Lys didn't lower his hand. The heat from the third seal—the Core of the Sun—was still pulsing against his skin, a rhythmic thrum that matched the man's frantic heartbeat.
You say they're coming, Valerius," Lys said, his voice finally losing its divine echo and returning to the cracking, weary tone of a nineteen-year-old. "But look at you. You're shivering in the mud, half-tainted by the very thing that wants me dead. Why should I believe the word of a man who was, five minutes ago, trying to tear my throat out?"Valerius slumped against a pile of empty armor. "Because the Dragon didn't just burn my skin, boy. It opened my eyes. I saw the network. The Eclipsed... they are the ones who chose the dark. They aren't husks. They're masters."
Lys looked at his trembling palms. "I'm not a boy. I'm a cage. And the lock is breaking."
"Then you'll need more than a cage," a sharp, melodic voice rang out from the jagged rocks above the pass. "You'll need a blade that knows how to bleed." Lys spun around, his boots scuffing the new-grown grass. Standing on a natural stone arch were two figures who looked like they belonged to a different age.
The speaker was a woman clad in leather armor reinforced with iridescent scales—not Dragon scales, but something lighter, like a dragon-fly's wing. She carried a spear that hummed with a low, blue light. Beside her stood a massive man, his face hidden behind a mask carved from weirwood, carrying a shield the size of a tavern door.
"The Monks of the Well sent us," the woman said, leaping down with a grace that defied gravity. "I am Sora. The mountain of muscle behind me is Kael." Sora," Lys said, his eyes narrowing. "They told me the Wardens were extinct. That the Dragon was the last defense left."
"The Monks tell a lot of stories to keep their 'Vessels' obedient," Sora said, walking toward him with a critical eye. She stopped just outside the circle of the oasis. "They didn't tell you that the Shin Dragon's power is toxic to the world if it isn't channeled through a focused point. Look at this grass, Lys. It's beautiful, but it's wrong. It's growing on stone. In a week, it will wither and turn into glass because it has no roots in reality."
Lys looked down at the vibrant green beneath his feet. "I... I saved him," he gestured to Valerius. "The light restored him".
It didn't restore him," Kael grumbled, his voice muffled by the wooden mask as he stepped down. "It paused his death. That sigil on his chest is a tether. As long as it glows, the Eclipsed can see through him. He's a beacon."
Lys stepped between the Wardens and the shivering captain. "I won't let you kill him. I didn't unlock the first seal just to let more blood hit the snow."
Sora smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "We don't want his blood, Vessel. We want your focus. If you keep leaking power like a cracked jar, you'll burn this entire mountain range into a crystal tomb before the enemy even arrives."
She held out her hand. "The Eclipsed are three hours out. We have a sanctuary in the lower caves, but we have to move now. Can you hold the Dragon in, or are we going to have to carry you?"
Lys felt the remaining seals throb. The Dragon within let out a low, satisfied purr, as if mocking his struggle.
"I can hold it," Lys said, his jaw setting. "But Valerius comes with us. If he's a beacon, then I'll be the shadow that hides him."