The group crossed the Stormcrown Peaks at dawn lightning still crackling in the distance but no longer hunting them. Seraphine's warriors moved with renewed purpose, their masks now pushed back, faces visible and weary but resolute. Thorne flew low reconnaissance while Elara walked beside Seraphine, the resonance guiding them east toward the final call.
By midday they reached the Rift Plateau a vast, cracked plain where the ground simply ended. Beyond it yawned the Voidscar: a tear in reality itself. Black and violet light bled from the edges, twisting space like heat haze over flame. Islands of broken stone floated in the void, connected by fragile bridges of solidified lightning. Gravity bent at odd angles; echoes of distant screams drifted on the wind.
The resonance thrummed painful now, almost frantic. The core remnant waited at the scar's heart.
Seraphine stared into the void. "This is where the Devourer first tore through. The queens sealed it here, but the wound never fully closed."
Thorne landed beside them wings folding. "And the final fragment?"
"Inside," Elara said. "It's calling everything home. The other fragments we absorbed… they're resonating with it. Like pieces returning to the whole."
One of Seraphine's warriors a tall woman named Veyra stepped forward. "We go with you. The Drowned Echoes owe this debt."
Thorne met Elara's eyes. Through the bond: We don't know what's waiting. The void could sever the link.
She squeezed his hand. Then we cross it together. No other way.
They stepped onto the first floating bridge stone shifting underfoot, gravity pulling sideways then down. Lightning bridges crackled, holding just long enough for each step. The void whispered voices of absorbed fragments, now purified but still echoing warnings.
Halfway across, the scar widened. A massive platform floated at the center black marble veined with violet, cracked like the Final Throne back in Veilhold. At its heart stood the core remnant: no longer a single shape, but a swirling vortex of shadow, lightning, frost, and silence merging the essences of all previous fragments into one colossal entity. Eyes opened across its surface dozens, violet and hungry.
You brought them all, it rumbled. Thank you. Now return what is mine.
The vortex pulsed pulling at the absorbed shards inside Elara. Pain lanced through her chest; she gasped, dropping to one knee.
Thorne caught her wings shielding. "Fight it!"
Seraphine raised her staff violet energy flaring. "It wants the fragments back. To become whole again."
Veyra and the warriors formed a circle around Elara blades drawn, echo wards glowing.
The vortex lashed out tendrils of shadow and lightning whipping toward them.
Thorne roared curse-flame exploding outward in a protective ring. The tendrils recoiled, sizzling.
Elara forced herself upright crown mark blazing. "It's trying to reclaim them. We can't let it complete the merge."
She channeled Queen's Chorus golden queens manifesting in a protective ring, singing harmony that pushed back the vortex's pull.
Seraphine joined her violet energy weaving into the chorus, strengthening it.
The remnant laughed multilayered, deafening. You delay. You do not stop. The void hungers. Your bond will break here where no queen has ever returned.
A tendril struck Thorne wrapping his wing, pulling him toward the vortex.
Elara screamed his name chains snapping out, wrapping the tendril, burning it away with merged flame.
Thorne broke free landing hard, breathing ragged.
The remnant's eyes focused on them. Choose. Sever the bond and live. Or hold it and be consumed together.
The void whispered louder visions flickering at the edges of sight: Elara alone, Thorne gone; Thorne alone, wings broken; Veilhold burning without them.
Elara met Thorne's gaze steady, unafraid.
"We choose us," she said.
Golden light erupted brighter than ever. The resonance surged, pushing back the void's pull.
Seraphine stepped forward. "Then let us end this."
The warriors charged blades flashing, echo wards blazing.
The final battle for the core began.
[End of Chapter 9 – Volume 2]