"Raine!"
Thalia's voice cut through the cavern's roaring energy like a blade. She threw herself to Raine's side, her icy fingertips trembling as she searched for his pulse at his neck.
It fluttered so feebly it was almost imperceptible. His face was chalk‑white, lips tinged blue. His body felt like a slab of stone tossed between ice and flame—sometimes scorching hot, then freezing cold.
The backlash of his star‑magic was far worse than she had ever imagined. His sacrificial Starblood—poured like lamp oil into a raging fire—had detonated every latent, destructive impulse within him.
Desperately, Thalia fetched several herbal pellets from her pouch and pressed them into Raine's mouth. Then she pressed her palm to his brow, striving to thread a wisp of her Shadow‑core energy into the tumult of his star‑light.
It did nothing. The herbs vanished fruitlessly. Her shadow magic shattered the instant it touched the maelstrom in his veins, provoking only a more violent backlash.
Raine's body jerked. A strangled gasp tore from him. His breathing grew so shallow it threatened to cease altogether.
He was dying.
"Karri! Karriion!" Thalia's voice cracked, panic threading every syllable as she turned to where the dwarf still hammered away at the anvil.
With a bestial roar, Karriion drove the rune‑hammer into the metal one last time—three strikes, each precisely on the newly etched runes.
CLANG… CLANG… CLANG!
The ringing metal seemed to speak in its own ancient tongue, conversing with the weapon's core. Underneath the dwarf's blows, the Starflame Blade glowed with a subdued crimson aura—no longer writhing in uncontrolled power but now compressed into a coiled, terrible tension.
Karriion slowed his hammering, gently angling the blade on the anvil and clasping its molten hilt with rune‑forged tongs, ensuring the forge's embers seeped evenly through the steel. This was the final, most perilous stage—one misstep and the entire forge might explode, or the blade itself might shatter.
Beads of sweat dripped from Karriion's brow onto the glowing floor, hissing in the heat. His breath came in labored gusts; he could feel the weapon's ruthless energy pressing against every rune, demanding perfect focus.
"I can't leave!" he bellowed over the crackling forge. "This damned thing is almost done—and almost out of control! You figure it out!"
His words struck Thalia like a hammer. Karriion could not spare a moment. Conventional healing had no effect. Raine was slipping toward death.
Thalia's body locked—her shadowed eyes sharpening as she sensed movement at the cave's mouth.
The stench of corruption thickened, not just the sickly sweet rot but an ice‑cold malice slithering in—corruption gathering here, drawn by the explosive forging ritual.
Her heart seized. Knights of the Church had pursued them even here?
Panic surged. Corrupted beasts or fanatical knights—either would spell doom, especially with Raine helpless and Karriion immobile.
They had to escape at once. Raine must survive.
Thalia's gaze flicked back to Raine's pale profile. His breath was tenuous. He teetered on the edge of oblivion.
What could she do? Her mind raced.
Her hand slid to her chest—over the steel‑cold shape beneath her robes, the Shadow‑core fragment. It was her life‑anchor and her curse. Its power could suppress corruption—and fuel her shadows—but each use drained her very essence.
Use it now? To save Raine?
Had she not already sacrificed so much? Another surge of that power might be her last.
Could she bear that cost—for a fledgling noble she barely knew, for a phantom quest to find a sister?
Her vision swam, torn by doubt. But then she saw Raine's face: tormented, yet defiant. She remembered how his blood had steadied her shadow once before. He, too, was of the Starborn. Perhaps he—and what he stood for—deserved her sacrifice.
No. She could not watch him die. The Guardian's duty was not merely to protect the Shadow‑core, but to safeguard the Starborn's future—however faint that light.
Thalia steeled herself. She rose, every bit the spectral sentinel. With a measured step, she knelt at Raine's side once more.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, though she dared not let Karriion see. Then she pressed her palm against her heart.
From the core fragment, a silver‑blue luminescence spilled forth—pure star‑light tinged with shadow. The glow slipped through her sleeve, down her arm, and into Raine's fingertips in a glowing tendril.
The clash was immediate—a collision of frost and flame in Raine's veins. His form convulsed; agony twisted his features. Thalia gasped as the starstream within him roared to meet the infusion. She held on, heart pounding.
Slowly, the storm in his chest abated. The raw backlash of his magic subsided, smothered by her gift. His breathing eased some, though it remained shallow and frail.
Thalia drew back, her strength spent. The light faded; the fragment's glow sank into darkness. She felt her limbs go slack.
Barely able to stand, she pressed one hand to the cold wall, gasping. Her skin had gone ashen; every breath felt like razors.
She dared a glance at Karriion. The dwarf remained at his anvil, oblivious, forging the last vestiges of the Starflame Blade.
She had given her life's blood to save his—and Raine's.
Outside, the shadows still shifted. The threat had not vanished.
Thalia's knees buckled. Leaning on the stone, she caught her reflection in the dim light: a solitary figure safeguarding a fragile flame in the encroaching dark.
A guardian in the shadows—bound by duty, driven by sacrifice.