The Devourer's Breath
---
The ziggurat breathed cold air.
Kael led the descent, torch in one hand, Myrrh in the other. The stairwell spiraled downward, rough-hewn from stone so ancient it felt more dream than architecture.
Behind him, the others moved silently, senses sharp.
The further they went, the heavier the world became. Not just the weight of earth and stone overhead — but a pressure on their very souls, as if unseen hands tried to push them back.
Kael felt Myrrh vibrate faintly, almost warningly.
At last, the stairs ended in a vast, circular chamber.
It was not empty.
---
In the center stood a monument — a crystalline sphere, fractured and humming, held aloft by veins of Veilforce that pulsed like arteries.
Inside the sphere, something shifted.
Something alive.
Dain immediately raised a hand, murmuring an incantation under his breath. Sigils floated at his fingertips, scanning, deciphering.
"It's a prison," he said after a moment, voice grim. "But the locks are... decaying."
Kael stepped closer, gaze narrowing.
He saw flashes inside the sphere: wings wider than mountains; teeth like swords; a maw that opened onto an endless void.
A name surfaced in his mind — as if whispered from the stones themselves:
> Devourer of Horizons.
A being of raw hunger.
Born not from the Shards.
Born from the rupture that created the Shards.
Nyssra hissed a breath. "If that thing gets loose—"
Theron finished for her, voice low. "There won't be a realm left to save."
---
A sudden pulse shook the chamber.
Cracks webbed deeper across the sphere.
The Devourer stirred.
Kael gritted his teeth. "Options?"
Dain grimaced. "If we had ten years, a dozen mages, and a mountain of pure Veilstone? Maybe we could reinforce it."
Nyssra unsheathed a slender blade of woven light. "No time for wishes."
Another pulse. Louder. Closer.
From the ceiling, strands of corrupted Veilforce began to drip like venom, twisting into crude, skeletal shapes — guardians born from the dying prison's last defenses.
Kael squared his shoulders.
"Then we hold the line."
Theron flashed a grin, knives dancing between his fingers. "About time."
The first skeletal guardian lunged from the darkness — a towering figure of bone and molten crystal, shrieking as it swung a warhammer that could crush stone.
Kael met it head-on, Myrrh blazing with cursed light.
Steel sang against bone.
Magic crackled through the air.
Nyssra and Dain moved to protect the sphere — weaving barriers of light and force — while Theron danced between enemies, a blur of silver and blood.
---
For every guardian they felled, two more rose.
The chamber became a maelstrom of violence and willpower.
Kael felt his muscles screaming, his Veilforce burning dangerously low — but he refused to yield.
He had seen the Devourer's true face.
He knew what failure meant.
Above them, the black sun beyond the Gate pulsed again — stronger this time, as if sensing the prison's weakening grip.
Then, from the sphere, a voice not made for mortal ears:
> "I see you, little flames."
A hundred minds screamed inside Kael's skull.
He staggered, dropping to one knee.
Nyssra cried out.
Dain collapsed, blood dripping from his nose.
Only Theron, gritting his teeth so hard they bled, managed to stay standing.
Kael forced himself up.
His vision swam. His bones felt like glass.
But he took a step forward anyway.
Toward the prison.
Toward the voice.
Because if he didn't…
There would be no realms left to return to.