The Elysian Dawn shuddered as it pierced the celestial storm, its fungal-patched balloon rippling like a living membrane. Lightning crackled in hues of violet and gold, illuminating the skeletal remains of airships suspended in the tempest—graveyard markers for those who'd dared defy the skies. Kairos gripped the helm, his crystallized hand fused to the ship's core by threads of amber energy. Beside him, Li Na chanted in a guttural tongue, her scars blazing like constellations as she channeled the Veil's power into the hull.
"This is suicide!" Anara shouted over the storm's howl, clinging to a mast. "We'll be torn apart!"
"Correction," Veyra-7's hologram flickered, her voice glitching. *"*You'll be torn apart. I'll just be mildly inconvenienced."
"Helpful as ever," Kai growled. The Veil's corruption snaked up his neck, jagged lines of amber cutting across his jaw. [Corruption Threshold: 42%.]
Li Na's chant rose to a crescendo. The storm parted ahead, revealing a sliver of calm—a tunnel through the chaos. "Now!"
Kai wrenched the helm sideways. The Dawn lurched into the eye of the storm, its boards groaning. For a heartbeat, there was silence.
Then they saw it.
Solara hung in the distance, a desert-isle sculpted from dunes of black glass. At its center loomed a crumbling ziggurat, its apex pierced by a shaft of sunlight that refracted into a thousand prismatic blades. Beneath it, shadows writhed—things too large, too wrong, to be natural.
"The fragment's there," Li Na said, wiping blood from her nose. "Guarded by the Storm's Teeth."
Anara frowned. "The sandworms?"
"Worse."
A low hum vibrated through the ship. The Dawn's core flared, and the holographic map above the helm flickered to life, highlighting the ziggurat's pinnacle. "Warning: Divine energy signature detected. Also, someone's shooting at us."
"What?!"
A projectile streaked from Solara's surface—a spear of condensed sand, glowing with runes. It punched through the balloon, tearing a jagged hole. The Dawn spiraled, Kai fighting to stabilize their descent.
"Hold on!"
The ship crashed into the dunes, glass shards screeching against the hull. Kai slammed into the mast, his vision swimming. When it cleared, he wished it hadn't.
A man stood atop the ziggurat's steps, cloaked in storm-gray robes. In his hand gleamed a Veil fragment—a shard of obsidian threaded with silver. "Kairos Veyra," he called, his voice echoing with dissonant harmonics. "Your brother sends his regards."
"Malik," Li Na hissed. "Cassian's hound."
"And you're the traitor who abandoned her kin," Malik sneered. He raised the fragment, and the dunes erupted.
The Storm' Teeth weren't worms.
They were hands—colossal, skeletal appendages clawing from the sand, each finger a segmented tower of bone and rusted metal. Ancient golems, their hollow eyes flickering with malevolent light.
"Split up!" Kai barked, ducking as a golem's fist cratered the sand where he'd stood. Anara sprinted toward the ziggurat, her sword deflecting a hail of glass shards. Li Na vanished into the shadows, daggers drawn.
Malik watched, amused, from the ziggurat's peak. "The fragment is mine, princeling. As is your corpse."
"Talk less," Kai snarled, activating Chrono-Stutter.
Time froze.
One second.
He scaled the golem's arm, cutlass aimed for its glowing core.
Time snapped back.
The blade struck true. The golem collapsed, but two more surged forward.
[Corruption Threshold: 47%.]
Too fast.
Anara's scream cut through the chaos. A golem had her pinned, its claw tightening around her torso. "Kai!"
He reached for the Veil—Spatial Shift—but Li Na was faster. She materialized atop the golem's head, daggers plunging into its ocular lens. The machine spasmed, releasing Anara.
"I had it!" Anara snapped.
"You're welcome," Li Na said coldly.
Malik laughed. "How touching." He raised his fragment, and the ziggurat trembled. A black hole spiraled to life above him, devouring light and sand.
"Run!" Kai yelled.
The singularity surged, tearing golems apart. The Dawn's hull groaned as it slid toward the void. Anara stumbled, her armor buckling under the gravitational pull.
"Take my hand!" Kai lunged, his crystallized fingers closing around her wrist.
"Kairos, don't—!" Li Na warned.
He activated Spatial Shift, teleporting them behind Malik—and into the ziggurat's shadow.
The strain was instant. Corruption spiderwebbed across Kai's chest, his breath ragged. [Corruption Threshold: 53%.]
Malik turned, his fragment humming. "Clever. But this ends now."
"Agreed," Kai said.
He and Anara attacked in unison—Kai's cutlass slashing low, Anara's sword striking high. Malik parried both, his movements blurred by the fragment's power.
"You're outmatched," Malik taunted.
"But not outnumbered," Li Na said, appearing behind him. Her dagger plunged toward his spine—but Malik twisted, catching her wrist.
"I know your tricks, Isvallan," he spat. "Your bloodline's as tainted as his."
Li Na's eyes widened. "You—
Malik slammed his palm into her chest. Energy erupted, hurling her into the dunes.
"Li Na!" Kai lunged, but Anara held him back.
"The fragment!" she urged, pointing. Malik's obsidian shard pulsed inches from Kai's grasp.
He reached—
Malik seized his crystallized arm. "This belongs to Cassian."
The Veil screamed.
Amber light exploded, tearing Malik's hand from his wrist. The fragment clattered to the ground. Kai scrambled for it, but Anara was faster.
"Kai, catch!" She tossed it—
Malik's remaining hand shot out, snatching the shard midair. "Fools."
He slammed both fragments together.
The world ripped.
A shockwave of energy threw Kai to his knees. The Veil in his chest bucked like a living thing, its sync rate plummeting. [Synchronization: 3%. Warning: Fragment lost.]
Malik hovered above the ziggurat, the merged fragments swirling in a vortex of black and silver. "The Storm comes for you, princeling. Pray it's merciful."
He vanished, the black hole collapsing in his wake.
Silence fell, broken only by the moan of the dying wind.
Anara knelt beside Kai, her hands trembling. "Your Veil… it's fading."
He coughed, black blood speckling the sand. "Not… yet."
Li Na limped toward them, clutching her ribs. "We need to go. Now."
"Why?" Anara demanded. "He's dying!"
"Because," Li Na said, staring at the horizon, "we're not alone."
The dunes shifted. Figures emerged—hooded, their robes the color of sun-bleached bone. In their hands, glowed fragments of their own.
"The Sunsworn," Li Na whispered. "Solara's keepers. And they don't like thieves."
The leader stepped forward, lowering his hood to reveal a face of cracked porcelain, eyes burning with golden fire. "The Veil's heir," he intoned. "The Storm's herald. You will come."
[Corruption Threshold: 59%.]
Kai met Anara's gaze. "Stay close."
She gripped his hand, her touch startlingly warm. "Always."
As the Sunsworn closed in, the Elysian Dawn's engine sputtered to life behind them. Veyra-7's hologram flickered weakly. "I'd say 'I told you so,' but we're all about to die. Fun!"
The Sunsworn raised their fragments. Light engulfed the world.