The moon hung low over Dystyx, pale as a wounded eye, when Syrith, Averith, and Roukhal slipped through the half-collapsed gates of the Stone District. Here, great quarries yawned like open wounds in the city's flank, their walls carved in spirals of granite and marble. Echoes of pickaxes and chiseled stone drifted through the air, mingling with the scent of dust and the taste of spent rain.
Syrith's cloak—the obsidian talisman now thrice tested—dampened his storm-essence from the Covenant's scourge of scrying. Beside him, Averith's violet flames hovered dimly at her fingertips, warding off the chill that crept through the district's labyrinthine tunnels. Roukhal led the way with silent confidence, spear angled to detect hidden threats.
Their target lay deep beneath the Hall of Echoing Quarries, a vaulted expanse where minutes ago slaves and masons quarried stone to build Velkyrion's monuments. In its heart slumbered the fourth Echo: the Shard of Earthwrought Regret, a polished onyx heart carved with the sins of broken bonds—every fracture a memory of trust turned to dust.
They entered the cavern by a narrow shaft—the workers' old access tunnel—its walls slick with evening dew. Lanterns, long dead, hung empty from rusted hooks. Only the glow of Averith's shard-filled talisman cast dancing shadows. Somewhere ahead, a deep rumble rolled like distant thunder.
"They're tunneling," Roukhal murmured, golden eye unreadable. "Covenant earthmancers carve secret halls here. We must move before they collapse the passages behind us."
Syrith nodded. "Lead on—but stay close."
They pressed forward until the tunnel branched into three yawning mouths. Roukhal's spear tapped the center wall, and he traced a series of glyphs carved in basalt: "Regret binds stronger than chains." He pointed to the rightmost tunnel. "This way."
Their boots clattered across crushed stone as they descended. The rumble grew louder until it became a steady pulse—each beat matched to a distant chant: earth-shapers weaving magic into stone. They rounded a corner and froze.
Before them spread the Quarry Sanctum: a chamber hollowed into living rock, its walls lined with massive clefts of onyx and obsidian. At its center, five Covenant earthmages knelt around a plinth of cracked granite, chanting low and pulling onyx veins from the walls like veins to a beating heart. The Shard of Earthwrought Regret—a smooth black heart carved with fractal fissures—hovered over the plinth, suspended by glowing tendrils of raw earth-magic.
Motes of dust glowed around the plen, each particle heavy with remorse and rebuke. Syrith felt the shards of ancient guilt pierce his mind: memories of a trusted advisor betraying him, of a fallen friend's broken oath. The Echo pressed on him, whispering, "You condemned the loyal… your crown cost their lives."
He staggered, but Averith's steady hand on his arm anchored him. "You're more than your regrets," she hissed. "Focus on our purpose."
Roukhal crouched, eyes narrowing. "We cannot let them complete the binding ritual. When the Shard falls to their will, we lose the chance to redeem it."
With a silent signal, Averith unleashed a wave of violet flame that swallowed the earth-mages' ritual circle. The onyx veins convulsed, and rubble cascaded from the ceiling. Two earthmancers spun, conjuring shields of living stone. One hurled a fist-sized boulder that would have crushed an ordinary man—Syrith caught it with his storm-infused hand and shattered it into splinters of dust.
Roukhal charged along a narrow ledge, his spear clattering against obsidian veins. He drove the shaft through the first earthmage's stone shield, toppling him into the cleft. The second mage warped the floor into a ramp of jagged stone, hurling Roukhal upward. But Averith soared beside him, her violet blade slicing the crystalline ramp and freeing her mercenary friend's spear arm.
Syrith advanced to the plinth, lightning crackling around his fingertips. The remaining three mages formed a ring, chanting. Tendrils of earth sprang from their palms, coiling toward the Shard. He thrust his storm toward the plinth. Bolts of lightning danced along cracked granite, shattering it. The Shard tumbled to the ground.
The earthmages screamed in fury and sorrow as the tendrils recoiled. They raised the stone to crush Syrith—and in that instant, Averith and Roukhal drove through the smoked haze. Averith's violet flame cut a path through their shields; Roukhal's spear found the core of the last earthmage's mask.
They collapsed together, the chamber echoing with their defeat. Syrith knelt beside the fallen plinth, cupping the Shard of Earthwrought Regret. It pulsed like a wounded heart, its carved fissures shining with oblivion. He felt its sorrow—every fractured vow and broken promise—seeking to drag him under.
He pressed its cool surface to his chest and summoned the echoes he bore: ember-sorrow tempered by storm, moonwater's remorse forged into clarity, ember-thunder's vow of unbreakable loyalty. A surge of combined power snapped through the onyx heart, mending its fractures with streaks of silver lightning and violet flame. The Shard glowed fully reborn—no longer an instrument of regret, but a seal of renewed purpose.
As the Chamber trembled, Syrith rose, talismans and shards secure against his chest. Averith and Roukhal joined him, dust and sweat streaking their faces, but a fierce light burning in their eyes.
"Four echoes claimed," Syrith declared, voice strong as rolling thunder. "Three remain."
Above them, the quarries groaned ominously—Velkyrion's earth-shapers would know of the breach. But in that reborn Shard, Syrith felt a keystone of his vengeance forged at last. Together, they would shatter the Mask of Seven Bloods—and reclaim not just his crown, but every broken vow that bound the realms in shadow.