The silver moon hung over the Crystalline Spires as Lyara pressed her hand to the rune-inscribed gate. Blue light shimmered beneath her fingertips, and the stone groaned, splitting open. She rushed inside the vault, heart pounding.
The Oracle’s prophecy had been clear—retrieve the Emberheart before the Shadow King seized it. The air shimmered with trapped magic, and at the chamber’s center, the gem pulsed atop an obsidian pedestal.
Lyara reached for it, but a spectral guardian rose from the stone, its bladeless hilt crackling with arcane energy. She spun, dodging its lunge. With a whispered incantation, her staff flared, tendrils of light binding the wraith. It strained against the spell—she had seconds.
Grasping the Emberheart, fire surged through her veins. The guardian howled and collapsed, its form dissolving into mist. The vault trembled, collapsing inwards—she barely leapt through the gate before the ruins sealed behind her.
Breathless, Emberheart in hand, she gazed toward the distant horizon. The war was just beginning.
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