Ash and Silver
---
They moved before dawn.
Mist clung to the forest floor like breath held too long. Every step left a trail in dew-drenched grass, but no sound. Elen guided them through the roots and stone hollows of the wild ridge that framed the Vale's southern border.
The target was clear: a hidden Eclipse outpost nestled in the ruins of an old spirit refinery—an arcane site once used by mages to stabilize elemental spirits. The Eclipse had corrupted it, twisting the stabilizers into soulbinders—glyph machines that tethered spirits like beasts to a chain.
It was the backbone of their new weapons.
If the team destroyed this outpost, they wouldn't just save a few captured spirits.
They'd break the Eclipse's ability to mass-bind.
For now.
---
Riven led the way.
His cloak, stitched with new reinforced seal-weaves, flowed soundlessly. His pendant no longer flickered—it glowed steady, a silent pulse in sync with Lyra's spirit. She had stayed behind under Liora's watch, her magic still volatile after the rupture.
Kael walked behind him, twin blades sheathed, one hand crackling with sparks of latent lightning.
Elen moved unseen, slipping ahead to disable ward posts and mark enemy positions.
They said little.
The plan was simple: infiltrate, disable the core glyphs, extract any spirits still whole—and destroy the anchor seal before reinforcements arrived.
They reached the ridge by second light.
The refinery came into view.
It was worse than expected.
---
The ruin was half-submerged in the bog, its eastern wing collapsed under decades of erosion. Black scaffolding had been built over the old stabilizer towers, and sickly green smoke rose from vented ducts like breath from something still digesting its prey.
Dozens of cultists moved through the structure, most armed with glyphforged pikes or ritual sigils.
But what caught Riven's eye wasn't the guards.
It was the cage.
In the center of the clearing stood a metal sphere laced with burning glyphs. Inside, a swirling mass of elemental energy screamed silently, its form clawing at the interior, light and shadow flickering between anger and fear.
A storm spirit.
No wonder the weather had felt unnatural for miles.
Kael gritted his teeth. "They're siphoning it. Feeding on the instability."
Elen reappeared beside them. "There's a back entrance through the old supply shaft. Collapsed, but I can clear it. Leads straight under the glyph chamber."
Riven nodded. "We go in fast. Quiet as we can."
Kael smirked. "We've never been good at quiet."
---
The shaft was tight—barely wide enough for them to squeeze through single-file. They moved in darkness, guided by the faint glow of Kael's rune-seared palm.
Stone gave way to old metal. Pipes hissed as they passed, steam escaping from veins long thought dormant.
They emerged beneath the refinery's central altar.
Above them, through a grate in the ceiling, they could hear chanting.
Riven activated his seal-vision.
Spirits flickered above—half-formed, bound in silver chains that pulsed with inverted mana.
"They're merging them," he whispered. "Not just binding. Fusing spirit to spirit. Making something…"
Kael whispered: "Weaponized elementals."
Elen was already climbing.
---
They hit hard.
Kael burst through the floor grate in a blaze of lightning, searing the first row of cultists into charred ash. Riven followed with a sweeping blast of kinetic force, sending ritualists flying into support beams.
Elen dropped down the other side of the altar and slit two glyph scribes before they could scream.
Chaos erupted.
One cultist managed to activate the fail-seal.
The refinery began to tremble.
Alarms pulsed—low, droning tones that vibrated through the floor.
Kael blasted a control pylon. "We need the anchor glyph! Where is it?"
Riven ran toward the core.
It pulsed like a heart of iron and blood, suspended by six blackened chains.
Veyron stirred inside him.
> Cut the chains, boy. But don't forget—they'll scream when they die.
---
Riven drew his blade.
With a deep breath, he ignited his inner Seal, synchronizing the rhythm of his magic with the resonance of the core.
He swung once—clean, precise.
One chain snapped, spraying sparks.
The spirit inside the sphere screamed louder.
Kael destroyed another.
Then the refinery screamed.
A wave of backlash tore through the altar chamber. Runes cracked. Glyphs shattered. Ritual fires exploded in silver flame.
But Riven didn't stop.
He swung again.
And again.
Until the sixth chain broke.
And the core collapsed.
---
A pulse of pure energy tore through the refinery, turning the outer scaffolding to ash.
The spirit inside the cage burst free—no longer screaming, no longer thrashing.
It rose into the sky, trailing a ribbon of stormlight, and vanished into the clouds.
The cultists fled or burned.
Silence returned.
---
After the fire died down, the three of them stood in the ruins.
The refinery was gone.
The soulbinders destroyed.
But Riven wasn't smiling.
"Too easy," Elen muttered.
"They wanted us here," Kael said.
Riven looked at the shattered remains of the anchor seal—and the faint sigil still etched beneath it.
A brand.
The Eclipse's mark.
Not carved in pain.
But invitation.
---
Far north, Seris stood in the Sanctum of Echoes, a place where memory and spell merged.
A map burned in front of her, sections of Aetherra flickering red.
She smiled.
> "Good. Let him come. Let the little heir think he's winning."
She turned toward the obsidian mirror.
> "Let him remember what he left behind."
---