"Do not breathe, or every single pod on this wall will open," Marcus whispered to himself, his back pressed against the slick, pulsing stone of the inner hallway.The massive brass doors behind him were sealed tight, cutting off the sounds of the battle raging outside on the palace steps. The interior of the royal palace was unrecognizable. The grand marble halls had been hollowed out from floor to ceiling, replaced by thick, weeping ironwood roots, black moss, and towering hive structures that smelled of bitter sap and rot. It looked less like a noble residence and more like a cavern deep within the Wilds."I need to get to the grand staircase," Marcus rasped, wiping a line of fresh blood from his lip with his pale left hand. His ribs burned where the avatar's shockwave had hit him, but there was no time to rest.He took three careful steps down the narrow stone corridor. The walls on both sides were lined with hundreds of translucent, wet pods. Inside each bulbous casing, the pale,

"Catch the steel beam before the draft throws you into the flames!" Marcus screamed to himself, his voice lost in the roaring inferno below.The explosion in the elevator shaft blew the entire rotunda floor into jagged stone confetti. Marcus was launched fifty feet into the open air above a rising sea of bright orange alchemical fire. Heat scorched his face as he plummeted toward the burning abyss, but he whipped his pale left hand forward with desperate speed.Three thick strands of liquid shadow shot from his fingertips, wrapping tightly around a structural steel cable crisscrossing the upper rafters of the tilting palace tower.SNAP-TIGHT.The shadow tethers yanked taut with bone-jarring force. Marcus swung in a wide arc across the hollowed interior of the palace, his boots missing the churning ocean of liquid fire by less than three feet. The heat below was intense, blistering his cheeks as he used his momentum to pull himself up the thick metal line."I need to reach the upper ba

"Did you really think the grave could hold a mind like mine, Marcus?" the spectral voice echoed, vibrating with cold, unnatural power.Marcus pulled himself up onto the top stone step, his left hand raw and blistered as he hauled his weight out of the open pit. He stood on trembling legs, his right ironwood claw arm missing two fingers and dripping with grey ash. Beside him, Silas scrambled over the broken rafter, his heavy iron war-hammer held ready in both hands.At the head of the dark landing stood the High Mage.His body was not made of flesh and bone. He hovered two inches above the marble floor, a glowing, translucent spirit woven from golden light and purple mist. His consciousness had been pulled into the Master Anchor right before it closed, leaving his ghost trapped inside the palace network."He is already dead, Marcus!" Silas shouted, his eyes wide as he looked at the floating figure. "How are we supposed to kill a ghost?""You cannot," the High Mage sneered, raising his

"Get your hands off her before I tear this sphere out of the sky!" Marcus growled, his voice echoing with a double layer of hollow thunder.Lyra lay crumpled on the stone tiles, her blood-stained guardian staff resting inches from her pale fingers. The golden dome had shattered completely, leaving the full weight of the crushing gravity waves to slam onto the floating palace roof. Silas was pinned to the floor on his stomach, his broadsword uselessly flat against the stone.Marcus stood up slowly.His eyes were open, and the cold void in his chest burned with an terrifying, quiet power. As the massive gravity wave hit his skin, his chest did not collapse. The dark void inside his ribcage expanded outward, taking in the crushing force and turning it into nothingness. The invisible pressure that had flattened Silas and broken Lyra simply dissolved as it touched Marcus's boots."Marcus," Lyra gasped, her eyes widening as she lifted her head slightly from the cold tiles. "You woke up.""S

"Where is he?!" Silas bellowed, his voice cracking as he scrambled across the shattered stone tiles on his hands and knees.POP.A silent, concussive vacuum pop echoed across the floating roof. In a single instant, the roaring cosmic vortex, the purple storm clouds, and the blinding white light vanished entirely into thin air. The heavy, choking pressure that had weighed down the entire continent for months vanished. High above the ruined city, the sky opened up into a brilliant, unmarred shade of clear blue sunshine that none of them had seen in years."Marcus!" Lyra screamed, pushing herself off the cold ground and running toward the center of the roof with staggering steps. "Marcus, answer me!"The roof was completely silent now, save for the cool morning wind blowing through the open arches.The giant iron sphere was gone. The Arch-Weaver was gone. The floating platform had settled back down onto the cracked walls of the palace tower, leaving behind a ruined, hollow shell of scorc