Echoes Of The Forgotten Star
The air within Lyra's tomb was heavy with the weight of centuries. Weathered murals of coronations and battles adorned the walls, their colors muted by time but their tales crying out silently. Elara ran her fingers over a carving of a woman in armor, her sword held aloft beside a silver-eyed guardian. The guardian's face—Kael's face—was carved with a still determination she'd never observed in him before.
"She was your friend," Elara whispered, reaching out to Kael. He stood stiff in the middle of the tomb, his eyes on the stone sarcophagus at the end. The third shard throbbed within his hand, its black light tracing jagged shadows.
"She was more than that," Kael said hollowly. "She was… a reminder of who I used to be."
As Elara could question, the shard blazed. The torches in the tomb burst into light, and the paintings started moving.
---
The Forest of Elysia rang with laughter. Kael rested against a tree, his silver eyes squinting as Lyra fought with a young man with fiery red hair equal to his temper.
"Is that all you've got, Alden?" Lyra taunted, parrying his strike with ease. Her armor gleamed under the dappled sunlight, her braided crown of black hair flecked with leaves.
Alden growled, swinging his axe harder. "Stop dodging and fight!"
"She's toying with you, Alden," called Mira, a healer with vines woven into her hair. She sat beside Kael, grinding herbs into a paste. "As usual."
Kael laughed. "He'll never learn."
Lyra disarmed Alden with a wave of her wrist, the tip of her sword at his throat. "Yield."
Alden glared. "Never."
A horn blew in the distance—deep, mournful, wrong. The laughter died.
Lyra let her sword fall. "The Shadowfen Marsh. They're here."
Kael's grin faltered. "The scouts said the corruption wouldn't cross the border for months."
"The scouts were mistaken," Lyra said, sheathing her sword. "Round up the others. We leave at dawn."
---
The marsh was a necropolis of dead wood, the bony limbs of trees reaching out like grasping fingers toward a crimson horizon. Lyra's army—humans and guardians both—lined the verge of decay, their colors streaming in the poisonous breeze.
"This is not merely corruption," Kael grumbled, his silver gaze pinching. "It's alive."
Lyra cinched her gauntlets. "Then we cut out its heart."
The fight was a nightmare. Sludge creatures and shadow beasts burst forth from the mire, their bodies changing, their howls like crunching bones. Alden fought wildly, his axe slicing through the ranks of foes. Mira wove through the melee, tending the wounded with emerald-green glowing hands.
But it was Lyra and Kael who turned the tide.
Back-to-back, they moved as one—Lyra's sword a blur of steel, Kael's silver light searing through the darkness. When a towering shadow-beast lunged for Mira, Lyra leaped in its path, her blade piercing its core. Kael's light finished it, reducing it to ash.
Afterward, as the survivors tended to the wounded, Lyra clasped Kael's shoulder. "We make a good team, Guardian."
Kael smirked. "You'd be dead without me."
She elbowed his arm, smiling. "Keep dreaming."
---
That evening, the company celebrated in the clearing of the forest. Alden sang off-key ballads drunkenly, Mira rebuked him for getting wine on her herbs, and Lyra laughed—a sharp, unencumbered sound Kael would hold onto for centuries.
"To Lyra!" Alden bellowed, holding up his tankard. "The one mortal crazed enough to battle alongside gods!"
Lyra rolled her eyes. "To Alden! The only idiot who'd follow her!"
While the others argued, Lyra sat with Kael under the stars. "Do you ever wonder," she whispered, "what happens when our wars are over?"
Kael scowled. "Guardians don't get old. We don't die."
She smiled wistfully. "Mortals do. Promise me something. When I'm dead… keep laughing. Even if it's just to annoy Alden."
"You're not going anywhere," Kael said, but his chest tightened.
Lyra's smile didn't reach her eyes.
---
The vision shattered. Elara gasped as the tomb's walls stopped bleeding light. Kael stood frozen, his face ashen.
"Kael—"
The sarcophagus exploded.
Lyra's ghost rose from the rubble, her armor ethereal, her eyes voids of swirling shadow. The shard in Kael's hand screamed, its light fusing with her form.
You left me behind," the ghost snarled, Lyra's voice warped with malice. "You left me to die."
"Lyra, no!" Kael pleaded, sidestepping her ethereal sword. "This is not you!"
"You vowed to stand by me! (SMASH—her sword ripped the wall.)But when the shadows consumed me, where were you?!"
Elara attacked, dagger at the ready, but Lyra smacked her against a pillar. "Begone, child."
Kael's silver light flashed—weak, human—as he defended against Lyra's attacks. "I attempted to reach you! The forest—the curse—"
"Excuses!" Lyra's ghost wailed. "You were my brother! My family! And you LET ME DOWN!"
---
The battle was ferocious. Lyra's ghost attacked with the expertise of memory, her strokes sharp, her rage unceasing. Kael, robbed of his guardian power, lost a dozen points of blood.
"Lyra, please!" He parried her sword, his and hers engaged. "I wept you! I excavated your mausoleum with my hands!"
"More tears are needed!" She stomped him back into the tomb. "You should have been killed with me!"
Elara stumbled to her feet, vision reeling. "Kael! The shard—use it!"
Kael looked at the shard, dark light combining with Lyra's ghost. "No. I won't hurt her."
"Pathetic." Lyra brought up her sword to strike the kill.
"You haven't changed."
As she raised it, however, Kael lowered his.
The spectral blade halted just short of cutting his throat.
"Do it," Kael whispered. "If it'll release you."
Lyra's spirit shook. For an instant, the darkness lifted—and Elara glimpsed the warrior-queen's true visage, distorted in pain.
"I hate you," Lyra breathed.
"I know," said Kael.
Her sword hit the floor. The ghost vanished, leaving behind only the shard—now silver pure—hanging in mid-air.
---
Kael fell at the base of the sarcophagus, the purified shard pressed against his chest. Elara moved cautiously, her ribs hurting.
"She was my friend," Kael gasped. "And I left her to die alone."
Elara sat down next to him. The lid of the sarcophagus had an inscription:
"Lyra of Veyra—Warrior, Queen, Eternal Star."
Underneath it, in smaller script: "Forgive me. -K"
Kael pushed his forehead against the stone. His shoulders trembled quietly.
---
Miles away, in a tower crafted of darkness, the Watcher grinned. The ghost's defeat wavered in his scrying pool.
"Sentiment," he snarled, running a hand over the fourth shard—a rough obsidian stone. "Your downfall, Kael, is her."
The pool rippled, and Elara stood beside Kael, supporting him to his feet.
"But don't worry… I'll make you watch her die too."
---