The halls of Thornhollow's Council Spire still smoldered.
Alaric leaned against a broken column, his breath slow but steady, the edges of his coat singed from battle. Across from him, Lysera was cleaning void ichor from her spear, her face composed—save for her eyes. They lingered on Alaric longer than necessary, searching him for wounds, for wear, for anything she could tend to.
He smiled, just slightly. "Still breathing."
"That's not an excuse to be reckless," she murmured, and then: "You did well."
A heavy step echoed behind them. The air shifted.
Kael entered through the ruined doors, framed by lightning still coiled around his shoulders. His skin gleamed with stormlight, his hair wild and damp from the rain now falling outside.
"You lit the sky like it owed you something," Alaric said.
Kael chuckled. "Didn't want you hogging all the glory."
He extended his arm. Alaric clasped it tight. Lysera gave him a nod—respectful, measured—but her eyes held wonder. She'd felt it. Everyone had. The Thundercore wasn't a mere advancement. It was a declaration.
The trio stood together—fire, storm, and wind-bound steel. They were no longer upstarts.
They were weapons.
Elsewhere… Beneath the Black Root Mountains
A shattered altar pulsed with lingering void essence. Crystals bled dark ichor as shadows coiled around a figure kneeling in the center. Maeryn's breath was ragged, her body still stabilizing the fusion.
Her hand trembled, not from weakness—but restraint.
"The Titan's essence," she muttered. "Still resists me."
The air around her warped. A malformed face flickered in the mist—fanged, ancient, godless. The Ebon-Titan of Grief, once sealed in the Hollow Below, now shared her soul. She had taken its essence, but not its mind. Yet.
Voidbinder agents waited nearby, cloaked in silence. One stepped forward. "The Thornhollow infiltration failed. The Thundercore has awakened."
Maeryn opened her eyes. They were no longer just hers.
Crimson-black. Slitted like a serpent. Ancient.
"Good," she said.
The agent flinched. "You… expected that?"
"I counted on it," she replied. "Now the Lords will grow overconfident. They'll push Alaric and his companions forward, let them gather enemies and attention."
She rose. Her back cracked as new power folded into place. Bone hardened beneath her skin. Veins glowed faintly with voidfire.
"The Thundercore shines brightly," she murmured. "And soon enough, I'll extinguish it."
She turned to the assembled Voidbinders.
"We proceed with Phase Two."
A map unfurled across the cavern wall, etched with runes, blood, and a symbol of a twisting ouroboros over a shattered sun. Three cities were circled—Duskwatch, Lurein's Hollow, and Tarnspire.
"We hit where they can't defend everything. Make them choose. And then… we take the Titan Forge."
Back in Thornhollow
The city mourned and rebuilt, unaware of the war now moving in shadows. The trio sat within the Citadel's war chamber, their names now spoken by lords and spies alike.
Kael was quiet, staring at his lightning-bound hand. "It feels like there's more," he admitted. "Like the storm isn't done with me yet."
Lysera nodded. "Your power draws attention now. So does Alaric's."
Alaric closed his eyes, sensing the faint pull of his twin cores—Stone and Fire, stable for now, but deepening. Still, he felt something stir beyond the surface. A third resonance, subtle, echoing like memory. He'd sensed it during the Voidbinder clash.
Chronoaether. Still sleeping.
"Then let them look," Alaric said. "But they better not blink."
The camera of fate pulled back from the table—three young titans in their own right, unaware that Maeryn now wielded a fragment of the Ebon-Titan itself.
The true war hadn't begun.
Not yet.
But the Crucible was heating.