The sky above the Aetherial Vale was unlike any Lyra had seen in all her years as a Skystrider. There was no moonlight here, only an endless swirl of stars etched into the celestial dome like diamond dust scattered by a divine hand. The stars shimmered with strange hues—violet, crimson, emerald—tracing constellations that did not match any known to Aethoria.
Each breath Lyra took was thick with latent magic, humming through the air like a second heartbeat. She stood at the threshold of a massive hollow carved into the mountain's heart—what Aevara had named The Vault of Stars. And this was no ordinary cave. Its stone glistened with crystalline threads, reflecting the heavens above with impossible clarity, and its walls pulsed faintly, like the structure itself was alive and watching.
Behind her, Aevara strode forward, her long dark coat billowing like wings. The elven Warden moved with a grace honed over centuries, her twin blades strapped to her back in an ornate X across her shoulders. Her silver hair shimmered like mercury under the starlight, and the deep blue of her eyes held the distant calm of someone who had stared down monsters and walked through storms unshaken.
"So," Aevara murmured, voice low as she approached the threshold, "you still wish to enter?"
Lyra nodded. "If this is where the Heart of Eldarath lies—then I have no choice."
Ciri, perched on a jagged outcropping above, ruffled her feathers and offered a mental pulse of concern.
"The aether here is... unstable. Like the sky before a thunderstorm. I don't like it."
"It's where the truth is," Lyra whispered aloud. "And the next piece of the map."
Aevara narrowed her eyes and placed a gloved hand against the crystalline wall. It lit beneath her touch, glyphs unfurling in curling spirals. The mountain trembled softly. With a low, keening groan, the great stone doors opened, revealing a chamber beyond—vast, circular, and ancient. At its center rose a dais surrounded by rings of hovering starlight stones, each etched with symbols of a forgotten tongue.
"Then step carefully, child of wind," said Aevara. "For what lies within remembers more than it forgets."
As Lyra descended the spiral path toward the dais, the air grew warmer, heavier. Whispers brushed her ears—echoes of forgotten voices murmuring in broken Aerthysian. Her artifact pendant pulsed harder against her chest, and each pulse seemed to harmonize with the light of the glyphs.
"I can feel it," she whispered. "It's here. Just like the visions."
Aevara stayed behind, watching with arms crossed. "This place was a sanctum for the Shardbearers," she said. "The Vault stored what the Empire could not destroy, and what it feared to understand."
Lyra stepped into the innermost ring. The moment her foot touched the stone, the hovering slabs spun faster, forming a halo of light and sound around her. Energy surged upward like a pillar of starlight—and the vault reacted.
In a flash, the world changed.
Suddenly, Lyra stood not in the vault—but in a memory.
She floated above a city of impossible beauty. Golden towers rose above cloud-seas, and airships with silken sails drifted between marble skybridges. The sky was not blue, but shimmering silver, and dozens of winged beings soared above—Skystriders, Aerthysian Wyrmcallers, floating arc-mages held aloft by pure aether. The capital of Eldarath—at its height.
And then the sky darkened.
An obsidian tear opened across the horizon, vast and unnatural. From it came smoke, monsters, and thunder. Creatures unlike anything Lyra had seen—scaled horrors with glowing runes carved into their bones, and black serpents made of ash and flame. The city screamed. Towers collapsed. The sky bled.
A tall figure—cloaked in gold and shadow—stood at the center of it all, raising a burning staff toward the heavens. His face was obscured, but Lyra felt her pendant react violently, almost pulling her forward. The man turned, and for the briefest moment, his gaze met hers.
Eyes of burning emerald. A mark on his brow—the same as her pendant's shard.
Then the vision shattered.
Lyra gasped and fell to one knee, heart racing.
"That… was the fall of Eldarath," she panted. "The Empire's end. The rift..."
Aevara was at her side in a heartbeat, helping her up. "You saw it, didn't you? The war they buried. The truth they erased."
Lyra nodded, still shaking. "And I saw him. The one from my dreams. The one tied to the shard."
"The Shardbearer," Aevara said grimly. "The last Emperor's enforcer. He was said to wield the Blade of Stars and command creatures from beyond the Veil."
"Then he's the one who broke the sky," Lyra whispered.
A rumble shook the chamber, and the stones flared. A gate formed at the back of the dais—a portal of swirling crystal.
Ciri cried out telepathically, "Something's coming—fast!"
Out of the gate spilled a creature as tall as three men—its form made of jagged obsidian and glimmering blue flame. It howled with the voice of storms, eyes burning with unnatural hunger. A Voidspawn Guardian, summoned from the memory itself. A remnant of the battle. A protector of the vault.
Aevara unsheathed her blades with a hiss of metal and stood between the beast and Lyra. "Stay behind me!"
But Lyra stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "No. I've trained for this."
She drew her sky-forged blade—Aerwyn, gifted by her father—and her pendant flared with blinding blue light.
The fight began like lightning.
The Voidspawn roared and swept a claw toward Aevara, who leapt into the air in a twisting arc, blades flashing. She struck across its chest, scoring a deep gash—but the creature barely flinched. Lyra darted in from below, slashing at its leg, then rolling to avoid a blast of flame.
"Divide and flank!" Aevara barked.
Ciri dove from above, striking the beast's face with talon and wing. Lyra used the distraction to dash forward and slam her blade into the burning core near its chest—but the creature caught her mid-swing and hurled her across the chamber.
Lyra slammed into a pillar, coughing blood. Her pendant cracked—but did not break. She could feel it calling, pulsing with energy unspent.
Then a voice whispered in her mind.
"Unseal me."
She reached for the shard, and her mind opened.
Power flooded her senses—memories not her own. Wings made of starlight. A blade made from a comet's edge. The sky singing as Eldarath fell.
Her pendant reshaped itself, the crystal extending into a long-handled glaive, rimmed with blue fire. Her armor shimmered and reforged into a suit of aethersteel laced with flight-thread. Her eyes glowed violet and silver.
She rose into the air.
The creature roared again—but this time, Lyra answered with a shout of her own, hurling herself forward with speed that split the air like thunder. Her glaive cleaved through the monster's arm in a burst of blue flame. Aevara followed her lead, striking the beast's leg, while Ciri distracted it from above.
Together, they wore it down. Blow by blow. Flame by flame.
With a final cry, Lyra drove her weapon into the creature's core—and it exploded in a burst of starlight and shadow.
Silence returned.
The vault trembled, and the gate at the chamber's end opened once more.
Inside, resting atop a pedestal of light, was a crystal cube of impossible complexity—rotating within itself, each layer revealing different symbols, maps, constellations, and names.
Lyra stepped forward, breathing heavily. She reached out and touched the artifact.
It unfolded like a flower.
A new piece of the map revealed itself—an encrypted trail leading toward the Devouring Storm.
"The next path," Lyra said softly. "It leads through the storm. Toward the ruins of the palace."
Aevara nodded slowly. "You've passed the first trial. The Vault accepts you."
"But this isn't over," Lyra whispered. "Something watches. Something ancient. And it knows I'm coming."
Ciri shivered.
"Then we'd better move fast."