The wyvern's maw gaped wide—a void that drank firelight, moonlight, hope. Aurelion threw himself sideways as jaws that could swallow a cabin snapped shut where he had been. The impact shattered the ground, sent cracks spiderwebbing across the courtyard.
Ami struck first.
Her blade found the wyvern's neck—not deep, but enough. The creature hissed, its head whipping toward her. Corrin was there, spear driving into its shoulder. Kael's pistols roared, bolts of blue-violet energy punching into its side.
The wyvern screamed.
Not pain—fury.
Its tail lashed, caught Corrin across the chest, sent him flying into the communal hall. Wood splintered. Corrin didn't get up.
"Corrin!" Kael fired again, emptying both chambers into the creature's face.
The wyvern's head snapped back. Smoke rose from its scales. But it didn't fall.
"You cannot hurt me," it pressed against their minds. "I am the gate's memory. The shard's will. You are insects."
Aurelion circled, looking for an opening. The borrowed sword was light in his hand—too light. It had no mana, no edge, no presence. Just steel.
Not enough, he thought. Never enough.
The wyvern's tail swept low, tripping Kael, sending him rolling. Ami dodged a claw strike, rolled under its belly, stabbed upward. Her blade scraped scales, found nothing soft.
"Where is the fire?" the wyvern taunted. "Where is the thunder? You are nothing without your machines."
Aurelion saw it then—the scar on the wyvern's chest. A line of paler scales, still glowing. Still open. The shard's old resting place.
But the shard wasn't there anymore. It was inside him.
The wyvern's head turned. Its burning eyes fixed on Aurelion's chest. On the glow beneath his skin.
"There you are."
It struck faster than before.
Not with claws—with intent. Its talons closed around Aurelion's chest, not crushing, but pulling. The glow intensified. The shard inside him screamed—not pain, but recognition.
"You took what was mine," the wyvern hissed. "I will take it back."
Aurelion tried to move, to strike, to breathe. The wyvern's grip was iron. The glow spread from his chest to his arms, his neck, his eyes.
And then the shard left.
Not through a wound—through the air itself. A shard of obsidian, glowing with crimson light, pulled from his chest like a splinter from flesh. It floated between them, pulsing.
The wyvern opened its maw.
The shard flew inside.
The creature changed.
Its scales darkened, deepened, drank the moonlight. The cracks in its hide filled with molten fire. Its eyes blazed—not coal-red now, but white-hot, like stars.
It inhaled.
And breathed fire.
Not a stream—a column. Liquid flame that turned the courtyard to glass, that melted stone, that sent Ami diving behind a wall. Kael rolled, his coat smoking. The communal hall erupted.
The wyvern's head turned toward Aurelion.
"Now," it said, "I am whole."
Aurelion lay on the ground, gasping. The shard was gone. The warmth was gone. He felt empty—not weak, but hollow. Like something essential had been carved out.
It doesn't matter, he told himself. You fought without it before.
No, he thought. I fought with it. It was part of me.
And now it's part of him.
He pushed himself up. The borrowed sword was still in his hand.
The wyvern breathed again.
Aurelion ran.
Not away—sideways. The fire missed him by inches, turning the ground behind him to slag. He kept moving, kept low, kept alive.
Ami appeared from behind a shattered wall. "How do we kill it now?"
"I don't know!"
Kael fired—his bolts struck the wyvern's neck, but the scales deflected them. The creature didn't even flinch.
It's stronger, Aurelion realized. The shard made it stronger.
We can't fight it head-on.
The wyvern's tail swept again, catching Ami across the back. She stumbled, fell, rolled. The creature's head dove toward her, jaws open, the void within reaching.
Aurelion threw himself between them.
The borrowed sword met the wyvern's teeth—and held. Barely. The steel screamed. His arms screamed. The void pulled at his mana, his soul, his self.
"Kael!" he shouted. "Now!"
Kael was already climbing. The wyvern's back, its wings, its neck. His pistols were empty, but he had one bullet left—a shot he'd been saving for years.
He pressed the barrel against the wyvern's eye.
And fired.
The wyvern screamed.
Not fury—agony. The eye burst, dark fluid spraying. Its grip on Aurelion loosened. Its head thrashed.
Ami was on her feet, blade raised. Corrin had crawled from the rubble, spear in hand.
They attacked together.
Ami's blade found the wyvern's throat. Corrin's spear drove into its shoulder. Kael fired his last shot into the other eye.
The wyvern was blind.
But not dead.
"You cannot—" it began.
Aurelion didn't let it finish.
He lunged. Not at the chest—at the head. The wyvern's jaws were still open, the void within still pulsing. He leaped onto its snout, drove the borrowed sword upward into the roof of its mouth.
The blade sank deep.
The wyvern thrashed. Its screams became gurgles. Aurelion held on, one hand gripping a scale, the other pushing the sword with everything he had. His muscles screamed. His bones cracked. The steel groaned.
And then—with a sound like breaking stone—the wyvern's snout split in half, sliced through by Aurelion
From the jaw hinge to the nostril, a clean line of dark blood and shattered scales. The creature's head lolled. Its void-maw went dark.
The sword broke.
The blade snapped in half, the hilt still in Aurelion's hand, the tip still embedded in the wyvern's skull. He fell back, hit the ground, rolled.
The wyvern swayed.
Its wings drooped. Its tail went limp. Its eyes—both ruined—flickered one last time.
Then it fell.
The impact shook the valley. Dust rose. Stones cracked. The creature lay still, its body already beginning to dissolve.
Silence.
Aurelion lay in the dust, staring at the broken hilt in his hand. The blade was gone. Again.
Again.
Ami ran to him. "You're alive."
"Barely."
She helped him sit up. Corrin limped over, leaning on his spear. Kael was already searching the rubble for his pistols.
Corrin looked at the broken hilt. Then at Aurelion. Then back at the hilt.
"You've got to stop breaking swords," he said. "Those things are expensive."
Ami snorted. Aurelion almost smiled.
"I'll keep that in mind."
The wyvern's body finished dissolving, leaving only ash and the scattered fragments of the shard. They glowed faintly in the darkness, pulsing with a light that was no longer threatening. Just… present.
Aurelion picked up the largest piece. It was warm. Familiar.
The shard was a seal. A piece of the gate. A key.
But it's also a weapon.
He gathered the fragments, wrapping them in a cloth, tying them to his belt.
"What are you doing?" Ami asked.
He looked at her. At the ruined valley. At the people who had fought beside him.
"I'm going to build something new."
Corrin raised an eyebrow. "Another sword?"
"Another sword."
"You'd better not break this one."
Aurelion almost smiled. "No promises."