"The Sanctum's core is a day's detour," Lira muttered.
"The heir won't wait," Alex said.
"Then we don't ask."
The attack came at midday.
Voidlings erupted from the glass—twisted, half-formed creatures of tar and teeth. The heir raised a hand, incinerating a dozen, but the swarm pressed. Alex fought with a scavenged blade, his gauntlet lifeless. A voidling lunged; he gutted it, black blood spraying.
"Pathetic," the heir sneered, obliterating a horde with a gesture. "Embrace my gift, Alex, or watch them die."
Lira shouted, "Now!"
Yara and the dissenters broke ranks, sprinting north toward the Sanctum. The heir's glare ignited. "Traitors."
"They're mine!" Alex bluffed, chasing them. The heir's bond seared, but didn't stop him.
The Sanctum's ruins loomed, its core a crystalline vault beneath collapsed pillars. Lira pried open a hatch. "The star's tear is here. Mara called it the First Flame's 'remorse.'"
Inside, a pedestal held a droplet of liquid light. Alex reached for it—
The heir materialized, gripping his wrist. "Thief."
Lira lunged with a dagger. The heir flicked her aside, but Yara tackled it, buying seconds. Alex seized the tear. It burned, searing his palm.
"Use it!" Lira yelled.
He crushed the droplet. Light exploded.
The heir roared, its form flickering. "You dare—"
The Eclipse Shard fragments levitated, piercing Alex's golden veins. Agony tore through him as the heir's bond frayed. Lira chanted Mara's words: "Twin flames, one purpose. Break the chain!"
The heir's scream merged with Alex's. The light dimmed.
Alex collapsed, the bond's golden threads severed. The heir staggered, its cloak dimmed. "You… will… burn…" It vanished.
Yara lay motionless. Lira crouched beside her. "She's gone."
Alex's gauntlet sparked—a weak, true gold. "But the bond's broken."
At the Dead Plains' edge, the Devourer's heart pulsed—a colossal, veined orb hovering above a void rift. The heir reappeared, bleeding starlight. "Fools. You've only hastened the end."
It plunged a hand into the heart. The orb cracked, vomiting darkness.
The ground split. The Devourer's true form ascended—a skeletal titan with the heir's face, laughing with the First Flame's voice. "The cycle ends. We rise as one."
The merged Devourer-Heir towered over the Dead Plains, a grotesque amalgam of starlight and void. Its skeletal frame pulsed with golden veins, while its hollow eyes bled shadows that scorched the earth. Every step shattered the glass wasteland, sending fissures racing toward the survivors. The air itself curdled, thick with the stench of burning ozone and decay.
Lira hauled Alex to his feet as the ground buckled. "Move! To the Sanctum ruins—now!"
The survivors fled, but the titan's laughter followed, warping into the heir's icy taunt and the Devourer's guttural roar. "You cannot outrun entropy."
The Sanctum's fractured walls offered meager shelter. Lira barricaded the entrance with fallen pillars while Alex slumped against the star's tear pedestal, his gauntlet sputtering. The Eclipse Shard fragments in his pocket hummed, their light dimming.
Yara's followers tended to the wounded, their whispers sharp with despair. "We're all going to die here."
"Not yet," Lira snapped. She tossed Mara's journal to Alex. "There's a page missing. Ripped out. Find it."
Alex flipped to the back—a jagged edge where parchment had been torn. "Why?"
"Because Mara knew. She always had a contingency."
Outside, the titan's shadow darkened the sky.
Alex's gauntlet flickered, its faint light revealing hidden text on the journal's cover—a pressed symbol of the Eclipse Shard. He peeled it free.
"The Shard's final act requires a soul split between flame and void,"Mara's handwriting read. "A life offered freely to sever the cycle."
Lira's breath caught. "A sacrifice. Yours."
Alex stared at the merged titan through a crack in the wall. "If I die, does it end?"
"Or begin anew." Lira gripped his arm. "There's always another way."
"Is there?" He pressed the Eclipse Shard fragments into her palm. "You once told me sparks start fires. Maybe it's time to burn."
The titan's fist shattered the Sanctum. Survivors screamed as voidfire rained. Alex charged, gauntlet flaring gold.
"Still you resist?"The titan seized him, its grip melting sunsteel. "You are nothing."
"But I'm not you." Alex plunged the Eclipse Shard fragments into its chest.
The world erupted in blinding light.
The Shard's power tore through Alex—a conduit between life and oblivion. He saw the First Flame's birth, the Devourer's betrayal, the heir's arrogance. "Break the cycle," Mara's voice echoed.
The titan howled, its form fracturing. Alex clung tighter, flesh dissolving. "Lira! Now!"
She hurled the Eclipse Shard's core. It pierced the titan's heart, and Alex pulled.
Gold and void collided.
Then—silence.
Dawn crept over the Dead Plains. The titan's carcass lay inert, its essence scattered. Lira knelt in the ashes, cradling Alex's gauntlet—all that remained.
The survivors emerged, hollow-eyed. Yara whispered, "What now?"
Lira stood, clutching the gauntlet. Its light flickered, a faint pulse. "We rebuild. And remember."
In the distance, a wisp of gold lingered—a spark, not yet extinguished.