The first tremor hit just as Pag collapsed to one knee.

  The cavern groaned above them, ancient stone shuddering. Ember-veined pillars cracked like bone. The shattered remains of the Seal pulsed once more—then imploded inward with a soundless exhale, vanishing into a fine spiral of white ash.

  The temple was coming down.

  “Move!” Faelan barked, already dragging Borin to his feet.

  Pag lurched up, breath ragged. His skin still steamed, ember scars pulsing faintly beneath torn armor.

  Ellen was beside him, her face pale, her hand gripping his sleeve hard. “Come on, spark-breath. No dying today.”

  Pag nodded and turned toward the edge of the altar chamber—but stopped.

  There.

  Amid the ruin of the monolith.

  A single shard remained. Floating.

  A jagged piece of obsidian veined in gold, still hot, still humming with restrained energy.

  Pag reached out and took it.

  And the moment his fingers closed around it, his HUD flared.

  >RELIC FRAGMENT ACQUIRED: EMBERBORN CORE SHARD<

  >Status: Dormant. Incomplete. Resonant with Host.<

  It pulsed once against his palm—then went still.

  Pag shoved it into his belt satchel and turned toward the others.

  “Got what we came for.”

  “Great,” Borin growled. “Now let’s leave before the ceiling eats us.”

  They ran through the breaking temple, stone crashing down around them in sheets. Glyph-lined walls folded inward. Flames bled from broken murals. Arcane circuits flickered and died.

  The air grew tight and hot, ash coating their skin.

  Pag led the way now—no longer guessing, but knowing. The ember pulsed not in hunger now, but with direction. The same force that had once been sealed knew the way out.

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  They passed statues collapsing into dust, corridors melting into slag. One hallway they ran through twisted behind them, swallowing its own geometry.

  Time had grown wrong here.

  But they kept moving.

  Up ahead: light. Cold, real light.

  They burst into the outer sanctum, breath heaving, skin blistered with soot.

  And they stopped cold.

  Because someone was waiting.

  He stood atop a fractured archway, cloaked in long layers of glinting black robes trimmed in dull silver thread. His face was hidden behind a narrow crescent mask etched with mirrored runes.

  He did not move. He did not speak.

  But Pag felt him.

  The way fire feels the wind.

  The others slowed, weapons drawn, tense.

  “Friend of yours?” Faelan asked.

  Pag shook his head.

  “No.”

  Then the man finally moved—only a slight shift. A tilt of his head.

  A voice echoed—not from his mouth, but inside their minds.

  "The fragment returns to fire. As expected."

  >Designation: Inquisitor Caedemon Affiliation: Lunar Empire—First Circle of Silence Class: Soul-Arbitrator<

  Pag’s jaw clenched. “You watched us fight. You could’ve intervened.”

  "Intervention was unnecessary," the Inquisitor said calmly. "Observation is more… illuminating."

  Borin raised his hammer. “We can illuminate your face with it if you’d like—”

  Pag raised a hand. “No.”

  The Inquisitor stepped off the arch and landed soundlessly on the stone floor. The heat of the ruin didn’t touch him. His cloak barely moved in the scorched air.

  "You carry only a shard," he said, turning toward Pag. "The rest of the relic remains scattered. Dormant. Forgotten. But you… you will lead us to them."

  Pag stepped forward, letting the ember rise just enough to flare across his eyes.

  “You think I’ll let you follow me?”

  Caedemon tilted his head again.

  "I do not need to follow."

  "I only need you to burn bright enough to find the rest."

  Then he simply vanished.

  No portal.

  No flash.

  Gone.

  Silence filled the temple ruins, broken only by falling ash.

  Faelan exhaled through his nose. “That... was not encouraging.”

  Ellen gave Pag a sharp look. “What the hell does he mean by ‘the rest’?”

  Pag opened the satchel and held up the fragment.

  It pulsed—once. Faint. Like it was listening.

  “I think this was only the key,” he said quietly.

  Behind him, the broken Seal chamber continued to collapse—swallowing the past, but not the future.

  And far above, in the windswept heights of the empire and beyond…

  Others had felt it.

  The fire had returned.

  The night sky above the Shattered Range was blood-red with mana fallout, the stars like watching eyes.

  Pag and the others moved quickly, the smoke of the collapsed temple still rising behind them.

  The land had begun to shift beneath their boots—subtle, but ominous.

  The release of the Seal had changed something in the bones of the world.

  Pag felt it in the air.

  In the fire.

  In himself.

  They traveled by shadow and silence, avoiding what patrols remained. Imperial stragglers scouted the foothills, likely searching for survivors, but Faelan led them through hidden passes and dried ravines.

  Ellen was quiet, unusually so, but she stayed close to Pag, sharp-eyed, checking for any trace of a tail.

  Borin bore the brunt of their supplies now, limping slightly, grumbling but alert. “Next ruin we crawl through better have beds. And beer. A keg.”

  Pag barely heard him.

  The fragment pulsed through his satchel like a slow drumbeat.

  Not pain.

  Not danger.

  Just reminder.

  It was not the end.

  It was the beginning.