The temple's gates loomed like a tombstone against the dusk sky. Alex trudged behind Lira, his corrupted gauntlet hanging heavy at his side. Every step sent jagged pulses of cold through his veins, the scar's whispers now a constant hum beneath his skull. You need me, it murmured. Next time, you won't hesitate.
Lira glanced back, her daggers glinting faintly. "You're limping."
"It's nothing," Alex lied. The twin's final strike had fractured something deep in his ribs—not bone, but essence. A void-rotten ache that even the gauntlet's flickering starlight couldn't soothe.
Priestesses swarmed them at the gates. Their cheers died when they saw Alex's arm. The black veins sprawled like spiderwebs, creeping past his collar. The head priestess, Mara, stepped forward, her gold mask tilted in judgment. "The rot spreads faster than before."
Lira shouldered between them. "He saved us. Again."
Mara's gaze lingered on the gauntlet. "At what cost?"
That night, Alex dreamt of the void.
The throne of smoldering stars awaited him, its silhouette now flanked by two figures: the First Flame and the Devourer, their forms merging and splitting like battling serpents. You see now, the First Flame intoned. We are halves of the same coin. To destroy one is to unmake both.
Alex woke choking on shadow.
The scar's mark on his forehead glowed faintly, casting violet light across the room. On his desk lay a shard of void glass—the one Lira had missed in the Dead Plains. It pulsed, whispering in the Devourer's voice. You are my perfect mirror.
He reached for it.
"Don't."
Lira stood in the doorway, her face half-hidden in shadow. "I felt it calling. Like it's… alive."
Alex curled his fingers. "It knows my name."
"Of course it does." She tossed a crumbling scroll onto his bed. The sigil of the First Flame glared up—a sun devoured by its own rays. "The archives aren't just histories. They're warnings. The First Flame didn't betray the Devourer. They created it."
Lira's discovery unfolded like a knife twist.
Centuries past, the First Flame had sought to conquer entropy itself. It forged the Devourer as a vessel to contain decay—but the void festered, gaining sentience. The Order's war wasn't against an invader. It was a cleanup.
"We're fighting a god's mistake," Lira said flatly. "And you're the patchwork solution."
Alex stared at the shard. "Why tell me this now?"
"Because the twin wasn't the Devourer's clone. You are." She pointed to his scar. "The First Flame bound its essence to mortals before—heroes, kings. They all burned out. You're just the latest kindling."
The void glass shard vibrated. Break the cycle. Let me free you.
Alex's gauntlet flared, gold and violet clashing. "What if I could control it? Use the Devourer's power against it?"
Lira's laugh was bitter. "You sound like Ryna."
Dawn brought no respite.
A scream echoed from the temple's lower vaults. By the time Alex and Lira arrived, the chamber was a slaughterhouse. Priestesses lay twisted in unnatural angles, their eyes and mouths sewn shut with void tendrils. At the center hovered the shard—now grown into a pulsating orb of liquid shadow.
Mara's corpse knelt before it, her gold mask split down the middle.
"It's feeding," Lira whispered.
The orb shrieked. Tendrils lashed out, piercing Alex's gauntlet. The scar roared to life, flooding him with icy euphoria. He didn't resist.
Power.
It drowned everything—the stench of blood, Lira's shouts, the ache in his ribs. Alex became a storm of void and starlight, shredding tendrils with gauntlet strikes that left craters in the stone. The orb recoiled, then split, birthing a skeletal figure with the Devourer's hollow eyes and the twin's molten grin.
"Thank you," it said . "For the offering."
Lira lunged, daggers carving arcs of gold. The creature batted her aside, her body crumpling against the wall. Alex charged, but it caught his fist, void flames melting his gauntlet's sunsteel.
Pathetic, the scar sneered. You need more.
Alex hesitated—a fatal mistake.
The creature's talons speared his chest, missing his heart by inches. Agony erupted, but deeper still, relief. The scar's power surged freely now, no longer shackled by his defiance.
"Lira," he choked. "Run…"
She staggered up, blood dripping from her brow. "*Never."
Lira's dagger struck true—not at the creature, but at the orb.
The blade shattered. The orb exploded.
The creature wailed, its form unraveling. Alex seized its fading essence, the scar's power pulling. Void flames flooded him, mending his chest, scorching his humanity.
"Alex, stop!" Lira screamed.
He couldn't. The power was everything—sweet, endless, right.
Then—a memory. His mother's voice, fragile but unbroken: Fear is the compass. Don't let it steer.
He let go.
The void flames died. The creature dissolved. Alex collapsed, his gauntlet now fully blackened, the rot reaching his jawline.
Lira crouched over him. "Why…?"
He smiled faintly. "Still… afraid."
In the Dead Plains, the remaining void shards stirred.
Miles from the temple, a rift flickered open—not violet, but gold. From it stepped a figure cloaked in starlight, its face a mirror of Alex's.
The First Flame's true heir had arrived.