Dust shifted in a dim beam of morning light as Talyri stirred beneath the collapsed archive chamber. Pain flared across her temple—a warm, rhythmic throb that pulsed with each breath. She blinked through blurred vision, her fingers twitching against splinters and stone.
A sharp gasp escaped her. The air was thin and dry. She reached upward, finding only shattered beams and weight.
"Help!" she cried, her voice cracking against the enclosed dark. "Is anyone—?"
Only silence answered, thick and absolute.
Her heart pounded. She closed her eyes, tried to anchor herself in memory.
As far as she remembers, the stone tablets were still tucked away in their chamber beneath the Circle of Teaching.
But now they were gone.
Her mind reeled. The vault wasn't just collapsed… it had been emptied. Not by destruction, but by hands. Swift, knowing hands.
She clenched her jaw, fury swelling beneath her fear.
At the edge of the forest, shadows moved.
The scouts had regrouped, bruised and bloodied, but focused. They gathered around a simple tarp, beneath which the stone tablets lay wrapped in hide, their ancient glyphs hidden from sight.
"Secure them," the scout leader growled. His voice rasped like dry leaves, a sling on his arm and a fresh bandage across his temple still seeped through.
He turned to a younger man tightening the straps of a lizard mount.
"Nevun," the leader said.
The scout straightened. "Sir."
"Go to Alfazar's den and find Sword Khoren. Tell him the retrieval is complete. We need to move immediately."
Nevun gave a tight nod, mounted, and without further word, vanished between the twisted trees.
Belligarde walked like stone carried by wind.
Each step toward the scarred slope of the valley edge grew heavier. At its crest, she saw the shattered remains of her sister.
Blood streaked in a long arc beside it, like paint on canvas. Fen stood nearby, frozen.
Belligarde descended slowly. Her eyes locked on the shape caught beneath the rock—Lira's form, crushed and contorted, barely human. Her hair, once like fine strands of spacetime, now matted with dust and red.
She fell to her knees.
"No…" she whispered, voice shattering. "No. No!"
Tears broke freely, tracing the grime on her cheeks. She pressed her forehead to the ground, fingers digging into stone.
Behind her, Fen stood motionless, tracking the blood trail. His lips moved, inaudible, trying to summon a voice that had died inside him.
Then she turned.
"You were there," she hissed. "You had her—!"
Fen flinched. "I— I had Nerissa—"
"And you let my sister die?!" she screamed, rising, fists clenched. "You left her!"
"I carried your niece!" he shouted back, voice cracking. "There was no time! The ground—everything fell apart!"
"So you chose! You chose who lived!"
"I didn't choose, Lir—!"
Her eyes went fire, lips curled in rage. "Don't you dare say her name."
A silence pressed between them—too brittle to last.
"I will protect what's left," she said coldly. "You cannot. I am taking Nerissa."
She turned, torn leather cloak catching wind, and stormed back toward the Long Hall.
Fen chased after, shouting hoarsely, "And where will you go?! Where have you been?"
At the broken mouth of Alfazar's cavern, Nevun reined his mount to a halt.
The vessel, once a marvel of sleek design—was now a twisted wreckage, half-buried beneath collapsed boulders. Steam hissed from vents, and one wing-like fin was bent skyward like a broken blade.
The path into the cavern was a ruin. Stone tumbled in uneven waves down the slope, and smoke drifted from within. Nevun dismounted and picked his way forward carefully.
Halfway down, four figures emerged from the gloom—armored, limping. Their helms were gone, faces streaked with ash.
Nevun awkwardly raised a hand. "Kho—Khoren."
The leader of the group—broad, silver-armored, with a jagged cut across his forehead, turned sharply.
"Sword Khoren," Nevun repeated. The title marked the man not as a strategist, but as a weapon. A soldier honed for the front lines.
Khoren nodded. "Scout Nevun."
"The tablets have been secured," Nevun said. "We're to exfiltrate at once."
He gestured toward the crushed vessel. "Though you might want to tell the Crown your transport is now part of the mountain."
Khoren grunted, voice low. "We'll improvise."
High above, the wind shifted.
From the outer cliffs of the valley, a wide view of the devastation spread like a wound across the land. Smoke plumed in thin columns. Rubble glinted in scattered light.
But louder than ruin was the silence.
A wrongness in the world.
The wyverns—beasts of wind and instinct sensed it. From beyond the ranges, they turned their gaze inward.
Alfazar was silent.
As if gone.
A hundred scaled heads lifted. Wings spread.
And like stormclouds, they came.
Inside the Long Hall, Maelhan moved among the wounded. Blood clung to his robes. His hands shook only slightly—in practice, not peace.
He stitched. He poured salves. But his eyes were far. Behind every gesture, a ghost hovered. Not of the dead, but of decisions made.
How had it come to this?
And as the moan of the wind shifted, his hands froze.
A sound.
Like death screamed through steel lungs.
Maelhan turned to the wide hall doors and saw them.
Black shapes in the sky.
Dozens. No—hundreds.
Wyverns.
Descending.
Talyri, still trapped beneath rubble, jerked her head upward as the shrieks pierced the sky. Her heart pounded. She tried again to cry for help—but now her voice was hoarse. She could only listen and wait.
Belligarde and Fen crested the ridge, their voices still sharp with argument as they picked their way over shattered stone. The Long Hall came into view—hazy, distant, but unmistakable. Then, just as Belligarde turned to throw another bitter word his way, the sky began to blacken.
They both paused.
Belligarde looked up, jaw set.
Fen whispered, "No…"
Khoren and his soldiers, standing among the ruin of their transport, froze as one. Nevun slowly reached for the reins of his mount.
Khoren looked to the sky and murmured, "They've come to bury us."
At the forest's edge, the scout leader—half-mounted and ready to move, glanced over his shoulder at the darkening air.
His breath caught.
The sky was screaming.
And the valley would scream with it.