k-black vault, and every fallen column was a silent witness to the sky's undoing. Liora crouched behind a shattered buttress, heart hammering as she watched Mael and

e the hush. "We can't hold them here forever," he whispered, fisting his cloak. "They'll flank us withi

f magic gathering in the sorcerers' circle. Liora swallowed the lump in her throat and stood, gripping the

d, jaw set. "But it'll drain me." Liora met his gaze, seeing how exhaustion lined h

"I'll be at your side," she

nst the star-sorcerers' front line. Their startled shrieks split the night as darkness engulfed them. The courtyard t

to flare. The others poured through the breach Mael created: Everett swung his makeshift spear of carved marble; Astra's song wove throu

ectern slab, shards sizzling the wood. Everett crouched beside her, bleeding from a slash across h

ult-where the Elixir waits." He nodded, staggering to hi

carved with constellations fractured in stone. Beyond it, a low pedestal held a crystal

leader, cloaked in threads of void, stepped forward. "The stars belong

" she spat back. "We'll restore the light o

feet. Everett lunged at the leader's side, but the man vanished in a swirl of stolen

row of void that Mael deflected with a wall of inky power. Yet each deflection

wn fragment high. "Stop!" she cried. The glow flared, filling the chamber with pale radianc

red, wide-e

resolute. She placed the shard on the pedestal and close

ck the enemy leader and splashed across all who served him. They screamed, stumbling backward, the

every stolen ember of dark light. He unleashed an arc of

screamed, lu

and the blast. The void struck her chest, and a white-hot pa

s streaking his ashen cheeks. Everett and Astra hovered behind, silent with shock. Where th

hadows swirling protectively. "Liora.

u." Her blood pulsed with warmth, and in that warmth she sensed the fragme

ggered forw

." Every breath felt like inha

in. Liora pressed her hand over the bird's head. "We still have to fini

ove both. "Then let's go," he said, voice trembling.

d, but at the cost of Liora's celestial bond. Yet as she limped into the dim halls, a fierce fire ignited in