Location: Neo-Tokyo Ruins – Storm Belt
The plane of the Nightbound cut into the edge of the world's most unstable weather pattern—a zone known as the Storm Belt. Formed in the last days of the collapse of the world's power grids and the Aether Wars, Neo-Tokyo had been ravaged for decades by constant lightning storms, electrical distortions, and time-warped echoes. No one came here. Not even scavengers.
Them excepted.
"Systems failing," Myles shouted from the cockpit. "We're half-blind up here."
Helena, across from Zara, looked out at the turbulent black clouds. "You sure the Shard is around here?"
Zara nodded. "It's calling."
Eira, tuned into her Ice Shard fully now, frowned. "I'm sensing static in the Aether. Like it's trying to warn us."
They landed on the broken rooftop of an old highrise—a skyscraper once, now half-submerged in an inland ocean of splintered neon and concrete. As soon as they stepped out, thunder exploded overhead. Lightning cut the sky like veins.
Zara's skin crawled. The Shards within her sang like tuning forks near a powerline.
They descended into the city through shattered elevator shafts, swiftly. Arcs of electricity danced across metal banisters. The air vibrated with echoes at times—whispers of voices, suggestions of people who weren't there.
"Temporal bleed," Helena snarled. "The Shard must've warped reality around it."
They reached street level and located it.
A crater in the center of an ancient plaza, ringed by statues of forgotten heroes. In its center floated a sphere of pure lightning—white-hot and pulsing like a heartbeat. The Thunderheart.
And below it, chained in arcs of living electricity, stood the Warden.
He wasn't unconscious. He was fighting against the Shard.
His entire body stuttered with volts, muscles twitching, veins glowing blue. He screamed with every breath—but he was struggling against it still. He hadn't merged with it yet.
Zara stepped forward.
"Let me help you," she pleaded.
He lifted his head—and in his eyes, there was terror. "Run."
The Shard responded to Zara's presence.
The air was torn by a thunderous shriek as energy bolts shot off in all directions. The team took cover as concrete burst open and debris rained down. The Warden broke free for an instant—and in that instant, he launched himself at Zara.
She didn't raise a weapon. She stood her ground.
When he struck her, shadow met lightning.
For a moment, they poised in a balance of shadow and light. Zara saw his memories—the day he was chosen, the moment the Shard had struck him like a lightning rod, the years he'd spent fighting it in isolation in the ruins, fearing he'd destroy what was left of the world.
"You've been suffering," Zara whispered. "But you don't have to anymore."
The Thunderheart seared above them, screaming in silent fury.
Then Eira counter-attacked—calling down a dome of frost that held the lightning in place, giving Zara the moment she needed.
Zara reached out for the Shard—and this time she didn't resist.
She embraced it.
The blast of pure energy that struck her should have killed her a hundred times over.
But it didn't.
It merged.
The storm entered her, and the darkness consumed it. Her body shone like a storm at midnight—tattoos of shining white lines marked across her face and arms. Her hair sizzled. Her breath burst forth in sparks of electricity.
The Thunderheart had found a bearer.
The Warden collapsed, finally free.
Zara stood alone in the crater, lightning sizzling silently over her fingertips.
The fourth Shard had found her.
---
Location: Eclipsed Order Stronghold
Vael slammed his fists onto the table. "She has four. Four!"
The woman in red robes leaned forward. "And if she acquires more, she won't be a danger. She'll be the embodiment of the Shard Nexus."
Vael snorted. "That's legend."
"Not anymore."
She tapped a holopad. "New coordinates have manifested. The final Shard sites have begun to resonate. She'll be heading west. We intercept her at the fifth."
"And if she cannot be stopped?" Vael asked.
The woman pulled down her veil, revealing a face Aether-scarred—and the glow of a Shard implanted in her own chest.
"Then we bring him in."
Vael's blood went cold. "You can't mean—"
"I do. The first bearer. The Broken One. The Shardkiller."
And in the blackness of a vault sealed tight, something ancient stirred—something Zara had never heard of.
A person who remembered the Shards many years prior to ever touching them.
---
Location: Silver City – Nightbound HQ
Zara stood in the middle room, amidst crackling silence. Four Shards. Ice. Flame. Lightning. Shadow.
Each one inside her.
Each one reshaping her.
Helena came in, hesitantly. "You're different."
Zara turned to her. Her eyes burned with power. "So is the war.".