[Sanctuary, Moon]
A day bled by.
The air tensed, a grim silence had gripped the Sanctuary, settling into the heart of every soul present in the camp. Yes, they had won, but at what cost? They shattered an accursed blade, only to lose one they relied on.
When the whispers of Void's probable demise spread through the camp, many felt their hearts sink into their stomach. As time passed, the murmurs grew, and within just a day, tall tales of his death were spun all around the camp.
The rumour had spread incredibly fast. To the point that not a single guardian was left ignorant. Eventually, the whispers evolved into discussion, and the discussion into debate.
Many refused to believe it. The legendary ghost sword, the man who crossed swords with the Hive's ascendant, was dead?
Voices rose, guardians argued back and forth, but throughout all this chaos, one tent was dead silent.
A bleak air hung inside; the kettle had been thrown to the floor, its water dried out. Half-rolled maps were scattered around the tent, knives dug into the parchment, the lamps fizzled out, and a chilling gust of wind whisked through the flaps.
No one moved a muscle.
Tevis, Levi, Bandit, Cory, and Pahanin still sat where they had. Their eyes glued to their transponders, ears keen on even a hint of a message. They knew Zavala had put a scout on the Hellmouth at dawn, but till now the report was the same, every hour on the hour: no movement.
Pahanin stood up too fast for the chair. It scraped. "We can't keep doing this," he said. "We go down there. Now."
Tevis didn't look up from the dagger he'd been wiping for ten minutes. "To do what?"
"To get him," Pahanin shot back. "What else?"
"Not what I asked." Tevis finally raised his head. "We barely know where he is. Even if we track him down, we don't know what's between here and there. You want to run blind into the Hive's maw and pray we don't get swallowed?"
"So we sit?" Pahanin's jaw clenched. He kicked a crate and made it jump. "We just… sit here?"
Levi's hands were laced, white at the knuckles. "We do something," he said. "But running in is the dumbest version of something. Not a single guardian has ever gone down there and come out alive."
Bandit let out a breath through his teeth. "We could at least figure something out? Sneak in, find out what's going on. We don't have to fight."
"It's not going to be simple," Cory said quietly. He pinched a few grains of sand between his fingers. "That fog, whatever it was. Void was able to stop it, wasn't he? If we sneak in, and that fog finds us? There's not going to be a fight."
Pahanin turned on all of them. "Then what, we wait? For how long? You want me to stand here, knowing that Void might just be taking his last few breaths down there? What's he going to do without his light? "
Levi stood too. "You're not going alone."
"Then don't stand in my way."
"Then don't be stupid."
Tevis got up, hand out—not to grab, just there. "Enough," he said. "We're tired and angry. This isn't thinking."
"What is thinking?" Pahanin snapped. "Because I'm looking at four people who are about to talk me into waiting for a miracle."
The tent flap flipped open.
Ikorra briskly walked inside, coat streaked with dust, a slight quiver in her breath as if she'd rushed here. She looked around, almost as if counting those present. Ikorra heaved a breath.
"He's alive," she said.
Everything stopped. The tent, the air, the fight. Levi's head tilted. Pahanin froze mid-breath. Bandit sat forward without meaning to. Cory looked at Ikorra.
Ikorra didn't make them ask. "Void's alive, I confirmed it," she said again, slower. " But he's trapped in the Hellmouth.. Ikorra paused.
"And I know how to get him out."
Pahanin swallowed, voice rough. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Levi let out a sound that wasn't a laugh and wasn't a sob. He scrubbed a hand over his visor. "Okay. Okay. When do we move?"
"Not this second, not just now", Ikorra said. "We'll need to do it right and be very careful. Whatever place he's trapped in is dangerous. Perhaps, more dangerous than anything we've ever been to."
"More Hive shenanigans", Bandit repeated, grimacing. "Great."
Tevis had already shifted into the work. "What's the plan?"
Ikorra glanced at him; she could see the faint embers of hope still burning inside. "I...don't know everything yet."
"But what I do know is that we'll need more people to split the job. You all will end up going inside."
Tevis nodded once. "Done, no problem."
Pahanin hadn't moved since she walked in. "Where is he?" he asked, voice low. "Exactly."
Ikorra met his eyes. "Deep. Deeper than we want. But he's there. He's breathing. That's all we need to know to start."
He nodded, once. It looked like it hurt. "Then let's go."
"We will," Ikorra said. "Come to the War tent. Bring every blade that's worth carrying and leave anything you can't afford to lose. I am already gathering the rest of the squads; they'll be here in ten minutes."
Levi blew out a breath. "You ran all the way here to say that."
"I ran all the way here to say 'alive,'" Ikorra said. The corner of her mouth tilted, not a smile—just light. "The rest we can say on the move."
Bandit stood, rolling his shoulders.
Cory clipped his kit shut, motions tight and neat. "Ten minutes."
Levi stepped past Ikorra and pushed the flap aside. "Let's bring him home," he said, simple as that.
They moved. The tent breathed out behind them. Outside, everyone hurried. Guardians ran to their tents, Ghosts flashed bright and flittered to the skies, lamps steadied, and a hum ran through the base. Ikorra's message had already gone through every comms channel in the Sanctuary, and now everything was in motion.
-
[Shrine of Oyrx, Hellmouth]
The world stayed the way the shrine wanted it, flat, black, endless. An ocean of darkness lay out from the throne like polished glass, which sometimes remembered to ripple. No stars. No horizon. Just the idea of distance stretched so far that all that remained was an endless expanse.
Void sat on the edge of the dais with his boots over the drop, shoulders against cold stone. The throne loomed behind him, empty now. The pale fire that had revealed it burned low and steady. Beneath his feet, the dark lapped once, twice, then went still again like it hadn't moved at all.
He let a breath, "You still have me hidden?"
«I do,» Zamyr said, «No one can detect your presence.»
"Good," Void said, he rolled his shoulders and sighed, "So any change yet?"
«No. I do not know where Omingul is. Maybe she still haunts these halls, or she's already gone back to the chamber. However, I am unable to say for now. This shrine...it dulls my senses.»
"So we're still stuck."
«For the moment.»
He leaned forward until the heels of his boots clicked on the stone. The dark under him replied with a small, neat ripple. "How long?"
Zamyr did not dress it up. «A few days till Oryx's hold on the vision diminishes.»
Void accepted it in the time it took to draw air. "You're sure."
«Certain. There is no way to leave this place. At most, I can hide you. Cloak your presence so that no one finds us. There is simply no other way.»
Void nodded once. "And until then."
«We must wait. If there's any way to break you out, it must be done externally.»
He let his head tip back against the dais. The stone eerily hummed, like a blade singing on the other side of a wall. He stared up into nothing and tried to drown out the sound with his own thoughts.
"Kind of funny," he said, not smiling. "Running all the way in just to get trapped in here."
«We did not get trapped,» Zamyr said. «We are just.....immobile temporarily..»
"Neat way to think about it," Void chuckled.
He let the quiet take weight again. Out in the dark, something very far away made a sound like a finger run around the rim of a glass—long, low, barely there. It was gone before he could decide if he'd really heard it.
"You think we'll do it?" Void asked, eyes still closed. "Beat the king."
His words echoed into the abyss around him. For a moment, the rippling dark seemed to still.
«Without a doubt,» Zamyr said. «There is only one fit to ascend through these cycles of fate, O brother mine. And it is you. You hold the key to unite what is, and what is not.»
Void took another breath, and the ocean rippled under his boots.
"Tevis must be angry," he said, almost to himself.
«He will be busy,» Zamyr replied. «Angry and busy is safe. Only angry is not.»
"Pahanin that dog, he'll definitely try to jump." Void made a small sound, akin to a laugh and a sigh.
They let the quiet have the next stretch. Time in the shrine didn't count right. Minutes felt like hours until they didn't, and then an hour would vanish between two breaths. Eventually, Void stopped trying to measure it, and almost as if the room sensed that, time continued normally.
He watched instead, observing the tiny ripples that sometimes ran through the black ocean, the way the fire around the throne rose a fraction when he forgot to breathe, the way it sank when he didn't.
Somewhere far off in the black, the glass-sound came back, barely-there, like a tone you could feel in your bones but can't prove. He sat very still and tried to listen, but every time it pricked his ears, the sound escaped his senses, as if it hid itself from him. As if it knew that it wasn't the time yet.
Or perhaps, it knew something he didn't.
"You said a few days," he said.
«I did.»
Behind him, the empty throne watched nothing. Before him, the ocean of dark lay smooth and quiet.
Unseen, far out into the ocean, the surface quivered. The line lifted no more than the thickness of a blade, then settled, then lifted again, slow, a pulse so gentle it couldn't be felt. The dark rose. Only a little. Enough to make the next ripple reach the dais a heartbeat sooner than it should have. Enough to be missed if you wanted to miss it. Enough to keep going.
"Guess all we can do is wait." Void nodded.
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