The sky above the ancient ruins had turned the color of bruised ash, heavy with clouds that seemed to mourn the silence of the fallen city. Lyra Flynn stood at the edge of a crumbled colonnade, her violet eyes scanning the skeletal remains of a structure once magnificent. Columns broken by time leaned at awkward angles, and beneath her boots, the worn mosaic floor whispered stories long forgotten.
They had arrived at dusk, guided by the last flickers of the Aetherstream's glow, and it was clear this place had once held grandeur rivaling Elysium Spire. Now, the air was thick with magic left to rot.
Beside her, Kaelen Voss crouched near the edge of a broken stairway, brushing his gloved fingers over faint etchings scorched into stone.
"This isn't just another outpost," he murmured, his pale blue eyes flicking toward her. "This was a sanctum."
Lyra shifted her stance, her windcloak fluttering in the breeze. "Of what?"
Kaelen didn't answer immediately. His silver-streaked raven hair caught the dying light as he leaned closer to the markings. His voice dropped. "Of the Aerthys Council itself."
Zerai, the drake-bonded guardian, snorted behind them, his obsidian scales twitching with unease. The beast, once feared in the Skypaw Wastes, had grown fiercely protective since Lyra had saved him from the collapsing Aether Gate weeks before.
Lyra approached, brushing dust away from a slab half-buried under rubble. Beneath the grime was a sigil — the same one etched onto her map's corner. Wings surrounding an eclipsed sun.
"It's here," she whispered.
Kaelen rose, tension pulsing beneath his longcoat. "Then so is whatever destroyed it."
The wind shifted.
They felt it — the hush, the unnatural silence of prey sensing a predator. Zerai hissed low in his throat, and Lyra instinctively reached for her shortblade. Around them, the ruins shimmered as if exhaling after centuries of slumber.
A figure stepped out from the veil of mist.
She was tall, her silhouette cloaked in tattered crimson robes that danced with ember-light. Her face was obscured by a bone-and-glass mask carved like a bird of prey. Arcane symbols glowed across her sleeves, and her voice rang sharp as obsidian.
"You trespass on sovereign soil."
Kaelen stepped forward. "The Aerthys Empire is dead."
The woman tilted her head. "Then why does its breath still cling to the wind?"
Before another word could be spoken, her staff struck the ground — a burst of azure flame spiraling outward. Lyra leapt aside as runes etched into the floor blazed to life. The stones beneath them groaned.
"She's a Warden!" Kaelen shouted. "Ancient order — protectors of imperial vaults!"
Zerai roared and surged forward, his wings unfurling, lightning crackling along his hide. The masked woman lifted her hand. Chains of spectral light burst upward, binding the drake mid-lunge.
Lyra drew her blade — not the steel one. This was the enchanted artifact she had found two chapters prior: Veyrion, the Whisperfang — a silver dagger that hummed with forgotten wind-magic.
She sprinted through the blaze of blue flame, wind curling around her legs, her braid snapping behind her like a whip. The Warden turned too slowly — Veyrion slashed across her staff and the air erupted with a scream like metal being torn from the sky.
Kaelen followed, twin sabers flashing, dancing in the old style of the Skyguard elite. The Warden matched his strikes, her limbs precise, too precise — not entirely human.
"She's a revenant!" Kaelen grunted, blades locking with her staff.
Lyra blinked. A revenant — a soulbound guardian, neither living nor dead, fused with relics of the old empire.
The ruins trembled as the battle raged.
Beneath the stones, something awakened.
A deep, pulsing thrum — not sound, but memory. The kind that settled in bones and refused to leave. Lyra stumbled back, clutching Veyrion as it vibrated with urgency.
The Warden shrieked — the mask splitting, eyes beneath blazing with celestial fire. "You are not meant to walk these halls!"
She unleashed a burst of energy, sending Kaelen hurtling into a pillar. He struck hard and slumped, dazed.
Lyra stood alone now.
Zerai was still pinned, his wings bleeding ether. The Warden raised her staff, but Veyrion glowed with wind and starlight. Lyra whispered the words etched into its hilt — old Aethorian: "Aeris vi thol."
The wind surged.
The flames died.
The Warden froze — as if some part of her remembered the phrase.
Lyra stepped closer. "You were once a protector. You don't have to be their shadow anymore."
The Warden's flames flickered.
And then her mask cracked.
Not with violence — with peace.
Her body shimmered, light unraveling the centuries. She whispered a name, forgotten by time, and vanished in a gust of wind and gold.
The chains holding Zerai faded. The drake rose slowly, licking blood from his foreleg.
Kaelen groaned and sat up. "Remind me not to piss off a ghost with a crown."
Lyra stared at the empty place where the Warden had stood.
And then — the vault doors opened behind her.
They stepped into a vast chamber, untouched by decay.
The walls gleamed with starmetal. Reliefs told of an empire not only of magic but ambition. A world reshaped by thought alone. And in the center — a pedestal bearing a crystal orb floating above a disc of ancient alloy.
Inside the orb shimmered a map — and more than that, a memory.
When Lyra touched it, visions flooded her.
She saw Eldarath — not ruined, not lost, but hidden within the Aetherstream itself, cloaked in folding dimensions. A living city of wonder and sorrow. A place built to survive the end of the world.
She saw the faces of the last Aerthys council.
And among them…
Her mother.
Younger. Alive. Sky-blue eyes like Lyra's. Wearing the same pendant Lyra kept hidden under her cloak.
She gasped and fell back. Kaelen caught her.
"What did you see?"
"My mother was there," she whispered. "She was one of them."
Zerai whined lowly. The chamber was changing. Light flickered. The pedestal sank into the floor.
Behind them, stone began to fall from the ceiling.
Kaelen grabbed the orb. "Let's move. Now!"
They ran through collapsing corridors, chased by echoes of long-dead voices. The wind howled with mourning, and Lyra felt the city itself scream in protest of being disturbed.
When they burst into the open sky, the ruins behind them crumbled completely, swallowed by the land.
They didn't speak until they'd camped on the edge of a narrow cliff that overlooked the Skyfall Mountains.
The orb rested between them, glowing faintly.
"I think Eldarath is alive," Lyra murmured. "Not just hidden. Living. Breathing. Waiting."
Kaelen nodded slowly. "And now we know it's not just treasure waiting there. It's truth."
She glanced at him, wind tossing her loose hair. "Will you follow me? Even if what we find... changes everything?"
He smiled, the first true one in days. "To the end."
Zerai stretched his wings, casting a massive shadow over the cliff's edge.
And beneath them, far below, the Aetherstream pulsed — like a heartbeat calling them home.
The campfire crackled gently as twilight fell across the broken ridges. The orb, set between Lyra and Kaelen, pulsed faintly — its glow casting flickers of gold against their weary faces.
Lyra hadn't spoken in hours.
Not since seeing her mother in that vision.
The image had been too clear, too vivid to be mistaken — the same snow-kissed hair, the soft curve of her jawline, the star-shaped birthmark near her brow that Lyra had inherited.
Kaelen kept his silence, eyes scanning the horizon with practiced vigilance. His expression was unreadable, but his posture was alert — like a coiled spring. Zerai lay beside them, curled protectively around the edge of the ridge, his breathing slow, wings twitching in dream or memory.
"I thought she died in the Skyfire Collapse," Lyra finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. "She left to chart a path through the Aetherstream and never returned."
Kaelen's brow furrowed. "And now we know why."
She nodded. "She was part of something greater. The fall of the Aerthys Empire… Eldarath… it's all tied to her."
"Then we follow the trail," he said. "And we find her — or what's left of the truth."
A distant howl echoed through the mountains.
Zerai rose in a flash, spines bristling.
Kaelen unsheathed his blades. "That's not a windwolf."
Out of the darkness, a low rumble answered. Trees shivered.
Lyra stood and gripped Veyrion. The blade pulsed — warning her. Something ancient was coming.
It emerged from the mist like a nightmare.
The creature was a colossus — a shadowbeast known in forgotten texts as a Velkrath. Taller than any tree, it resembled a jaguar with obsidian-scaled skin, molten cracks glowing along its ribs, and six smoldering eyes. Its breath withered the grass. The beast was not natural — it had been twisted by corrupted Aether.
It had followed them from the ruins.
"No running this time," Kaelen muttered.
Zerai let out a war-cry and leapt — wings spread, teeth bared.
The Velkrath met him midair with a swipe of its molten paw. Sparks flew as their bodies collided, and the earth shook.
Lyra didn't hesitate. She raced across the ridge, the wind bending to her will. With each step, Veyrion fed her motion, pulsing with arcane rhythm. She called on the wind rune embedded in her bracer — a relic left behind by the Warden.
"Aeris ignis!" she cried.
Gales erupted beneath her feet. She launched into the air, flipping over the Velkrath's massive shoulders. Her blade struck, carving a shallow line of silver light across its hide.
The beast roared.
Kaelen hurled one of his sabers — it spun with deadly grace, embedding itself in the Velkrath's flank. The creature reared back, disoriented. Zerai tackled it again, biting deep into its neck.
But the beast was relentless.
With a sweep of its tail, it flung Zerai into the cliffside. The drake groaned, wings pinned beneath a rockfall.
Lyra landed hard, tumbling through dirt.
The Velkrath lumbered toward her — eyes burning with pure hatred.
She didn't have time to think.
Instead, she felt.
The memory of the Warden's last words. The light in the ruins. Her mother's face.
All of it surged through her.
She lifted Veyrion, closed her eyes, and whispered:
"Let the wind remember."
The blade blazed white.
A dome of howling air formed around her. The Velkrath charged — and struck the barrier with a thunderclap of force. Light exploded. The beast shrieked, collapsing backward.
Kaelen rushed forward, grabbing Lyra as her knees gave out.
The Velkrath staggered — weakened but not dead.
"Kaelen!" she gasped. "The orb — it's reacting to the Aether surge!"
Indeed, the orb they had taken from the vault glowed violently. Runes spun around it in concentric rings.
Kaelen reached for it — and the air shattered.
The orb levitated between them, releasing a blast of spectral energy that tore through the Velkrath's heart. The beast froze — its body outlined in silver threads — and then it crumbled into dust, collapsing in on itself like a dying star.
Silence fell.
Even the wind held its breath.
They didn't speak for several minutes.
Zerai limped over, bruised but alive, lowering his head against Lyra's shoulder.
She stroked his scales gently. "You saved us."
Kaelen stared at the orb, which had gone dim again. "That wasn't just a weapon. That was a key."
Lyra nodded. "The map to Eldarath isn't a map. It's a guide — one that responds to threats. Triggers buried in ancient magic."
"And the closer we get," Kaelen said, "the more dangerous it becomes."
She looked at him — tired, bloodied, and brave. "You can still turn back."
He scoffed. "And let you fly headfirst into the most cursed place in Aethoria? Never."
She smiled faintly.
The first light of dawn crept across the mountains, casting a golden veil over the wreckage of the battle. In the glow, the orb shimmered once more — revealing a flickering path etched across the sky itself.
A floating bridge of energy, leading to the impossible.
Eldarath.
The Lost City.
Alive.
Waiting.
Calling them home.