The first of the chained firebearers lunged. Jason barely had time to raise his arms before the creature’s fist, burning black with abyss-fire, smashed into his guard.The impact sent him skidding across the fractured platform, stone shattering under his heels. His bones rattled, his fire flickered and another came, chains snapping as it dove for him with hollow, lifeless eyes.“Jason!” Aria’s voice cut through the storm. Her silver blaze struck downward, cleaving the second firebearer in half. The creature burst into a cloud of black flame, only for two more to rise from the lake and crawl onto the ruins.Jason pushed himself to his feet, chest heaving, his fists trembling with fading fire. He counted the shadows , five, then ten, then twenty. More kept rising, each bound by chains that glowed faintly with the abyss’s pulse. Each one radiated fragments of power that made his skin crawl.They weren’t just monsters. They had been firebearers once. Jason’s jaw clenched, grief stabbing

The abyss shook as the second chain cracked. A sound like the world splitting apart boomed across the black lake, every echo hammering Jason’s skull.The ancient firebearer stirred again, its massive body rippling as the bindings trembled, runes blazing like dying stars.Jason staggered, blood streaming from his nose, his ember sputtering like a candle about to die. Aria caught his arm, dragging him upright, her silver wings flaring weakly against the storm of abyss-fire rising around them.“Jason, it’s breaking!” she cried over the roar. “If we don’t stop it now”The rest of her words drowned in another detonation as the chain split further, a spiderweb of cracks racing across its length.The shadows howled in triumph, surging forward as though empowered by the chain’s undoing. Jason raised his fists, but his fire flickered. His chest felt like it was collapsing inward. Still, he refused to kneel.“Then we stop it,” he rasped, his voice breaking but his will unyielding. “Even if it k

The abyss quaked like a living thing. Aria’s knees buckled as she clutched Jason’s body to her chest, his skin glowing with cracks of silver light, as though molten fire was about to spill from within him.Every scream that tore from his throat shredded her heart raw.“Stay with me,” she whispered, pressing her forehead against his burning skin, ignoring how it seared her flesh. “Please, Jason. Don’t let him take you.”All around, the shadows shrieked. The stolen fragment of Jason’s ember pulsed from deep within the abyss, carried in the ancient’s possession, and the creatures responded like beasts smelling blood. They surged toward him in endless waves, chains rattling, hollow eyes burning.Aria’s wings flared, silver fire storming outward to burn the nearest shadows into ash. Her blade whirled, cleaving chains before they wrapped around Jason’s broken body.But she was tiring. Already her breath rasped, her fire flickered. She could not keep this up forever. “Jason,” she said again,

Aria felt it snap. One heartbeat, Jason’s ember blazed faintly under her hands. Broken, flickering, but alive. The next, gone. Not dimmed. Not fading. Gone.Her scream tore through the abyss, raw and animal, shaking the shadows back for a moment. Jason’s body convulsed violently, then went still in her arms. His skin was ice against hers, silver fire leaking from his wounds like dying embers.“No!” she sobbed, pressing her forehead to his. “No, I’m not letting you go! Do you hear me? You don’t get to leave me like this!”But the abyss didn’t care. The shadows surged harder, shrieking, their claws gnashing against her silver wings. The chains rattled violently as though rejoicing in Jason’s vanishing.Aria flared her fire, a brilliant wave of silver tearing through the tide. Her blade cut through shadow after shadow, her body moving on instinct, but her chest burned with emptiness. She couldn’t feel him anymore. The tether that had always bound them was a dead cord in her soul.Her em