Chapter 32 – The Aetherion Shard
The council meeting dissolved into the deep shadows of the castle halls, each commander drifting away with their own thoughts and schemes. The great doors to the throne room closed with a resonant thud, leaving the corridors silent except for the low hum of the runes embedded in the black marble.
Keal walked alone to his chambers, the echo of his boots following him like a ghost. His mind was already on the Gate—what it would mean, what it could bring, and the things he might need to kill to protect it.
He had just stepped into the quiet of his room when the door creaked open again.
Vaelgor Embercrest entered without asking permission, which, for anyone else, would have been suicide. The crimson-haired dragon in human form leaned against the doorway, his golden eyes burning with a predator's excitement.
"I might have a way to keep your precious Gate open," he said casually.
Keal turned toward him, his cosmic gaze narrowing. "Speak."
Vaelgor stepped inside, lowering his voice.
"There's a stone. Not just any stone—an Aetherion Shard. A relic from the dawn of worlds, born in the heart of dying stars. It doesn't just hold power—it breathes it. Feed it enough energy, and it will never stop giving. With enough shards, you could open the Gate… and keep it open. Forever."
Keal was silent for a moment, studying him. "Where?"
A slow grin spread across Vaelgor's face. "Not anywhere pleasant. The Shards only form in the deepest abyss of the Gloomspire Caverns—a rift in reality where the ground itself shifts like a living thing. And the things that guard it…" He let the sentence trail off. "Let's just say they eat dragons."
Keal's voice was steady, almost cold. "Then we kill them."
They went straight to Myros the Gravekeeper, who was still buried in the black tome of the Gate's spellwork. The necromancer looked up, hollow-eyed but sharp, as they entered his study.
"You've found something," Myros said, more statement than question.
Vaelgor dropped into a chair with a casual sprawl. "Ever heard of the Aetherion Shard?"
Myros froze for half a heartbeat. His skeletal fingers curled over the edges of his tome. "You're speaking of relics even the gods feared to touch. Yes… I've heard of it. I've read of it. And if you truly have enough of them, it could not only power the Gate… it could anchor it. Allow travel both ways without collapse."
Keal stepped forward. "What would it take?"
"A great deal," Myros said. "Enough shards to form a core large enough to withstand the strain of the Gate's pull. But…" He tilted his head. "If you truly mean to retrieve them, I suggest you bring back more than you need. The Gate may demand a price you cannot yet see."
Keal's expression did not change. "We leave now."
The journey to the Gloomspire Caverns was a descent into a world without light. The air was heavy, thick with whispers that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. The walls pulsed faintly with veins of violet crystal, and the ground shifted underfoot, rearranging itself like the inside of a living creature.
They encountered the guardians almost at once.
They were not beasts, not truly. They were fragments of shadow shaped into flesh, armored in obsidian plates, their eyes burning like dying suns. When they moved, the air itself seemed to fold, as though the world was reluctant to allow their passage.
Vaelgor shifted partially into his dragon form, his wings tearing the cavern's shadows apart, and Keal unleashed his cosmic aura, shattering the first wave in a storm of raw power. But more came, crawling from the walls, the ceiling, the very stone beneath their feet.
It was not a battle—it was a slaughter.
By the time the last guardian fell, the cavern trembled, as though acknowledging defeat.
At the heart of the rift, they found it.
A monolith of shimmering violet crystal, pulsing with an inner storm. Shards broke from it as they drew near, drifting into Keal's hands with the weight of condensed eternity. The energy within them was unlike anything he had ever felt—pure, constant, alive.
"This," Vaelgor said with a grin, "will keep your Gate open until the stars themselves die."
When they returned, Myros was waiting. He closed his tome with a slow, deliberate motion, his hollow gaze fixed on the glowing shards in Keal's hands.
"You've brought me the heart of a star," he murmured. "And I have finished the spell."
The Gate was no longer just an idea.
It was inevitable.