---
[Exterior: Cindervault — a storm-wreathed isle once lost to legend. It floats lower than any known citadel, veiled in thick red mist. The skies above it churn in spirals of broken gravity.]
[Interior: Starwake — war table. A crude map made of stitched cloudpaper and moving aether-ink charts the descent path. Around it, representatives from the Zephyrite Consortium, the Aetherian Remnants, and even the rogue Corsair Courts.]
Sylrae:
"Cindervault holds the last skybeast—Myrrenox. A creature made when the Bound first bled into our world. It fed on war. And then it slept… until now."
Zephyrite Seer (eyes veiled in crystal smoke):
> "You plan to awaken a god-eater and hope it sides with us?"
Sylrae:
> "No. I plan to bind it. There's a rite buried in the Ashen Canticles. Kaelen and I studied it years ago—back when we thought all this was myth."
Corsair Captain Venn:
> "And who'll perform the rite now that your skyburned martyr's gone?"
[Sylrae draws a blade from her belt. Not for combat—but ceremonial. The handle is carved with ancient Skyborne script. She stares at it.]
Sylrae (quietly):
"I will."
---
[Exterior: Descent pod — plunging through red mist. Lightning arcs across the hull. Sylrae, Thane, and a few handpicked warriors brace themselves. Something beneath the clouds moves. Not land. Breathing.]
Thane (murmurs):
"Do you hear that?"
Sylrae (eyes closed):
"It's humming. The same tone as the Bound's seal—but lower. Heavier."
[They land. The ground is soft, fibrous. They stand in the maw of a sleeping behemoth. Mountains shift. Wings stretch—each one the size of a citadel's shadow.]
---
[Interior: Myrrenox's Core Altar — a half-submerged platform of bone and obsidian. The rite begins. Candles flicker against no wind. The runes carved into Sylrae's arms begin to glow.]
Sylrae (chanting in Old Skyborne):
> "Let chains break to form a pact. Let hunger fold to will.
By the blood of flight and fall,
Rise—not as master, but as stormbound kin."
[A tremor. The air grows thin. Myrrenox stirs. One eye opens—opaline and ancient.]
Myrrenox (voice like collapsing mountains):
> "Another oath. Another war. Why should I rise?"
Sylrae (bleeding from her palms, fierce):
> "Because they're not coming for thrones. They're coming for the sky itself.
Join us—and you won't fight for kings. You'll fight for air. For freedom."
---
[Silence. Then—Myrrenox exhales. Cities could collapse in the wake. But it bows.]
Myrrenox:
> "Then I rise… stormbound."
---
[Exterior: As they ascend back to the surface, the skies part for a moment. Somewhere far above, in the ghost-realm of the Bound—Kaelen watches.]
Kaelen (smirking):
"She did it. She always does."
---
End of Chapter Eighteen