Fire wasn’t supposed to sing.
Water wasn’t meant to burn.
Air shouldn’t move like earth.
And stone was definitely not supposed to flow like a river.
But at the convergence point, as six people moved through forms older than memory, the elements themselves rewrote the rules of what was possible.
Jin watched starlight bend through Reyna’s flames, creating paths that Kira’s water followed like it had found its way home. Beside her, Gard and Lira woke songs in the stone that made Talon’s winds dance with joy.
Then the void-ships launched their second attack, and even impossible magic had to bow to necessity.
“They’re trying to separate us!” Talon’s voice carried on winds that shouldn’t exist. “Break the circle before—”
“Before this,” Kira finished, as her coral spheres blazed with remembered light. In their glow, patterns appeared in the air – not just writing, but music. The first language of all elements, scored in fire and starlight.
The void-hunters dropped from their ships like liquid shadow, their masked faces reflecting nothing but hunger. Where they touched the ground, reality itself seemed to dim.
But the dance had already begun.
Reyna’s flames spiraled through Jin’s air-paths, guided by patterns that felt written in their bones. Fire and wind moved like they’d never been apart, creating shields of pure light.
“The spheres,” Kira called, her voice harmonizing with the waterfall’s song. “There are more. One for each element, each holding part of the—”
Shadow-weapons struck at their circle. But now earth answered, Gard and Lira calling stone barriers that moved like living things. Crystal sparked where void-magic touched it, remembering older, truer names for power.
“The temples,” Gard read the memory in stone. “Four points where elements first learned to dance. Where the spheres were kept before—”
A void-hunter slipped through their defenses, mask turning to catch each of them in its empty reflection. But Talon was already moving, winds carrying him like he’d been born to dance through storm and sky. His air-magic caught the hunter’s cloak, and for a moment they all saw what lay beneath:
Nothing.
And everything.
A hunger that had forgotten it was ever whole.
“That’s why they broke the elements apart,” Lira’s voice carried earth’s certainty. “They feed on the separation. On the wrongness of things divided.”
The hunter lunged, shadow-blade singing wrong songs. But now they moved as one, six bodies remembering steps written in their very souls:
Reyna’s fire lit the way.
Jin’s winds carried the flame.
Kira’s water shaped it.
Talon’s storms drove it.
Gard’s stone anchored it.
Lira’s earth lived it.
[First part remains the same until after their combined magic against the void-hunter, then continues:]
The void-hunter shattered like dark glass. But more were coming. Always more. And the darkness around their ships grew deeper, trying to unmake the very memory of unity.
“Something’s wrong,” Kira said, her coral spheres pulsing with urgent light. “This place… it’s not what I thought.” She looked around at the convergence point – the burning waterfall, the wind caves, the crystal-veined stone. “It’s not a temple. It’s older. Natural.”
“A meeting place,” Gard added, reading the mountain’s memory. “Where elements could touch safely before the temples were built.”
The coral spheres blazed brighter, projecting images in mist and light:
Four great temples, built after the first breaking.
Each housing a sphere of power.
Each guarding part of the whole.
“Show us,” Jin breathed, and the visions shifted:
A peak where giants once walked.
The earth sphere singing in stone silence.
Deep waters below Maralyd’s reach.
The water sphere pulsing in crushing darkness.
The Aurora Realm where sky meets starlight.
The air sphere dancing in northern lights.
Charrine’s volcanic ring, where fire stays pure.
The fire sphere burning in perpetual flame.
“Four temples,” Reyna said, fire flowing like water through her hands. “Six of us.”
“Some will have to walk multiple paths,” Talon added, reading patterns in the wind. “Different pairs for different temples.”
Lira nodded, earth-mark blazing. “The elements themselves will choose who goes where. Some combinations for some trials…”
“And different ones for others,” Kira finished. “We’ll need to split up, then regroup, then split again differently.”
The void-ships pressed closer, but now light answered their darkness. The convergence point – this natural place of elemental harmony – blazed with their combined power.
“Time to choose,” Gard said, feeling earth’s certainty. “Three pairs first. Then new combinations for what comes after.”
They moved together, six bodies, four elements, one dance. But the void-hunters kept coming, and even remembered magic had limits.
Reyna smiled, sharp as flame on water. “Well then. Who’s ready for a longer journey than we thought?”
Above them, darkness pressed against dawn.
Below them, stone sang ancient songs.
Around them, elements danced with remembered joy.
Within them, patterns wrote themselves in flesh and magic.
The first dance was ending.
The true trials were about to begin.
And in temples guarded by peak and depth, storm and flame, spheres of power waited to be remembered.
Three paths now.
One path later.
And every step would change who walked beside them.
Time to wake up the world.