The mountains of Coldspire were no place for the living.
They rose like frozen gods, sharp and bone-white, piercing the clouds and defying fla itself. Sunlight never left this place. The skies here were always gold—glowing unnaturally, as if ti had stopped.
That’s how I knew the Sunshard Vault was close.
Because in this cursed, shining stillness... sothing was waiting.
Sothing old.
I flew through narrow canyons and over razor-thin cliffs, the wind screaming at my wings. Every breath I took burned with frost. My fla, usually bright and defiant, flickered.
This place did not like dragons.
It tolerated them.
Barely.
I landed near a ridge cracked with golden veins. The pendant Solin had given pulsed with heat—the shard within it glowing like a heartbeat.
I followed the pull.
Through blinding light.
Through silence so loud it hurt.
That’s when I saw her.
A shape in the white fog—wings extended, tail wrapped around a peak, her body glowing with soft emberlight.
> "I know you," I whispered.
She turned slowly.
A dragon of radiant gold and silver. Her eyes once full of joy. Once mine.
> "Alerya..." I stepped forward, voice breaking. "But... you died."
She didn’t speak.
Because this wasn’t her.
This was what was left.
She lunged.
Not with rage—but with silence.
No roar. No warning.
I rolled aside just in ti, her claws scraping stone, sparks and blood bursting into the air. Her body moved like hers—fast, graceful—but it was wrong. Jerky. Controlled. Worn.
The Hollowed had taken her mory, her fla, and built a puppet.
> "Why her?" I shouted, dodging a blast of searing gold fire.
"Why take her?"
She didn’t answer.
But her body shivered—just once—as if part of her still rembered .
We fought across the cliffs.
Each blow we exchanged sent quakes into the peaks. Fire t falsefire. My talons raked across the Hollowed shell of the one I once loved.
She fought well.
Too well.
It hurt.
But I couldn’t stop.
Not if I wanted to reach the Vault.
I lured her to the edge of the ridge, feinted low—then launched upward with a burst of Sovereign fla.
She scread—not in rage. In pain.
And for just a second...
> Her eyes changed.
Gold. Soft. Familiar.
"Darian," she whispered.
And then her body crumbled into ash, the Hollowed soul within it burned out.
I stood over the dust of what had once been love.
And said nothing.
The mountain shook.
Not from battle—but recognition.
My fla had been tested.
The mist parted, revealing a spire of light embedded in the cliffside—glasslike, humming with ancient heat. The Vault of the Sunshard.
I stepped forward and pressed the pendant against the door.
It lted into the stone.
And the light swallowed whole.
There was no floor. No ceiling.
Only golden fla.
I floated in its warmth, my body shedding pain and fear. My scales glowed brighter than ever. I felt... alive.
But then ca the voice.
Not a dragon.
Not a god.
Sothing in between.
> "You seek power. You seek truth. You seek to burn... and yet be unburned."
"I seek a way to stop the Rift Maw," I said. "To stop the Hollowed."
The fla pulsed.
> "Then you must face the Sunshard. Not as a Sovereign.
But as the first spark. The dragon before the fla."
The world shattered.
I fell into mory.
A wasteland.
Empty sky. No stars. No gods. No dragons.
Only ash.
I stood there, alone, until a single spark flickered in my chest.
That was .
Before power. Before na. Before soul.
A beginning.
And then, the world tested .
Winds that tore thought apart. Temptations in the form of fla. Shadows of what I could beco—god, tyrant, Hollowed, hero.
I faced each one.
And I chose only one truth:
> To burn so others may live.
The Sunshard accepted .
I returned to my body as the Vault lit up.
From its center rose a crystal—long, jagged, burning with golden fire.
It floated toward .
Entered .
And my fla changed.
It was no longer just heat.
It beca light.
The kind that pierced darkness.
The kind that Hollowed couldn’t consu.
I had gained the Sunshard Core.
But as I left the Vault, a final voice followed .
> "The Rift Maw is no longer waking...
It is feeding."
And when I looked to the horizon—
I saw the skies turning black over Emberwatch.
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