The Mark's Hunger
Kairos' dreams were no longer his own.
Each night, the Frostspire's black ice crept into his mind, fracturing into visions of a starless void and a throne of frozen bones. The Forgotten God's voice echoed there, relentless: "You cannot outrun a shadow, little king. It clings. It consumes."
By dawn, frost rimed his windows, even in Skybreaker's temperate core. Anara found him scrubbing his hands raw in the palace baths, the skin around his frostbitten fingers blistered and blue.
"It's spreading," he muttered, holding up his trembling palm. The mark—a spiral of black ice—now spanned his wrist.
Anara gripped his shoulders, her reflection sharp in the water. "Li Na's interrogating the Sunsworn prisoners. We'll find a way to purge it."
"At what cost?" He pulled free. "The last 'cure' required a goddess' sacrifice. What's next? A kingdom?"
[The bathwater froze. The Forgotten God's laughter rattled the tiles.]
Cassian's Silence
Cassian refused to speak.
He sat by the palace gardens, staring at the bluestar fields where he'd once tilled soil as a farmer. His hands, once calloused from labor, were smooth and pale—the god's corruption scrubbed clean, but his soul still stained.
Li Na approached him at dusk, her daggers sheathed but her scars luminous in the twilight. "The god used your memories," she said. "Your love for your wife. Your guilt. Your fear."
Cassian flinched.
"It'll use them again," she pressed. "Unless you fight."
"Why?" Cassian's voice was a rasp. "So I can be your weapon? Your martyr?"
"So you can be free," Li Na said, tossing him a sun-forged dagger. "Or die trying."
The Sunsworn's Betrayal
The Sunsworn prisoners died before they could talk.
Li Na found their cellblock encased in black ice, their bodies contorted into grotesque sculptures. Only one survived long enough to whisper: "The pact… was never with the god. With… her."
"Her?" Anara knelt, but the prisoner's eyes frosted over.
Veyra-7's hologram flickered, her code glitching. "Distress signal incoming. From the Sunsworn's sanctum. Audio only."
Static crackled, then a voice Kairos hadn't heard in years: "Kai… it's Lyra. I'm alive. And I'm sorry."
[The transmission cut. The sanctum's coordinates burned into the console.]
The Ghost in the Machine
The Elysian Dawn breached the Sunsworn sanctum's defenses with ease—too much ease. The orbital fortress hung in ruins, its porcelain spires shattered, its halls littered with corpses in Sunsworn robes.
"They're all dead," Anara said, kicking aside a void-crystal shard. "But who—?"
A figure emerged from the shadows: Lyra, her body a patchwork of flesh and machine, her left eye replaced by a pulsing void-crystal.
"Hello, sister," she said, aiming a railgun at Li Na's chest. "Miss me?"
Li Na's daggers flashed. "You're not Lyra."
"Not anymore," Lyra smirked. "The Sunsworn rebuilt me. To kill the god. To kill you."
[The mark on Kai's wrist flared. The Forgotten God whispered: "Liar."]
The Fractured Pact
Lyra's story spilled out between gunfire and clashing steel:
The Sunsworn had resurrected her using Dead Sun tech, binding her corpse to a machine core. Their pact was simple—Lyra would lure the Forgotten God into a trap, using Kai as bait. But the god had already claimed her, twisting her into a vessel.
"You're a fool," Lyra hissed, pinning Li Na to the floor. "The god isn't in the Frostspire. It's here."
She ripped open her chestplate, revealing a core of black ice. The sanctum trembled as the god's presence surged, its voice harmonizing with hers:
"You cannot kill a shadow… but you can become one."
[The core detonated.]
The Price of Truth
The explosion shattered the sanctum's gravity field. Kai, Anara, and Li Na tumbled into the void, clinging to debris as the Dawn's engines sputtered.
"Lyra…" Li Na whispered, watching her sister's body disintegrate in the blast.
"That wasn't her," Kai said, hauling her into the ship. "Not anymore."
Anara triggered the thrusters. "Then what the hell was it?"
Veyra-7's hologram fizzed. "A message. The god isn't buried. It's learning."
[The console lit up with a star map—a trail of dead worlds leading to a nameless planet. The mark on Kai's wrist pulsed: Follow.]