The dawn mist clung to Gloamfold Bridge like a living veil, curling around the ancient stones and whispering of secrets long drowned in swamp waters. Lynchie Fuentes Regino stepped onto the moss-slick surface, Spiral runes glowing faintly beneath her boots. Zev walked at her side, silent as ever, every sense alert for the enemy that had pierced Valemire's southern defenses.
Below them, the river's black current churned, lapping at the bridge's fractured pillars. Vyen and a squad of Crescent Blades fanned out behind, wards crackling on their armor. Far off, the eastern ridge smoked where Mirror-Spoken forces had clawed through the first ward line. Here, at this lonely crossing, they hoped to hold the tide.
Lynchie raised her palm. A pulse of blue-white energy shot down the bridge, sealing the largest crack in the keystone arch. The wards responded, paling in relief as ancient magic reknit the stones.
"Good," Zev murmured. "But you only bought us minutes."
She glanced at him, breath coming steady now. "Then we make it count."
A glimmer of movement at the bridge's far end snapped their focus. Two dozen figures emerged from the swirl of mist—Mirror-Spoken warriors clad in shifting gray cloaks, blades drawn. At their forefront strode a captain whose mirrored mask caught the weak sunlight and fractured it into deadly shards.
Lynchie felt the Spiral coil in her core, nerves alight. "They come for me," she whispered.
Zev's hand fell on her shoulder, firm. "And you'll give them more than they bargained for."
The Mirror-Spoken captain paused at the threshold of the wards. His voice rolled across the bridge like distant thunder. "Conduit of the Spiral, your fires cannot hold here."
Lynchie stepped forward. The runes beneath her flared gold. "Then watch me try."
With a gesture, she unleashed a storm of spiral shards—the air above the bridge shimmering as blades of pure magic spun outward in a deadly arc. Mirror-Spoken shields ignited in pale flame, blocking the initial onslaught, but her second wave struck true: three warriors fell back, hissing as magic seared through their cloaks.
Zev charged, blade drawn, cutting down any who slipped past her wards. His movements were a tempest—clean, inexorable. Lynchie met his gaze for a heartbeat: trust and defiance warring behind storm-tossed eyes.
The captain raised his sword, and the river below responded. Black water surged up the pillars as tentacles of corrupted current slithered toward the bridge, seeking to drown the runes in shadow. Lynchie's heart lurched—if the wards fell, the bridge would collapse, and the entire southern front would flood.
She thrust both palms forward. "Hold!" she cried.
A second eruption of Spiral power slammed into the abyssal tendrils, forcing them back into the dark waters. The bridge groaned, stones quivering, but held.
The captain moved again, faster than human eyes could follow. Lynchie raised her ward-staff in defense—and Zev intercepted the strike meant to find her throat. His blade shattered against hers, sparks flying, and the force flung him back against the parapet.
Anger ignited in Lynchie's chest. She wove her magic faster than thought, a spiral cyclone wreathing the bridge, hurling shards of crystal that turned the morning haze into a storm of prismatic death. One struck the captain's mask—and the mirror cracked.
His hood fell back, revealing hollow sockets where eyes should burn. Lynchie recoiled, breath catching. Without reflection, he looked… empty.
A cold dread pooled in her gut. "He's a Hollow-Born," she said. "A vessel with no soul of its own."
Before she could thought-frame the words, the captain lunged—each strike voided half the Spiral runes beneath her feet. The bridge trembled. Zev staggered to his feet, voice raw: "Fall back!"
But Lynchie planted her staff in the cracked stone. "No," she said. "We finish this now."
The captain's blade arced. Lynchie channeled every ounce of memory, every shard of her fractured promise to Veyrion. A pillar of gold-white light snapped upward from the wards, engulfing the bridge in radiance so pure it seared shadow from stone.
When the glare faded, the Hollow-Born captain lay broken at her feet, mask shattered, body dissolved like mist in sunlight. The corrupted water receded. Silence fell, heavy and trembling.
Zev came to her side, hand warm on her arm. "You did it," he said softly.
She knelt, touching the still-glowing runes. "We did it."
Far below, the river's voice was calm once more. The southern front held—for now.
Lynchie stood, letting the gold-white aura around her dim. As the mist lifted, she felt something shift deep in the earth—a new fracture opening, faint but certain.
Zev caught her gaze. "Another battle waits."
She swallowed, drawing strength from his steady presence. "Then we cross it together."
Side by side, they turned from the broken bridge, stepping back onto solid ground—and into the rising dawn of war yet to come.