The smoke had not yet cleared. The champion loomed at the edge of sight, unmoving, its chains rattling faintly like distant thunder. The air was heavy with ash, the scent of scorched earth clinging to every breath. Mae stood stiff in the silence, her chains dimming to a low violet glow, their energy coiling restlessly beneath her skin.
Ashar was the first to break the stillness. His blade lowered, flames guttering into faint embers. His voice carried the weight of grief. "Kaine is gone."
Riven's wings shivered, folding against his bloodied back. He kept his gaze down, jaw tight, as if saying nothing would shield him from the truth. Sethis' shadows slithered closer to Mae, protective and sharp, though even his eyes betrayed strain.
Lucien finally dragged himself upright, chains dragging heavily behind him. His face was drawn, his body battered, but his gaze never left the colossal figure in the distance. "It has not left," he muttered, almost to himself. "It watches."
Mae's throat tightened. The champion had not attacked again, not pressed its advantage. That was worse. It wanted something. Her. The fracture. She could feel it in her bones, in the trembling of her veins. It waited like a predator, patient and certain.
Her chest burned, but she forced herself to speak. "We cannot fight it like this. Not now."
The others turned toward her, some with defiance in their eyes, others with resignation. She had never seen them this way. Broken, mourning, but still standing. And in that moment, Mae felt the fracture pulse with strange clarity. She was not only the center of their power. She was the tether that kept them bound together.
Her gaze lingered on Lucien, his chains flickering faintly in rhythm with hers. A warmth stirred in her chest, guilt, grief, and something sharper, something that frightened her more than the champion's gaze. Her eyes shifted to Riven, the way his wings dragged, feathers torn but still defiant. Then to Ashar, flames guttering but not extinguished. And to Sethis, whose shadows coiled closer, protective, unyielding.
She inhaled shakily, her voice low. "Kaine gave his life to give us this moment. If we waste it, then his sacrifice means nothing."
The violet glow along her chains brightened, catching in the smoke like starlight. She did not know what path stretched ahead, but she felt the fracture stir with a whisper that was almost guiding.
The champion shifted again, just enough for the ground to tremble. All eyes turned to it, breaths held.
And then, faint but undeniable, Mae felt it, the presence she had glimpsed in the ashes. Closer now. Watching.
Her pulse quickened. They were not alone.
Mae stepped forward, ash crunching beneath her boots. Every part of her screamed to turn back, to cling to Lucien's warning, to Kaine's sacrifice, to the thin thread of safety the Fallen still offered. But the fracture inside her pulsed with unrelenting force, a rhythm that demanded more. She knew it now. There was no running. Not anymore.
Lucien's chains whipped out, cutting through the smoke to block her path. "Mae, stop." His voice cracked with desperation, not command. "You don't know what you're walking into."
She didn't slow. Her chains surged in answer, violet fire clashing against his white-hot bonds. Sparks scattered like stars breaking apart. "I have to," she said, voice steady despite the tremor in her chest.
Riven moved next, wings snapping open despite the blood soaking them. He landed hard in front of her, one hand braced against his ribs. "You'll die. Don't you understand? That thing doesn't just want to kill you, it wants to own you."
Ashar's flames roared to life at her flank, his eyes wild with fury and grief. "We hold the line. That is how we win. Not by throwing yourself at it."
Sethis' shadows hissed at her back, rising like black serpents. His whisper slid against her ear, venomous and sharp. "You think you're ready, but you are nothing to it. Nothing."
Mae's chains flared outward in a storm of violet light, striking at once. Not to wound, but to bind. Threads of pure energy coiled around each of them, wrapping wings, flames, shadows, and chains in place. They resisted instantly, the battlefield shaking with the force of their rebellion.
Lucien's eyes went wide, shock flashing across his face as his own chains refused to obey him, pinned in her grip. "Mae, what are you doing?"
Her throat tightened, but she didn't let go. "What Kaine died for," she said. "What all of this has been leading to."
Riven's wings strained, steel feathers grinding against the bindings. Ashar's fire howled, shadows tore at the light, but Mae's will pressed harder, harder, until her knees shook and her body trembled. Her vision blurred, but the chains held.
The champion moved. Just one step forward, and the ground cracked like glass beneath its weight. Its eyes, those hollow stars, locked on her, and its voice tore across the battlefield again.
"You come."
The words weren't a threat. They were a verdict.
Mae's breath hitched, but she stood taller, violet fire spilling around her like a storm. The Fallen fought her bonds, shouting her name, begging, cursing. But she drowned them out. She had no choice. If she didn't learn everything the fracture demanded, every secret, every wound, every truth, it would claim her anyway.
Her chains rose higher, spreading wide like wings of living light. The air itself seemed to bend beneath the force. For the first time, the champion hesitated.
Mae took another step forward. Then another. And as the others strained helplessly in her bindings, she whispered to herself, so low only she could hear it. "I will not break. I will become."
The champion leaned closer, its vast form eclipsing the fractured sky. Its chains writhed in answer to hers, echoing her fire with stolen light. It extended its hand, vast as a mountain, and lowered it toward her as though offering, not to crush, but to claim.
Mae's heart hammered. She didn't know if the next step would kill her, or if it would reveal the truth she had been running from since the beginning.
But she took it anyway. What Mae didn't realize was that by doing this, things would start to change, and fast. The moment when their hands met, the battlefield vanished. The world itself seemed to breathe.
Mae gasped, her vision burning in front of her. She understood too late, this was the decision the orb had spoken of. The beginning of the new age, or the death of everything. Not through conquest. Not through death. But through her submission.
Mae started to realize, this was the war the orb showed her. It never told her the choice she was going to be faced with, and which one would lead to the path she wanted to avoid, but this was not the same. This was different. Kaine was the only one who fell, the only sacrifice.
Just as Mae noticed the difference in the deaths from the vision, she channeled all her thoughts and energy, hoping her powers would come to her aid at one. Mae started to glow, her chains throbbed against her, wings grew in her back, and she saw the patterns in the void.
She looked at the champion, smiling through the storm. "I'm yours." And the champion fell to its knees.