The problem with fighting void-hunters, Reyna decided, was that you couldn’t steal what didn’t exist. Her fire-borrowing magic slid right off them, finding nothing to grip.
“They’re not just breaking magic,” Jin called from above, her winds carrying star-written warnings. “They’re trying to hem us in. Force us to—”
“Choose wrong,” Kira finished. Her coral spheres pulsed with urgent rhythm as more shadow-figures dropped from their ships. “They want us to split up in panic. Take the wrong paths with the wrong partners.”
The convergence point shuddered under another assault. Natural or not, even this place of power had limits.
“Then we choose right,” Gard said, his earth-mark blazing as he read the mountain’s memory. “The temples will only open to correct combinations.” He looked at each of them in turn. “The elements know who needs to go where.”
As if in answer, their magics pulled like lodestones finding true north:
The wind tugged at Reyna’s borrowed flames, trying to draw her skyward.
Something deep below called to Kira’s water magic, harmonizing with Lira’s earth-sense.
Talon’s storms sparked with interest toward the volcanic ring, while Gard’s connection to stone trembled toward the giant-walked peaks.
“Well,” Reyna said, feeling the rightness of it settle into her bones. “Looks like I’m going north.” She glanced at Jin. “Feel like teaching fire to fly?”
Jin’s cloud-mark blazed with new patterns. “The Aurora Temple will need both.”
“Earth follows water to the deep,” Lira said, her magic already reaching for Kira’s. “Where roots and coral sing together.”
“Which leaves flame and stone for the last first path,” Talon said, storm-marks swirling as he looked at Gard. “The volcanic ring won’t be kind to either of us.”
“Good,” Gard replied with mountain certainty. “Neither are the void-hunters.”
Another attack hit their defenses, darkness eating at the edges of their combined light. The shadow-figures moved faster now, more desperate.
“They know,” Kira said, reading patterns in her spheres. “If we find the temples, wake the spheres…”
“We remember completely,” Jin finished. “No more separation. No more feeding on broken magic.”
“Then let’s not keep them waiting.” Reyna gathered fire in one hand, watching it spiral through Jin’s offered wind-path. “North to the lights?”
“Deep to the darkness,” Kira agreed, her magic already braiding with Lira’s earth-sense.
“And fire’s heart,” Talon added, storms gathering around him and Gard.
They stood together one last time, six people who had dared to remember. Around them, the convergence point blazed with natural power – water burning like flame, air solid as stone, elements dancing as they were meant to.
“The fourth temple?” Lira asked, knowing they’d need new pairs for that final journey.
“Will call to those it needs,” Gard answered, reading truth in stone and starlight. “When the time comes.”
The void-ships pressed closer, their darkness hungry for separation. But now six voices answered as one:
“Remember the dance.”
“Trust the elements.”
“Find us when it’s time.”
“Wake up the world.”
They moved as one final time, their magic creating a burst of pure light that drove back the shadow-figures. In that moment of clarity, three paths opened:
North, where stars wrote secrets in the sky.
Down, where pressure turned water to song.
South, where fire kept its purest form.
Three pairs.
Three paths.
Three chances to remember what was forgotten.
The void-hunters scattered before their combined power, but shadows still gathered on the horizon. The Sundering’s forces would regroup, would chase, would try to keep the elements broken and separate.
But some songs couldn’t be silenced.
Some dances couldn’t be forgotten.
Some powers were meant to be whole.
And in temples guarded by light and dark, by depth and flame, the spheres waited to be remembered.
Time to begin.