The rain picked up as Arthur and Nyra made their way through Veridia's slums on the east side, a slow drizzle that was infused with the acidic flavor of the dissolved sanctum. The sphere in Arthur's pocket throbbed softly against his thigh, its heat a constant reminder of the secrets they'd found out. About them, the city creaked under the anxiety of the guilds—shutters clattered shut, street vendors fled their stands, and the ubiquitous thrum of magic in the air had become manic and atonal. Nyra stayed near the shadows, her dark-edged fire quietly banked to prevent inciting attention. "They'll have every gate guarded," she whispered, gesturing toward the far eastern wall where Storm Guild flags fluttered in the increasing wind. "Silver-rank guards at least."
Arthur's augmented senses detected the minutiae she could not perceive—the faint glint of detection wards down the gatehouse, the boot-scuffs in cobblestones where patrols had just gone by. The parasite's incorporation had made his senses almost painfully acute; he could count the raindrops condensing on a windowsill fifty paces away, hear the thready beat of a concealed child two alleys down.
"We don't need the gates," he said, leading the way down a narrow alley between leaning buildings. The air was filled with the stench of rotting fish and damp stone. "There's another way."
The alley ended in a broken wall plastered with flaking posters—recruitment calls for members of the Earth Guild, parasite sightings warnings, a worn message from the Storm Council forbidding unauthorized magical use. Arthur pressed his hand against the wet stone at the overlap of two posters. His scars pulsed rapidly, and the wall trembled, its surface rippling as if water disturbed before coalescing into a craggy archway just big enough to crawl through.
Nyra frowned. "When can you do that?"
"Since the sanctum." Arthur couldn't exactly explain it himself—the information had simply been available when he needed it, such as recalling a long-forgotten skill. "The parasite tells me these verses were utilized by the first Zeniths. The guilds never discovered them all."
Beyond the tunnel was claustrophobically tight, walls gleaming with condensation and alien bioluminescent fungi that reflected a dim blue light. Nyra squeezed sideways through parts of it, her breathing more rapid as earth closed in around them.
"Remind me again why we're running from the city and not burning it to the ground?" she growled after scraping her shoulder on a boulder. "We killed one sanctum guardian. A few guild enforcers should be nothing."
Arthur hesitated where the tunnel branched, allowing the parasite's instincts lead him to the left. "Numbers count. Even Archons get swamped." He shot her a look behind him. "And we're not even battling guilds anymore."
The image of Hollowborn in the drainage tunnel hung between them—that corrupted, half-crystallized mage. How many more existed, attracted to the sanctums like moths to fire?
They reappeared an hour afterward in a ruined watchtower half a mile outside Veridia's walls. The rain had thickened, pouring down in gray sheets that hid the city's outline. Arthur swept the farm fields all around—empty winter fields, some isolated barns, the occasional flicker of a homestead's windows in the approaching twilight.
Then his heightened hearing picked it up: the rhythmic thud of marching boots, the jingle of armor, and beneath that, the wetter noise—like flesh tearing through mud.
"Down," he growled, yanking Nyra behind the shattered parapet.
A patrol came out of the rain—six Storm enforcers in full armor flanking a seventh figure that made Arthur's scars prickle. The man moved awry, his limbs twitching as if pulled by unseen strings. His armor was Storm Guild issue but corroded, the silver chasing tarnished and flaking away. Where his face should have been visible beneath the helm, only darkness beat.
"Another Hollowborn," Nyra whispered. "But that's a Gold-rank insignia."
The patrol strode right under where they were hiding. Arthur overheard pieces of their discussion:
"—sanctum's destruction triggered something in the infected—"
"—Council wants all specimens contained—"
"—not specimens, they're still our brothers—"
Then the Hollowborn halted suddenly, its helmeted head cocking up. Arthur caught his breath as those empty sockets appeared to look directly through the stone at them. After what felt like an eternity, it convulsed and continued on its way, the enforcers tagging after with somewhat less zeal.
Nyra waited until the noise had completely died away before she spoke. "They're deploying them. The guilds are deploying Hollowborn."
Arthur's fingers closed tighter on the sphere in his pocket. Its heat had increased, as if sensing the tainted enforcer's presence. "We need to get moving. The parasite's indicating a location northeast—an old Zenith outpost along the Blackwater Fen."
They waited until full darkness to make their descent. The rain had erased any tracks, but their heightened senses allowed them to move easily through the muddy fields. By midnight, they'd covered five miles from Veridia, following ruined cart tracks that slowly broke up into more untamed country.
Then Nyra froze, her hand whipping out to arrest Arthur. "Smoke."
There stood a slender column above the tree line before them, too regular to occur naturally. Arthur's nostrils pinched—over the anticipated woodsmoke there hid more subtle aromas: hammered steel, horse flesh, the crackling ozone bite of Storm magic.
"Not an outpost," he understood. "A forward camp."
They moved in predator's stealth, employing the underbrush for concealment. The camp was bigger than anticipated—two dozen tents drawn up in defensive pattern around a central fire pit. Storm banners dripped in the wet air, but the soldiers lacked any guild markings. Mercenaries, therefore.
By the fire, three stood out: a spiky-armor-clad giant, a whip-skinny woman with twin daggers, and between them, a recognizable silver-robed figure—Veyl, Maelis's replacement.
"—pay double if you bring them alive," Veyl was saying, handing the woman a small chest that rang with coin. "The Zenith boy particularly. The Council wishes to examine his corruption."
The dagger-woman grinned. "Alive's more difficult. Extra for that."
Arthur didn't wait to hear the rest. He and Nyra disappeared back into the trees, creating some distance between them and the camp before they started talking.
"Hunters," Nyra sneered. "They'll have trackers. Hounds, possibly scryers."
Arthur could feel the pulse of the sphere against his leg quicken. "Then we give them something else to follow."
He took them to a stagnant pool half-filled with algae. The water was as black as ink under the moon, its surface unruffled by the rain. Arthur knelt at its edge and took out the sphere, holding it just above the water.
"What are you—"
The bubble came into contact with the surface. For an instant, nothing happened. Then the water rushed up in a geyser, creating a spherical pocket of suspended droplets with them at the center. In every droplet, movement was visible—not of Arthur and Nyra, but of dozens of other figures spread over the landscape, all with some variation of their features.
"Echoes," Arthur said as the water fell back into the pond. "The sanctum's final gift. For the next twelve hours, every scrying will reveal me in twenty different locations."
Nyra smiled, her teeth glinting in the moon. "Now that's cheating."
They swung northeast once more, moving quicker now that deceit was on their minds. The land became more rugged, earth clinging to their boots as they approached the edges of the Blackwater Fen. Flickering lights appeared in the distance—will-o'-the-wisps or something else.
It was almost daybreak when the first howl pierced the rain—mournful, long, and uncompromisingly inhuman. Arthur's head jerked up. That wasn't any hound.
Nyra's fire flared to life in her hands. "They brought something worse than trackers."
The howl appeared once more, nearer this time. Then another from their left, and a third from straight ahead. Whatever the guilds had sent, they were surrounded.
Arthur flashed his teeth in something too intense to be a smile. "Let them come."
The hunt began.
The first of them crawled out of the mist like a nightmare made flesh—a monstrous, wolf-like thing with too many joints in its legs and a muzzle full of needle-like teeth. Its fur was patchy, with sections of crystalline growth showing through that glowed with the same ill light they'd witnessed in the Hollowborn.
"Fen-born," the parasite named. "Tainted by sanctum energies."
Two more seemed to materialize to their left, then a fourth behind them. Their howls ceased, replaced by an unnatural hush as they crept with deadly precision.
Nyra moved back-to-back with Arthur, her fires sending long shadows dancing across the bog. "I'll take left. You get right."
The lead fen-born charged with nightmarish velocity, its long arms spanning yards in one leap. Arthur dodged its charge by mere inches, the wind of its passage shivering his hair. His return blow combined kinetic energy with pilfered heat—nearly a tactic he'd perfected in the sanctum—smashing the creature's front leg upon impact.
It hardly winced. The shattered limb realigned itself mid-stride, crystals propagating to re-grow destroyed bone.
Nyra was no better. Her blackfire engulfed another fen-born, but the flames were soaked up by its crystal patches. "They're adapting!"
Arthur thought furiously. The parasite suggested possibilities—earth magic to encase them, water to dissolve the crystals, air to—
Then the biggest fen-born charged Nyra out of her blind spot.
Arthur acted on instinct. His form blurring over intervening space, hand extended. Rather than strike, he caught the creature's muzzle in mid-air and released a new combination—void-energy directed via his scars directly into its cranium.
It was immediate. The fen-born's crystalline spots darkened, then vaporized into sour smoke. Its form fell in mid-leap, landing with a sodden crash.
Nyra watched. "How—"
"Void fusion," Arthur gasped. "It unwinds their corruption."
The other fen-born lingered, their animal wit sensing the danger. There was a moment of strained silence, and then, in unison, the beasts wheeled and dissolved back into the fog.
Nyra's flames died out. "Too easy," she said.
Arthur didn't argue. The parasite vibrated with tension, its focus northeast. "They weren't hunting us. They were herding us."
To what, it didn't say.
They pushed on into the fen, the earth becoming more and more unstable. What appeared to be firm land frequently turned out to be mats of floating vegetation over bottomless black water. Unusual lights flitted at the periphery of one's vision, vanishing upon direct examination.
They arrived at the ruins by midday.
The Zenith outpost had been nothing more than a scattering of ruined walls half wandered by the fen, its tower spires she respect to ragged stumps. Yet the foundation remained—an octagonal pedestal of unbreakable star-metal that centuries of rust could not desecrate.
When Arthur mounted the pedestal, secret sigils burst into light beneath him, filling the ruins with a wan blue radiance. The air thrummed with unfurling magic.
Nyra slowly spun around, absorbing the reactivated defenses. "Home sweet home?"
Arthur had no time to reply before the parasite shrieked alarm.
The assault was all around at the same time—not fen-born, either, but the mercs from the head camp. Crossbow bolts flashed from the fog, and then the spit of Storm magic. Arthur just managed to get a kinetic shield up with a burst of effort, the impacts making his arms flash with agony.
"Echoes wore off!" Nyra dropped low behind a fallen pillar as another flight shot past.
Arthur tallied no fewer than fifteen attackers surrounding the ruins. Better yet, he could feel two different magical presences—the whip-thin blade woman of camp, and another, someone whose power signature caused his scars to burn.
A man walked through the fog—tall and broad-shouldered, his elaborate armor identifying him as Storm Guild Archon rank. But his face was what made Arthur sure: the same pointed features as Maelis, the same storm-gray eyes.
"Kael Dawnwrath," Nyra spat. "Maelis's brother."
The voice of the Archon rang over the battlefield, heavy with disdain. "Arthur Zenith. The Council gives you one option: relinquish the artifact and undergo purification."
Arthur's harsh laugh. "We both know what purification is. Execution."
Kael drew a blade with a blade forged from lightning turned to steel. "Then perish as your forebears did—crying for mercy you will never have."
The mercenaries charged together, their attack a synchronized killing blow. Arthur and Nyra fought side by side, the merged power of their abilities generating a maelstrom of blackfire and kinetic energy. But there were too many—they killed one mercenary for every two who stood in for him.
Then Kael came into the battle.
His initial lightning bolt propelled Nyra through the air, her body jerking as electricity coursed through her. Arthur avoided the second one by mere inches, the hair on his arms standing on end due to the close call.
"You're a kid messing around with powers you don't even understand," Kael taunted, going for the kill. "That parasite should have been sent to a proper warrior."
Arthur understood then—Kael didn't want him killed. He wanted the parasite for himself.
The discovery came at a cost. Kael's next blow landed with a crunch, white-hot pain coursing through Arthur's nervous system. He fell to his knees, vision reeling.
Nyra screamed across the battlefield. "Arthur!"
Through the smoke of agony, Arthur beheld her ringed by mercenaries, her flames dying as blood poured from a wound on the scalp. Beheld Kael lifting his lightning blade for the killing blow. Beheld the ruins' sigils throbbing below him, responding to his Zenith blood.
The voice of the parasite broke into the disorder: "Remember the outpost's purpose."
At that moment, Arthur realized. He punched his hand onto the central sigil, releasing a spurt of void-energy straight into the platform.
The ruins stirred.
Concealed mechanisms creaked as ancient safeguards kicked in. The air itself crackled with released power as the outpost's secret purpose was revealed—not a defensive outpost, but a weapon.
Kael had barely time to open his eyes wide before the earth blew up under him.
Blue-white energy burst from the earth on which Kael Dawnwrath stood. The Archon had only a split second to lift his lightning sword to protect himself before the energy slammed into him like a magic hammer. For a fleeting moment, his armor shone red-hot, then the impact hurled him backward into the darkness of the fen.
Arthur sucked in his breath as the outpost's wake-up energy ran through him. His scars stung with fresh ferocity, burning so brightly they darkened the broken walls around them. Understanding filled his head—not all from the parasite, but from the outpost as well, as if the stones recalled their own destiny.
"Nyra!" he bellowed above the increasing whine of deep machinery. "The central platform!"
She did not hesitate. Sliding under the wild swing of a mercenary, Nyra rolled across the battlefield, her black-edged flames scorched into the damp earth. A crossbow bolt skimmed off her shoulder, but she did not even flinch, arriving at Arthur's side just as the outpost's secret defenses came online in full.
The octagonal platform's perimeter burst into a circle of vertical energy beams that created an iridescent shield between them and the other attackers. Three mercenaries who had been charging too near the boundary were vaporized instantly, their armor clanking hollow to the ground.
Inside the protective barrier, the air smelled of ozone and something older—like the sanctum's inner chambers. The platform's central sigil had transformed into a three-dimensional map of the surrounding region, with pulsing lights marking nearby threats.
Nyra wiped blood from her brow, staring at the display. "Since when do ruins do this?"
"Because they were never merely ruins." Arthur put his hand down on the map, and fresh details came into being—secret tunnels, other Zenith fortifications, even the distant reverberation of hidden sanctums poised to fall. "This was a watchtower. A part of an entire system meant to keep tabs on." His voice faded as the full weight of the realization struck him.
"Keep tabs on what?" Nyra persisted.
"The prisons," the parasite breathed through Arthur's lips. "Where they imprisoned the Primordials after breaking them."
Beyond the energy barrier, the remaining mercenaries had reassembled. The dagger-woman shouted orders, her surviving troops loosely encircling the ruins. Of Kael, nothing was to be seen—merely roiling black water where he had gone down.
Nyra's fingers jerked close to her wounds. "We can't remain here indefinitely. That wall won't stand up to protracted assault."
Arthur looked over the map. One of the pulsing lights especially beckoned to him—a concealed tunnel under the outpost into the depths of the fen. "We won't need to."
He pushed a row of sigils, and with a screeching of long-immobile gears, a curving segment of the platform descended into darkness, exposing a twisting staircase hewn from the same star-metal. The air that drifted up was arid and perversely hot, and had a hint of mineral.
Nyra leaned forward into the blackness. "Where does it go?"
"To the first prison." Arthur pulled out the sphere from his pocket—it glowed brighter now, almost too warm to hold. "And whatever the guilds buried there."
A deafening crash resounded through the wreckage as something enormous clashed against the energy shield. Through the glowing blue light, Arthur could see the dagger-woman recoil, her face white with fear. From the waters of the fen, arisen in rolling waves of crackling energy, came Kael Dawnwrath—but altered.
The Archon's armor had melded with his flesh in spots, knotted crystal outcroppings bursting from his joints. His eyes smoldered with the same void-light as Arthur's scars, and when he spoke, his words were tinted with something not quite human:
"You believe that wretched hiding place will shield you? The era of Zeniths has passed, lad. The era of storms has no end."
He threw up both arms, and the sky replied. Unnaturally swift, dark clouds swirled together, forming a maelstrom centered directly above the ruins. The initial lightning bolt struck the energy barrier with such power that the ancient stones shook.
"Go!" Arthur pushed Nyra toward the stairs. "I'll keep him off!"
She clamped her fingers around his wrist with more strength than he expected. "Like hell you will. Together or not at all."
Another bolt of lightning. The barrier flashed ominously.
The parasite roared in Arthur's mind, its voice urgent: "The prison contains weapons. Weapons hammered out to combat what he is becoming."
Arthur made his decision. He swept Nyra off the ground and dragged her up to the staircase as a third strike obliterated the barrier entirely. The platform started sealing itself above them as Kael's laughter bellowed through the ruins, his footsteps thundering towards them with ghastly inevitability.
Darkness engulfed them as the ancient machinery clanged closed. The walls of the staircase started to glow with dim blue runes—Zenith script, Arthur understood. The same script of the sanctum carvings.
Nyra's fire shed twitching shadows as they made their way down. "What is he? That wasn't simply Storm magic."
Arthur placed his hand against the glowing script. The words branded themselves into his head:
"Beware the Hollow Archons—who willingly bind themselves to pieces of the fallen. Their strength is immense, but the price is the soul itself."
"Kael's not hunting parasites," Arthur realized with growing horror. "He's collecting them."
The stairs went down and down, with the air growing hotter at each looping turn. Unsettling noises reverberated up from the depths—not mechanical, not organic. A pulsating rhythm like a humongous heart.
Finally, the stairs led to a huge door unlike any in new Veridia. Its face was highly polished black stone where veins of silver formed the Zenith sigil—the identical symbol Arthur had noticed in the sanctum.
Nyra breathed hard. "That's not a prison door. That's a vault."
Arthur set his hand against the chilled surface. The instant his scars touched, silver veins glowed, inscribing delicate designs upon the whole door. With a thousand locks unlocking as one, the vault started to open.
A gust of dry, moldering air swept out, bearing with it the slightest whisper—welcoming or warning, Arthur couldn't say.
Beyond was darkness. And answers.