The canyon was alive.
Where once there had been cracked earth and skeletal ruins, now vines thick with bioluminescent flowers coiled around broken pillars. Streams of clear water bubbled from long-dry riverbeds, and the air hummed with the buzz of insects born from the shard's radiant pulse. Survivors knelt in the dirt, some weeping, others pressing their hands to the rejuvenated soil as if fearing it might vanish.
Celia stood at the epicenter, the shard's light dimmed to a faint glow in her palm. Her veins still thrummed with its energy, a song only she could hear. Lira's song.
"It's a miracle," whispered the child who'd given her the shard, her cheeks flushed with color for the first time in weeks.
"No," Celia said softly. "It's a reckoning."
Above them, the sky churned—not with Voidwell storms, but with something older, darker. The shard's power had torn a veil, and beyond it, shadows stirred.
---
Jax retreated to the chapel ruins, his scars burning. With every pulse of the shard's light, the Third Heart's voice grew louder.
"You are mine."
He slumped against the wall, clutching his head. The voice wasn't in his ears—it was in his bones, a vibration that made his teeth ache. When he rolled up his sleeve, the scars weren't static anymore. They shifted, glowing faintly blue, tracing patterns like circuitry.
"You were born for this."
"Shut up," he growled.
A shadow fell across the doorway. Talen stood there, holding a makeshift bandage and a bowl of water. "You're hurt."
"I'm infected." Jax yanked his sleeve down. "Where's Celia?"
"Preaching hope. The survivors think she's a prophet." Talen hesitated. "You know this won't last, right? The shard's energy is finite. And whatever it woke up…" He nodded to the horizon, where the Iron Collective's ruins smoldered.
Jax followed his gaze. "Mira's coming back. With friends."
"Worse." Talen's voice dropped. "The Veythari elders spoke of a Guardian—a being the original Heart sealed beneath Gaia. If the shard's power is fading…"
"The seal's breaking." Jax stood. "We need to move. Now."
---
Mira Lobenstein's rig clanked through the ruins of the Iron Collective, her scouts scavenging relics from the rubble. The shard's pulse had reignited long-dead reactors, and now the air reeked of ozone and ambition.
"Report," she barked.
A scout knelt, offering a corroded data core. "The vault's intact. And… something's inside. It's*alive."
The vault door bore the Third Heart's symbol, twisted and scarred. Mira placed her palm on it, and the rig's machinery whirred, prying it open.
Darkness spilled out—a viscous, sentient shadow that coiled around her arm. It whispered of power, of revenge, of a world remade in steel and fire.
"Yes," Mira breathed. "We'll burn their hope to ash."
The shadow seeped into her rig, its eyes glowing crimson in the dark.
---
Celia found Jax packing supplies in the chapel. "Running away?"
"Saving you the trouble." He didn't look at her. "The Third Heart's using me as a backdoor. If I stay, I'll put everyone in danger."
She grabbed his arm, her touch making his scars flare. "We're stronger together."
"Are we?" He pulled free. "You didn't see what I did in the Voidwell. The Heart's not gone—it's waiting. And it's hungry."
The shard pulsed, casting their faces in stark light. "Then we fight it together. Like before."
"Before, we had godhood on our side. Now?" He shouldered his pack. "We're just fools with a knife."
A scream echoed outside. They rushed out to see a survivor pointing skyward, where the swirling darkness had solidified into a colossal, serpentine shape—scales of molten ore, eyes like dying stars.
The Guardian.
---
The entity roared, and the canyon trembled. Vines withered; streams boiled. Survivors fled as its tail slammed into the earth, fracturing the ground into a yawning chasm.
"It's here for the shard," Talen yelled, pulling the child to safety.
Celia gripped the shard, its light faltering. "How do we stop it?!"
"You don't."
Mira's rig landed with a ground-shaking crunch, the shadow now a living cloak around her. "You woke it. Now we will leash it."
The Guardian turned, hissing at her stolen power. Mira laughed, her rig's weapons charging. "Gaia's future belongs to the strong!"
Jax stepped forward, his scars blazing. "Celia—the shard. Now!"
She threw it to him. The moment his hand closed around it, the Third Heart's voice exploded in his mind.
"YES."
Light consumed him—a pillar of blue and gold tearing through the Guardian's shadow. When it faded, Jax hovered above the earth, his eyes twin stars, the shard embedded in his chest.
"Jax…?" Celia whispered.
He looked at her, and the Heart spoke through him: "WE WILL BE WHOLE."
---
End of Chapter 10