The Shattered Seals
The dust from the fallen Tower of Eyes settled like a shroud over the plains, the once-pulsing orbs now lifeless shards underfoot. Above, the black star glared, its dimmed light a hollow victory. Alex flexed their scarred hand, the silver veins flickering with trapped starlight—and something darker.
"It's still watching," Mara whispered, clutching her eyeless doll. "It's *angry*."
Jordan kicked aside a cultist's robe, its spiral-and-eye emblem torn. "We need to move. More of these zealots will come."
Lila knelt, sketching the Tower's ruins into her journal. "The star isn't just a symbol. It's a focal point. If we can find the other shrines Thal'esha mentioned—"
"*If*," Alex interrupted, their voice strained. The void in their scars throbbed, whispering fragments of Ashkar's malice. *Weak. Fleeting. Mine.*
A cold wind stirred the ashes. Mara froze, her doll trembling. "They're here."
---
**The Cult's Vengeance**
Shadows peeled from the rubble—hooded figures, their chants guttural, eyes gouged and replaced with smoldering void-stones. Their leader, a gaunt woman with serrated blades for fingers, hissed, "The Devourer claims his due."
Jordan drew their sword. "Stay behind me, Mara!"
The cultists attacked in a frenzy. Lila hurled a vial, the explosion scattering ash and bone. Alex's hand erupted with light, but the void lashed back, searing their veins. They faltered, vision blurring with visions: *Ashkar's maw, Kael's spectral hand reaching from the abyss, a network of shrines glowing like cursed constellations.*
"Alex!" Lila yanked them aside as a blade grazed their arm. Black blood oozed.
Jordan decapitated the leader, her blades clattering. The remaining cultists dissolved into smoke, their final screams echoing, *"The seals break! He rises!"*
---
**Mara's Gift**
In the aftermath, Mara crouched by the leader's corpse, plucking a void-stone from her eye. It pulsed, reflecting the black star. "They used these to *see* him. To hear him."
Lila took the stone, recoiling. "It's a piece of the Heartroot's corruption. If the cultists are using these to track the shrines…"
"Then we can too," Alex finished, grim. Their corrupted hand closed over the stone. Pain flared, but the void within resonated, revealing a map etched in their mind—a trail of shrines, each marked by a dying star.
"The nearest one is two days east," they gasped. "A place called the Veil of Tears."
Jordan scowled. "Cheery name."
---
**The Weight of Shadows**
That night, camped in a hollow, Alex's scars writhed. They dreamt of Kael, his form fraying at the edges.
*"The shrines are not just locks,"* he warned. *"They're tests. Thal'esha's power demands sacrifice. Will you bleed for them, as she did?"*
Ashkar's laugh rumbled. *"Or will you let the void consume you? Embrace it, and I will spare your little moths."*
Alex woke to Mara's small hand on theirs. "You were crying," she said. "Black tears."
---
**The Veil of Tears**
The shrine emerged from the mist—a crescent of pale stone, its center a pool of liquid shadow. Etchings lined its rim: Thal'esha's face, weeping.
Lila traced the carvings. "This isn't a shrine. It's a tomb. Her tears forged the first seal."
The pool stirred. A figure rose—a specter of Thal'esha, her eyes voids, her voice a dirge. *"Prove your worth, child of starlight. Drink the sorrow, or drown."*
Alex stepped forward, but Jordan grabbed their arm. "This is suicide."
"It's the only way."
They drank.
---
**The Trial**
Agony. Memory.
*Thal'esha's grief as she sealed Kael. The Heartroot's roots piercing her soul. Her final scream as Ashkar laughed.*
Alex surfaced, gasping, their scars now threaded with tears of liquid starlight. The shrine glowed, its seal renewed.
But the black star above pulsed hungrily.
---
**The Herald's March**
As they left, Mara paused, her doll's empty sockets fixed on the horizon. "He's coming."
The ground quaked. Distant mountains crumbled, revealing a colossal silhouette—a hand, clawed and shadowed, gripping the earth.
Ashkar's hand.
---
**End of Chapter 17**
**Next**: The reactivated shrine delays Ashkar, but his physical emergence begins. The group races to the next shrine, pursued by cultists and the Devourer's growing influence. Alex's bond with the void deepens, forcing a choice: surrender to its power or let the world burn. Mara's connection to the doll hints at a forgotten magic, and Kael's spirit returns with a dire warning.