The wind blew against my cheeks, sharp with salt and storm, as I stood on the edge of the Cliffs of Realmus. Below me, the chasm yawned wide, a gateway between realms, where tangled roots of ancient trees plunged from the highlands of Aetherion down into the abyssal dark. Somewhere beneath all that ruin and fog was the prison I had barely escaped. And beyond the horizon, in the bloodred light, was the kingdom I had been born to protect.
The sky had changed color completely. What had once been lavender dusk was now a deep, gory crimson, smeared with streaks of molten gold. The air itself seemed charged, filled with the tension of something coming, something terrible.
"The blood-sky ripens," Thumpan murmured behind me, his voice shrill like a whistle.
I turned slightly, my wings shifting behind my back. My duskfire wings was charred black with veins of flickering orange, their edges ember-hot. They pulsed when I breathed, as if they were part of my very soul now.
Thumpan, ancient and barely more than bone and stardust, hovered to my side, his molten eyes scanning the horizon.
"She moves," he said, his voice a crumbling whisper. "Morgana summons the Wyrm of Witherlight."
My throat tightened, I gulped. That name alone scraped like broken glass across my mind. The Wyrm is a creature that is older than the stars, forged in the void before the realms had names. Said to devour light, twist truth, unravel time.
"Why now?" I asked, although I felt afraid, but voice was steadier than I felt. "Why unleash a monster when she's already winning the throne?"
"Because fear wins faster than fire," Thumpan replied, "Aetherion needs to see what happens to those who resist her"
I stared back at the horizon, my heart beating fast. Frostbloom lay in the north of Aetherion, a place of quiet rebellion and hidden sanctuaries, and if Morgana unleashed that beast, the Wyrm would turn it to ash and ice.
"She means to make an example," I said.
Thumpan nodded, "And unless you rise now, child of duskfire, she will succeed."
THE FORCE
I found Bellatrix at the Tide-Fall Caverns, half-submerged in a salt-lake that shimmered like liquid moonlight. Her wings were translucent, She did not rise from the water when I arrived.
"I felt you coming," she said. "The water shifts when you breathe now."
"Then you know why I'm here."
She turned around to face me, her silver eyes met mine, cool and distant.
"To ask me to march to my death."
"To ask you to fight for what still breathes."
Bellatrix rose slowly, droplets of ice cold water sliding down her wings, her hair clinging to her back. "Frostbloom is already lost, what you are asking me to do is too dangerous, you're asking me to drown my soldiers for pride."
"I'm asking you to stop Morgana from summoning the Wyrm."
A flicker of something passed across her face, fear, then shame.
"She won't stop," Bellatrix said, "Not until the sea boils, not until Aetherion kneels before her."
I stepped closer to her, "Then we make her stop, I have Sorin, Pyrax and the rebels in my charge. With your tideblades, we could cut her army before the Wyrm is even raised, that... After we find a way out of this doomed land"
Bellatrix closed her eyes, she sighed deeply looking enraged "I should have killed Gaston Kyl when I had the chance."
The words hit the air like thunder.
"He came to me once," she continued, her voice softer now, "Before he turned Morgana for help, he told me he wanted to serve something greater, but I thought he meant justice. But it was only power, I let him live, I believed in him."
She looked up at me, eyes shining with tears she didn't shed. "All of this.....this ruin, this bleeding sky is because I was a coward."
I touched her arm, her skin felt cold and smooth as marble.
"No," I said. "This is because they lied, and schemed, and poisoned the world and not because you had faith."
A long silence stretched between us, filled only by the sound of distant waves crashing against the cliffs.
"If I come," Bellatrix said finally, "I want Morgana's head, no mercy, no imprisonment. Just justice."
"You'll have it," I promised.
She studied me, then nodded once. Her wings shimmered as they unfolded. "Then we leave at dawn. The tides will rise with us.
The war room in Bellatrix's court was carved into the roots of a giant sicamore tree. Light shimmered through glowing like crystals Maps of the pixie realm and the human realm was sprawled across the central stone table, marked with glowing glyphs of enemy positions.
Pyrax leaned over the table, his wings smoldering behind him. Sorin paced near the far wall, sharpening one of his mirror-blades.
"She agreed?" Pyrax asked as I entered.
"She did, Bellatrix will marche with us."
Sorin looked up, dark eyes narrowing. "That means we're moving into marshland with fire, tide, and shadow. Three elements."
"Three Guardians," I said.
He tilted his head. "We haven't earned that title yet."
"Then let's earn it in Frostbloom."
Pyrax grinned. "I like this version of you. You're angrier, hungrier for vengeance"
"Determined," I corrected. "The sky is bleeding, all will soon be lost, we don't have time for fear."
Sorin tossed his blade into the air, caught it, and nodded. "Then let's fly before the world ends."
We flew all through night back to the rebel camp where Freasis and the others waited for our return from our mission to forge alliances with the lost forgotten clans hidden away in the Abyssal... This wasteland.
My wings burned with every beat as I flapped, the duskfire coursing through me like a second heart. Below us, the marshlands stretched into silence, fog curling like ghost fingers over icy pools and frost-laced trees.
Bellatrix led the vanguard, her warriors. They glided over the shallows like silver eels, blades shimmering with tide-magic as they followed behind us. Pyrax dove low over the terrain, lighting the way with arcs of flame, Sorin moved through the mist, half-shadow, half-blade.
I kept to the sky, watching, scanning the wasteland.
At the edge of the marsh, the ground cracked open, Ice split into thousand pieces and the fog lifted, in the distance, something moved.
A long, sinuous shape. It moved, coiling, glowing faintly with sickly green light.
"The Wyrm," I whispered.
Its presence pulled at the air, at the sky.
"Morgana is conjuring it up, and it will soon awaken".