Mag-log inMia's POV
The next morning arrived with an eerie stillness. No birdsong, no rustle of leaves. Just silence.
It unsettled me more than any nightmare ever could.
By the time I made it to the dining room, the pack was already gathered. Damian stood at the head of the table, maps spread before him. Elara, Kato, Austin, and Sybil flanked him. Mike and Nella sat to the side, tension thick in the room.
"You're late," Damian said without looking up.
"I'm aware," I muttered. "I had a name in my dreams. Nyx."
That got his attention. He looked up sharply, eyes narrowing.
"That's the name of a goddess," Sybil said, stepping forward. "The ancient personificatio
Light peeled away from her in slow ribbons, revealing a sky that wasn’t a sky at all but a canvas of drifting constellations. Every star pulsed to the same beat as her heart. Beneath her feet stretched a bridge made of nothing—just shimmer and gravity’s memory. At its far end, a single figure stood, sword lowered, head bowed.Damian.He looked up when she spoke his name, and the relief that flickered across his face was so raw it almost hurt. “I told you not to follow,” she whispered.He smiled faintly. “And I told you I never listen.”The bridge trembled, thin cracks of red running along its sides. Around them, the resonance boiled—currents of silver light twisting into storms of shadow. The king’s essence wasn’t gone. It lingered like smoke in the lungs of the world.Mia staggered forward, catching herself on his shoulder. Their skin sparked where it met, two energies clashing and finding rhythm. “He’s everywhere,” she breathed. “I know,” Damian said. “I can feel him in the air.
Darkness had texture. It wasn’t empty; it pressed from every side like a heartbeat held too long.Mia floated in it, weightless, unsure whether she was asleep or simply unmade. Threads of silver drifted from her fingertips, disappearing into the black. Each pulse of light revealed flashes of what might have been sky, then ash, then nothing at all.Where am I?Her own voice echoed back in dozens of tones, some gentle, some cruel."Where you always were," the voices replied, "between mercy and ruin."A figure stepped out of the dark—her father first, smiling like he used to when he thought she wasn’t looking. Behind him, her stepmother and the hybrids she’d saved, faces of every soul she’d failed to protect. All of them watching.Mia whispered, “No. You’re not real.”The smiles cracked. One by one, they tilted their heads, eyes turning red.“You made us real,” said the chorus. “You gave us life through memory. Now remember what you did with it.”The darkness twisted, forming scenes: vi
The wind died when the crater formed. Not a single gust dared cross the broken rim, as if even the air understood what slept below.Damian stood at the edge, his armor dusted in soot, eyes locked on the swirling glow deep beneath the surface. The others gathered behind him—Sybil gripping her staff, Nella with her spear still smoking from lightning discharge, and Taro limping slightly, his shoulder bandaged. None of them spoke.The silence stretched until Damian finally said, “We’re going down.”Sybil’s head snapped toward him. “We don’t know what’s waiting—”“We know what’s not waiting,” he cut in. “Mia. And I’m not leaving her there.”No one argued. Not this time.They tied ropes to the remaining stone pillars and began the descent. The heat grew with every step, a dry, pulsing warmth that smelled faintly of iron and earth. The walls of the crater shimmered—veins of light snaking through black rock, some glowing silver, others red, winding together in a pattern too precise to be natu
The first sunrise after the storm came thin and pale, its light filtering through smoke that refused to lift.Aeloria no longer looked like home—it looked like something trying to remember what home meant.Mia woke to the sound of wind moving through torn canvas. The fever had broken, but her body still trembled with every breath. She felt the echo of last night—the power, the pain, the voice. The red veins that had crept beneath her skin were fading now, leaving faint silver traces instead, as if light had learned to bleed.Damian sat nearby, head bowed in exhaustion. When she stirred, he looked up, relief softening his face. “Welcome back.”She tried to smile, but her lips felt cracked. “How long?”“Two days,” he said. “You stopped breathing three times.”“I got better.”He gave a breathless laugh, half disbelieving, half grateful.Mia pushed herself upright. Her vision swam, then steadied. The camp was quieter than before. Fewer tents. Fewer people. The air smelled of ash and herbs
The fire burned low, throwing long shadows across the camp. The Hybrids spoke little; exhaustion had dulled even fear into silence. Beyond the cliff, the forest pulsed faintly with veins of crimson light, each one twitching like a heartbeat trapped beneath the soil.Mia stood at the edge of the camp, barefoot, her toes sinking into the damp earth. She could feel the rhythm beneath her soles—the breath of the wounded realm, uneven but alive. Every inhale of wind drew the same sound through her chest. The world’s pain had become her own.Damian approached quietly, a cloak draped over his shoulders. “You haven’t stopped listening since we arrived.”“If I stop,” she murmured, “it goes quiet. And quiet means dying.”He folded his arms. “Then at least sit while you save the world.”She smiled faintly but didn’t move. “Can’t. It’s changing again.”Lightning crackled far away, painting the horizon in split seconds of white. When the flash faded, the forest below shifted—the red veins withdrew
Silence.Not the kind born of peace, but of something broken too deeply to remember its sound.Mia opened her eyes to a world drowned in light. The air shimmered around her, thick with the scent of burned magic. The sky above was no longer silver but fractured—cracks of darkness laced through it like veins, bleeding faint ribbons of color.Her body ached. Every bone screamed with exhaustion, every nerve buzzing from the surge that had torn through her. The blue crystal was gone, nothing but fine dust in her palm.“Mia!”The voice was distant at first, muffled by ringing ears. Then it grew sharper. Damian’s shadow loomed over her, face streaked with soot, eyes wide with fear.She tried to speak but coughed instead, forcing air through raw lungs. “Did it work?”He helped her sit up, scanning the horizon. “If by ‘work’ you mean the world hasn’t collapsed yet, then… maybe.”Mia followed his gaze. The Aether Spire still stood, but its glow had changed. What was once silver and pure now fli







