The silence that followed was heavier than the wind. Lys collapsed onto his hands and knees, his fingers sinking into thick, emerald moss that shouldn't have existed at this altitude. His lungs burned, but the air he inhaled was sweet, filtered through the shimmering aether still hanging in the atmosphere.
The mercury in his remaining seals hissed He could feel the heat radiating off his forearms—a physical reminder that his body was a furnace never meant to hold such a fire.
"Focus, Lys," he whispered to himself, his voice shaking. "Close the gates. Seal the well." He concentrated on the mental image of a heavy iron door slamming shut over the Great Well. Slowly, the iridescent light beneath his skin faded, leaving behind a dull ache in his joints and a strange, hollow ringing in his ears.
As the crystalline mist began to settle, a sound broke the stillness: a jagged, wet cough. Lys forced himself to stand, his legs feeling like lead. He walked toward the edge of the new oasis, where the lush grass met the charred line of the original stone. There, amidst a pile of hollow, discarded shadow-armor, lay a man. He wasn't a husk anymore. The gray, smoke-like skin had been peeled away by the Shin Dragon's light, replaced by the pale, trembling flesh of a human. He looked to be in his middle years, dressed in the tattered remains of a scout's tunic, clutching his throat as if rediscovering how to breathe. Lys looked down at him, his hand instinctively hovering over his third seal. The Dragon within stirred, a low vibration in his mind that felt like a predator sensing a wounded animal. Please," the man rasped, his voice cracking. "I... I remember the sun. I remember my name." Lys felt a surge of conflict. The monks had warned him that the Shin Dragon's light was absolute—it either restored it or it erased. This man was a living paradox: a soul returned to its body, but still carrying the stain of the enemy.
"Who are you?" Lys asked, his voice still carrying a faint, metallic echo of the Dragon.
"Valerius," the man managed to say, shivering. "I was a captain... before the shadow took the capital. They're coming, boy. Not just husks. The Eclipsed are coming. They felt the Dragon wake up." Lys looked toward the horizon. The sky was darkening, but not with natural clouds. A Great Shadow was moving across the distant valleys, drawn toward the mountain like a moth to a flame.