The blade and the bagain
Zhara Vayne's energy blade hummed, its violet glow casting eerie shadows along the ancient vault walls. Rico's pulse spiked—not from fear, but from recognition. He'd read Vorr's dossiers once. Zhara was more than a hunter.
She was his failsafe.
"Why now?" Rico asked, stepping in front of Lyra. "You've known where I was for weeks."
Zhara smirked behind her half-mask. "I was curious how far you'd get before reality caught up."
"Reality?" Lyra asked, daggers raised.
"You still don't get it," Zhara said, circling them slowly. "This isn't about you two versus Vorr. This is about entropy and order. Rico was the equation's variable… I'm its constant."
She lunged.
Rico parried the first strike with his gauntlet, sparks flying. Zhara spun mid-air, sweeping her blade toward Lyra. Lyra deflected with her twin daggers, but the sheer force sent her skidding back across the flooded floor.
Zhara moved like wind wrapped in metal.
"Back off," Rico shouted, launching a fire rune.
Zhara sliced it mid-air, dispersing the flame like mist.
"You're not fighting to survive," she said. "You're fighting to pretend you deserve to."
Rico drew a transmutation coin from his belt and tossed it into the water—it exploded upward, forming a wall of jagged ice between them.
He turned to Lyra. "Run. I'll hold her."
"Not a chance," she spat, wiping blood from her lip.
"I'm serious—"
"So am I."
The ice shattered behind them. Zhara emerged, dripping, graceful, and deadly.
"Enough games," she said, voice colder than steel. "Give me the mirror."
"No," Rico said.
"Then bleed."
---
The fight intensified.
Zhara's blade wasn't just physical—it pulsed with soul energy, eating away at anything it touched. Rico conjured a shield of reinforced light, but Zhara's blade cleaved through it like it was silk.
"You can't beat me, Alchemist," she said. "Even Vorr couldn't, not fully. He created me in the ruins of failure."
"Then let's test your creator's limits," Rico growled.
He pulled out a forbidden sigil—a black glyph etched into bone. One use. High risk.
"Rico—no," Lyra said. "You'll tear yourself apart."
"I already am."
He crushed the bone sigil in his palm.
The vault shook.
Energy pulsed outward in waves, forming a dome around them. Everything inside slowed—Zhara, Lyra, even the falling droplets of water.
Time stasis.
Rico stepped forward, sweat pouring down his brow. "Zhara... listen."
She couldn't move, but her eyes glared sharply.
"I know who you are. I know you think this is your destiny. But destiny isn't ownership—it's a suggestion."
He reached into her coat and deactivated the blade.
Then the spell broke.
Zhara staggered backward, confused, enraged. "You cheated."
"No," Rico said. "I bargained."
Zhara pointed. "This isn't over."
She vanished in a flicker of shadows—using Vorr's teleportation mark.
---
Outside the vault, beneath the moonlit marsh skies, Lyra collapsed on the muddy ground, breathing hard.
"You alright?" Rico asked.
She nodded, eyes closed. "I didn't die, so that's a win."
Rico chuckled, despite the pain in his ribs.
Lyra opened one eye. "So... what now?"
Rico held up the mirror box. "Now we take this to Elaran, the library city."
"The city of memory?"
"Exactly. I need answers. Real ones."
---
Their journey to Elaran took three days.
Along the way, whispers of Zhara's presence haunted them. Towns left burned. Survivors speaking of a woman in black who killed with a whisper.
Lyra grew restless. "She's hunting us."
"She's hunting me," Rico corrected.
"Same thing now," she muttered.
---
Elaran rose from the horizon like a crown of stone and glass. Massive towers, all covered in living moss, curved like spines toward the sky. Thousands of knowledge crystals floated above the city, illuminating the night like stars held captive.
Inside the Grand Archive, Rico met with Archivist Kethron—a ten-foot-tall entity of living script and knowledge, bound to the library for three hundred years.
"You bring echoes of ancient heresy," Kethron said, voice vibrating through the marble floor.
"I need to see the true records of Vorr. His experiments. The origin of the artifacts."
Kethron's eyes—runes in place of pupils—narrowed. "There is a cost."
"I'll pay."
Kethron extended a hand, inscribed with thousands of moving letters. "Then offer your most painful memory."
Rico didn't hesitate.
He placed his palm to Kethron's, and in a flash, relived it—
The burning house.
The scream of a child.
His own hand holding the vial that exploded.
His first creation. His first victim.
Kethron released him. "You are worthy."
---
The scrolls Kethron revealed were ancient. Vorr hadn't merely created the artifacts. He'd bound pieces of his soul into each. A horcrux-like design, except each piece evolved with its wielder.
And the seventh artifact? The final one?
It was a person.
A living vessel.
A carrier of the last piece.
Rico's hands trembled. "Who is it?"
Kethron only gestured toward the mirror box.
"It already knows."
---
That night, Rico opened the box again. The mirror shimmered.
Lyra looked into it—and gasped.
Her reflection was… not her.
It was younger.
Wearing robes of Vorr's cult.
Eyes glowing.
"No," she whispered. "That's not me."
Rico stared at the image, heart sinking. "Lyra… you were the seventh."
"No. I—I don't remember—"
"You weren't supposed to. The memory was sealed."
She backed away, eyes wide. "That's why I survived Vorr's fire. Why I can hear the cube. Why I feel pulled to all of this."
"You're not him," Rico said. "You're you. Whatever you were—he doesn't own you."
Lyra looked away. "Maybe not. But he lives inside me."
Rico moved toward her, voice steady. "Then we'll carve him out. Together."
---
But from the shadows beyond the tower, Zhara watched.
She touched the comm-stone embedded in her glove.
"Phase two complete," she said. "They found her."
The voice on the other end answered only one word.
"Initiate."
---