Gone were the roiling black clouds and the suffocating stillness. In their place stretched a limitless canvas of gold and blue, the kind of sky that felt like it had waited centuries just to return.Samuel stood at the edge of the ridge, the wind tugging at his coat, eyes locked on the horizon where light shimmered against the reborn ley lines. Behind him, the others were gathering. Exhausted. Quiet. Changed.They had won.But the world did not cheer.No banners were raised. No voices lifted in praise. Victory here was something smaller, quieter. The kind that whispered, you may rest now.Joey walked up beside him, holding two steaming cups. “One’s yours,” he said. “Assuming you still drink tea like a civilized person.”Samuel chuckled softly. “Barely remember what ‘civilized’ feels like.”They clinked cups and drank in silence.“You think it’s over?” Joey asked.Samuel didn’t answer right away. He watched a bird cut across the sunlight—its wings sharp, its path sure.“No,” he finally

By the time the sun crowned the hills, Samuel and his team were already riding east. Horses, skimmers, and two modified gliders carved a path through the morning haze. Ilara rode beside Samuel, her map unfurled, her eyes locked on the ley compass that never stopped spinning.“The closer we get,” she muttered, “the more chaotic the ley signatures become. This isn’t a sealed Gate anymore. It’s waking—and screaming.”Samuel’s grip tightened on the reins. “How deep under the sand is it?”“If the records are right?” she replied. “Too deep for anything natural to unearth it.”“So something unnatural is doing the digging,” Sarah said from behind, scanning the horizon through her scope.Joey whistled. “I miss the days when our biggest threat was a corrupted envoy with a knife.”Kael, silent until now, said without looking back, “Those days were lies. This is the truth bleeding through.”By nightfall, they reached the edge of Andareth’s dunes.Golden sand stretched endlessly before them, catch

Samuel stared out across the cracked salt flats as dawn tried to pierce through the haze above. The land here was flat, endless, shimmering with mirage-like illusions. Even standing still felt like motion. And still, somewhere beneath their feet, the pulse of the next relic called to him like a buried heartbeat.Dareth stood at his side, sharpening a blade that didn’t need sharpening. His silence had grown heavier since the Fortress of Silence. He had been tested like the rest of them, but whatever he saw had left a mark.Ilara crouched over a map drawn in fading ley lines. “This place wasn’t on any of the original charts. The pulse is erratic—something is distorting it.”Joey flopped onto the dry earth, face scrunched in frustration. “What does that even mean? Is it moving? Alive? Shifting in time again?”“Maybe all of the above,” Ilara replied. “Or maybe something is guarding it.”Samuel rolled his shoulders, tension thick in his frame. “Then we move fast. We locate the source befor

The wind howled like a beast mourning its wounded. Samuel stood at the cliff's edge, his eyes fixed on the horizon where blackened storm clouds churned unnaturally. The chill didn’t come from the weather—it came from within. Dareth stood silently beside him, flames gently flickering across his shoulders like a ceremonial cloak.“We’re close,” Dareth muttered, his voice low, as if trying not to disturb something ancient. “The first Sentinel is here.”Behind them, Ilara adjusted the straps of her satchel. “I can feel the distortion. Reality is thinner in this place. It’s already been warped.”Samuel nodded. “Then we move fast. We find the relic, neutralize the Sentinel, and get out.”They descended the cliffside path, every step taking them closer to the ruins nestled in the valley below—once a temple, now a fractured skeleton of broken stone and wild ivy. Birds circled above it in silent spirals, unwilling to land. The air shimmered strangely as they approached, time itself hesitant to

The wind was colder now, sharper, as if the world itself had sensed the shift after Serintha's defeat. Samuel led the group east, guided by a map that Ilara had carved into his memory the night before with her own magic. The next shard was in a place called Thorne’s Reach, an abandoned city swallowed by desert storms and ghost stories.They had traveled for two days in silence. Dareth, once the most vocal of the three, had become quiet since Serintha's illusion had nearly torn Samuel apart. He walked ahead most of the time, always scanning the horizon, his fire pulsing softly like a heartbeat beneath his skin.Ilara finally broke the silence. “She got into all of our heads, Samuel. Don’t carry it alone.”“I’m not carrying it,” Samuel replied without turning. “I’m learning from it.”“She said something strange before she died,” Ilara continued. “That we’d see what ‘they’ did. Who was she talking about?”Samuel stopped walking. His hand hovered over the pouch containing the broken shard