A week after the tremor, a deep fissure split the earth just beyond Elderglen's western vineyards. At dusk, villagers swore they heard voices rising from its depths—soft murmurs that twisted familiar words into unintelligible wails. When Lior, Sylas, Corwin, Bram, and Riven assembled at the chasm's edge, the Heartstone's glow had dimmed to a cautious pulse.
Riven knelt by the rupture, tracing the cracked runes scorched into the stone lip. "Malrik's darkness lingers in places we cannot yet see," he said. "This chasm is more than an aftershock—it's a wound in the land's very soul."
Lior pressed a palm to the iron-warm soil. "The FlameShard trembles—angry, restless." He closed his eyes and whispered into the void, but only distant echoes answered: a choir of tortured breaths.
Sylas unfurled his feather token and let the breeze wind around it. "And the wind carries secrets," he murmured, listening. The air trembled with faint syllables—four… watch… beyond…—before the gale tore the whispers away.
Corwin knelt at the chasm's brink and held the conch to his ear. When he spoke, his voice was firm. "I hear the tide's grief. The earth bleeds sorrow." He poured a ribbon of water into the crack; it hissed on heated rock, steam coiling upward like a living thing.
Bram planted his staff beside the chasm. Tendrils of root snaked down the walls, probing for stability. The ground hummed in reply—a low, keening vibration that set their teeth on edge.
Riven rose and drew the complete Heartstone from Lior's satchel. Its four-hued light carved a pool of calm around them. "We must bind this rift with our unity, before the shadows use it as a gateway."
They formed a circle around the chasm, each guardian raising the token of their element: Lior's ember, Sylas's feather, Corwin's conch, Bram's staff. Reciting the vow as one, they pressed their tokens to the soil:
"By flame that heals,
By wind that clears,
By tide that cleanses,
By stone that steadies,
We seal this wound in unity's name."
Flames licked the fissure's edges, followed by a gale that carried away ashen dust. Water coursed into the crack, filling fissures and cooling molten veins. Living roots wove a lattice across fractured stone, knitting it together. At the circle's center, the Heartstone's glow surged—and the chasm's mouth closed with a final, reverberating sigh.
Silence fell, broken only by the distant sigh of the breeze through vineyards. The land felt whole again—yet beneath the newly sealed earth, something shifted. A single whisper drifted upward, almost lost in the night wind:
"Soon… the true test…"
The guardians exchanged wary glances. They had healed one wound, but the call from below hinted at trials yet unseen—echoes of a darkness older than Malrik's pride, stirring in the shadows beyond their restored realm.