Cayden Dragomir:
My biceps felt as if they had been torn apart as I fired arrow after arrow into the screeching shadows.
Despite dawn's rapid approach, the Phantoms raged on as if they would linger long after the withered rift had closed.
Normally, when they attack, it's just to wreak havoc and kill as many people as they can.
But tonight is different.
If I moved aside, would they attack me like the mindless beasts they are, or would they rush past, like soldiers compelled to complete a twisted mission?
"Don't you dare fall asleep on me now!" Navara snarled beside me, her axe humming as it sliced through the onyx barrier.
Despite her snide remark, sweat and blood alike caked her orange hair as she gasped for air.
Staring into the shaft of my bow, I looked at the small ether crystal lodged inside it, flickering dimly.
"A little bit longer. Just a little bit longer," my words came out in jagged breaths.
The words spun over and over like a desperate call to keep fighting as I fired arrow after arrow into the black haze.
Before long, I watched grimly as the ether crystal in my bow shattered, crumbling into dust at my feet.
Ignoring a sharp pain in my chest, my hand instinctively plunged into a small pouch bound to my hip.
But when my hand met only the cold, hardened leather, my entire body stiffened.
"We don't have any longer," Nara coughed as her behemoth axe dragged through the ashen grass.
"Why aren't they leaving?" I muttered, falling to my knees, as I inspected the last dimly lit crystal I had.
gasping for breath, I watched as Nara hacked yet another Phantom in two.
Her small frame trembled as her axe carved through thick, shadowy bones before lodging itself deep within the ground.
"We have to go!" Her tone strained as she pulled at the axe.
"Cayden!" her voice cracked in a raw panic.
My head snapped upwards just in time to see an avalanche of onyx fog plummeting toward me.
Long jagged talons breached its surface, reaching hungrily through the air.
One second, the sky was a murky violet, and the next it became shrouded in darkness.
Air burned my lungs as the acid smoke scraped my throat. And my vision swam as I coughed and choked in response.
Hot needles scraped across my skin as Phantoms slashed their claws from every direction, tearing through my clothes and flesh like shrapnel.
Before I could even react, A flash of silver light spiraled through the darkness, slicing it open like a blade through silk.
My ears rang as Phantoms screamed and wailed in dissonant cries, as the onyx torrent dispersed into the twilight sky.
"You're welcome," Ezra muttered, voice shaking, as purple blood dripped from his clothes.
"It's time to go!" Nara interrupted.
My vision was still spinning as she grabbed me by the collar before throwing me to my feet.
Before I could even inspect my wounds, the soft lightning barrier that held the fog back shattered in a sharp crackle, sending the black haze cascading towards us like a tsunami.
We didn't hesitate. Despite our battered bodies and frightful expressions, the three of us instantly began sprinting back through the valley.
The withered grass clutched at our feet and ankles as if controlled by the Phantoms. But what really stalled me wasn't the ashen grain; it was the gashes laced across my body, or more specifically, the lack of pain they inflicted.
As I inspected the scratches on my arms and torso, I couldn't help but compare them to the giant claw marks that tore across Everett's ribs. Compared to his injuries, mine were lackluster at best.
Not to mention that mine were from at least half a dozen Phantoms, not just...
That's when it hit me.
We always assumed that they were nothing but mindless beasts, manifestations of the abyss itself.
So why does it feel like they were toying with me!
"Watch out!" Ezra screeched, snapping me from my daze.
My eyes focused just in time to spot an explosion of shadowy fog rocketing towards us at inhuman speed. Raising my bow, I quickly slotted another faded crystal inside.
"Please work," I pleaded, closing my eyes as the onyx mass rapidly approached. Strumming a soft, harmonious chord on the Lyre strings atop my bow, I drew back the ether-infused string.
"Burn," I said flatly, sending a bolt of white light screaming through the air.
My chest felt as if it were being torn in two as I launched the strike, causing my knees to buckle.
But the attack hit.
Within seconds, the smoky torrent was engulfed in a platinum white flame that eroded the toxic fog like acid.
Without time for my damaged body to recover, we were already running once again. Only this time, there was nothing I could do to help.
My hand gripped my chest as we bolted up a narrowing passage through the fog.
Nara roared as she swung her axe through the fog's narrowing walls, severing bony limbs that reached from its depths. And Ezra's blades also flashed through the fog, carving it like warm butter.
I watched as the pair launched one attack after another, their breaths becoming deeper, raspier until their knees began to buckle.
But their efforts were in vain.
And we all knew it.
Eventually, our pace slowed from a lung-burning sprint to a walk of cold realisation.
Far ahead of us, the passageway had already closed, leaving a wall of shadowy death blocking our path back to the village.
I wasn't sure if they hadn't realised it themselves, or if they simply refused to believe it. But despite our immense fatigue, Nara and Ezra battled the fog with unrelenting resolve.
While I just stood here, powerless.
Without being able to channel more ether, there was nothing I could do to damage the Phantom's spell.
Is this what it was all for?
Fighting battles for the Aureline, challenging The Withering in the hopes that I would get stronger... That I could follow in your footsteps.
After all this bloodshed, all the friends I've lost… my thoughts spiraled as I fell to my knees in despair.
Ezra and Nara hovered over me as the fog closed in. Pushing us closer and closer together.
The world slowed as I turned all the energy I had left. All the hatred in my heart to the sky.
Have you truly doomed me to die here, before ever leaving the Sparkling Hollow? I sneered at the Astral Tide. Its beautiful rainbow lights were fading in the grey of morning.
And as if right on cue, a soft light hummed from within the ashen grain, reflecting the galaxy's ethereal glow.
As the valley was engulfed in a sea of shadows, a single emerald green light shone through it like a candle in the dark.
And all I could do was stare in awe as the spark grew into a blazing ember.
"Is that... no, it can't be," Ezra gasped.
It was a person...
A boy lying eloquently in the ashen grass. But for some reason, the Withering failed to devour his body.
Instead, the tassels of wheat leaned away, as if cowering in his wake.
"Everett!" my throat rasped.
Seeing Everett now was much less shocking and more like something had finally clicked into place.
Caught in the moment, I couldn't help but think back to finding him on the rocky shore. Unharmed and yet sprawled across the rocks.
All around us, the Gossamer's celebratory dissonance faded into silence as the whole valley seemed to stare dumbfounded at Everett's unconscious body.
The emerald light swirled around him in perfect hypnotic motions as the Abaddon clicked and wailed.
But when the Gossamer snapped from their daze, they didn't chase us. Instead, they turned to Everett as the fog closed in around him.
The Abaddon's victorious cackling trailed off as shadowy torrents swooshed through the air, shrouding the emerald light in a thick, putrid darkness.
But before they could reach him, the sky seemed to cave in as an overwhelming force pushed me to my knees.
I wheezed as the air was pulled from my lungs.
The dense aura was even more powerful than both Everett's spell and the plague-like fog.
Only it wasn't toxic at all.
Instead, it felt rejuvenating. Like a glass of cold water or a breath of fresh air.
Without time to even process what was happening, a sonic wave of ice-blue light erupted through the twilight sky.
And the shockwave of its power dispersed the onyx fog like smoke in the wind.
The pulsating blast of pure blue etherium rippled across the cosmos like a droplet in water, as a high-pitched wail screeched through the air like cracked steel.
I watched helplessly as Everett's emerald aura flickered in its wake and the ashen grain began coiling around his legs and torso.
"Everett!" I tried to scream. But the words didn't come out.
Or at least I couldn't hear them.
The only sound in the sky was that of the familiar ethereal heartbeat that chained me to the ground.
It wasn't familiar in the sense of experience or that it had happened before. But more like something out of a fairy tale that no one thought to be true.
Sapped of all my physical and soul energy, my eyes forced themselves shut as the stars blurred with the sea.
Over and over, the blue light ignited all of Ravaryn like a heartbeat of cosmic power.
Over and over, the knowing sound of shattered glass followed like a soft echo of the aftermath that would soon follow.
Tide Keeper:
At that moment, every single being in Ravaryn, from the Aureline draped in silk nightgowns to common folk half-caked in mud, stood motionless. Eyes fixed on the pulse of azure energy that rippled through the stars.
Even the ancient beasts lurking in the shadows had recognised the omen.
It had been half a millennium since the phenomenon last occurred. But today was different, and all of Ravaryn knew it.
Some trembled in fear.
Others smiled with greed.
For five hundred years, the Great Kingdoms have held an equal balance in power. Their alliances forged by wine poured in a glass.
But now the glass has shattered.
And it won't be wine that spills across Ravaryn.