Ash fell like black snow, coating the ruined plaza in silence. The Emberwake Threshold behind Riven smoldered—nothing more than a scorched scar in the air where Lira had vanished moments ago.
His hands hung at his sides, trembling. Glyphlight still flickered faintly along his arms, remnants of a battle won at a cost.
He had reached her.
And lost her.
Lira's final look haunted him—steady, sorrowful, full of fire. She'd stepped into the threshold by choice, pulling the Seraphim's unraveling power with her. A sacrifice. A signal. A goodbye.
"No," Riven breathed.
He stepped forward, but the threshold was already collapsing, molten edges folding into nothing. The last trace of her was gone.
Aeris limped to his side, blood streaked across her temple. "She saved us. Everyone."
Riven shook his head. "That's not enough."
Around them, Caelion burned. Lightning coiled through fractured spires. The air still shimmered with residue glyphs and the cries of retreating forces.
"I'm not leaving her," he said.
Aeris caught his arm. "Riven… we can't follow. The threshold's sealed. Even the Tenfold can't trace her beyond that tear."
He turned to her. Something in him had shifted. The doubt that once tempered his steps was gone, burned away by loss.
"Then I'll open another one."
Aeris paused, seeing it in his eyes—the clarity, the conviction.
"You're not the same," she whispered. "You've changed."
From behind, a coughing rasp broke the hush. Elandir—the Ouro Seraphim enforcer—dragged himself upright from a pile of debris. His limbs were broken, face half burned, yet his eyes burned with fanatic light.
"You still don't see," he croaked. "This world isn't meant to be saved. It's meant to be reborn."
Riven's glyph ignited. No pain. No fear. Just purpose. Violet edges shimmered along his arm as he stepped forward—Shard Step fracturing the ground in his wake.
He vanished in a crack of air.
And reappeared in front of Elandir, arm raised.
A blast of glyphlight erupted from his palm, slamming into the cultist's chest.
Elandir screamed as the magic tore through him, unraveling the sigils that linked him to the Seraphim lattice. Spectral glyphs scattered into the wind, fading into silence.
Aeris reached Riven's side. "If she's alive in that place… she'll be waiting."
He looked up at the fractured sky, where faint auroras danced behind smoke and ruin.
"Then I'll find the path."
His voice was low. Steady.
"And I'll burn through whatever stands in the way."