Pain hit Chris like a wave of molten iron.
His breath caught as he blinked awake in the heart of the ruined temple, body crushed beneath cracked stones and embers. His muscles screamed, but they still obeyed.
Somehow, he was alive.
Mira's voice pierced the haze. "Chris! Chris, get up!"
He groaned and sat up, still clutching the glowing shard in his hand. The relic unit was gone—reduced to black slag that steamed against the shattered floor. Around him, the temple ceiling had caved inward from the force of the explosion, and light now streamed down through gaps in the rock.
"Don't move," Mira said, running to him, blood streaked across her cheek. "You took the full blast."
"I'm fine," Chris rasped.
"Liar."
Ren appeared a moment later, limping, a chunk of his robe missing and burn marks along one arm. Talith followed, silent but alive, her axes scorched but intact.
"You did it," Ren breathed, eyes wide. "You got the shard."
Chris held it up weakly.
It pulsed in his hand, warm and trembling, like something alive. Inside the translucent crystal, runes shifted and faded in and out of existence—symbols not of this world.
"What is it?" Mira asked, awed.
Chris shook his head. "I don't know. But it called me."
Talith stepped forward, nodding toward the exit. "We need to go. If the Dominion wasn't watching before, they will be now."
They moved fast, scaling the ruined path back through the temple tunnels, past flickering glyphs that pulsed behind them as if aware of their presence. The entire mountain groaned, as if the act of removing the shard had wounded something ancient beneath the stone.
Outside, a storm waited.
Not of clouds or lightning—but of fire.
In the distance, a pillar of smoke spiraled up into the sky. The forest below the Weeping Spires burned, and Dominion warships hovered like vultures in the smoke, their rune-engines glowing violet.
"They're here," Ren whispered.
Mira cursed. "They were waiting."
Talith swore in her native tongue. "We'll never outrun them."
Chris looked at the shard again. It pulsed, once—then flared. The heat in his hand seared his skin, but he held on.
The energy surged into his chest like lightning.
Suddenly, his vision expanded—across mountains, across rivers, across the world. He saw glowing threads connecting him to others. Mira. Talith. Ren. But also to people he didn't know. Faces he'd never seen. Distant. Faint.
He saw another thread, burning like a scarlet brand.
It led to a battlefield. To a girl in black armor with fire in her hair, standing atop the corpses of Dominion agents. Her eyes burned.
Zeviir.
The vision ended. Chris staggered.
Mira caught him. "What the hell just happened?"
"The shard," Chris gasped. "It's more than a key. It's a beacon. It connects to other Emberborn. Or something like them."
Mira looked pale. "Then the Dominion isn't the only thing we have to worry about."
Talith pointed toward a narrow canyon pass. "There's a hidden route west. If we move now, we can vanish before they triangulate us."
They ran.
For hours, they pushed through broken ridges and scorched earth, skirting under burned trees and over fallen statues of forgotten gods. The sky above was bloodred, cast in smoke and dying light.
They reached Hollow Ember by dusk.
But it was no longer the same.
The camp was half-emptied—packed and mobilized. Rebels rushed to prepare for evacuation, loading supplies onto carts drawn by mag-oxen. The air crackled with panic.
Maya stood near the center, shouting orders.
When she saw Chris, her face lit up—but the relief didn't reach her eyes.
"You have it?" she asked.
Chris nodded and handed her the shard.
Maya stared at it for a long moment, then whispered, "We've found the first piece."
"What now?" Mira asked.
"We run," Maya said. "Before the Dominion burns what's left of us."
"No," Chris said suddenly. "We fight."
Maya turned. "You just survived a relic. I don't think—"
"I don't care what you think," Chris snapped. "I saw something when I touched that shard. The Dominion isn't just hunting us. They're hiding something. Something big. We can't run from this anymore."
Maya stared at him, then nodded slowly. "Then we make our stand."
She turned to her lieutenants. "Fortify the eastern ridge. Evacuation in twenty-four hours. Until then—we hold the line."
Later that night, Chris stood alone near the edge of camp, watching the stars vanish behind clouds of smoke.
Mira joined him.
"You really believe we can win?" she asked.
"I believe we have to try."
She looked at him. "Even if it kills us?"
Chris turned. "Especially then."
In the dark, a shadow watched them from the forest beyond.
The Seeker stood silent, her cracked mask in her hands, her eyes locked on Chris.
She didn't know why she hesitated.
But she did.
And in the center of her palm, a faint glow began to burn.