The sun's first light slanted across Orahm's marble promenades, painting pearlescent shadows on freshly repaired domes. Shin stood at the Celestarium's wide archway, the new silver amulet cool against his skin. Spirits lined the streets in reverent silence. Though incorporeal, they shimmered with soft hues—blue for artisans, gold for soldiers, rose for children—an ethereal guard of honor.
Alexandra, still flushed from her daring kiss, donned a traveler's mantle of midnight blue. She stepped beside Shin, voice hushed. "The city has woven itself whole again. Your presence anchors it."
Shin managed a small smile. "Then we leave it protected." He turned to his party. "Ready yourselves. The desert awaits."
Each woman bowed to the spirits in farewell. Laverna lingered last, pressing a palm to the mirrored gate. I'll carry you in me, she promised silently.
Maika scouted the north exit where a shimmering heat haze blurred sand and sky. "Our footprints will vanish in minutes out there," she said, half‑grim, half‑reassured.
"Good," Zera answered, tightening her gauntlets. "Harder for pursuers to track."
Tessara's Moonflower Mask flickered with silvery runes. "I sense no malice within the city limits… yet the horizon hums with discord." She tilted her head. "Thunder without clouds."
Shin touched his amulet. Within the mirrored gem, a sliver of Tsukuyomi's power pulsed, ready to breach the world's weave. "We leave at once."
Beyond Orahm's hidden canyon, dunes stretched like petrified waves. Beneath the twin suns, the air shimmered with mirage light. Shin raised the amulet; its central gem brightened, projecting a lattice of concentric sigils onto the dust.
With measured breaths, he drew the silver thread through the sigils, sketching a vertical tear in reality. The fabric of the desert rippled, revealing a circular vortex—blue‑white, edged with crescent glyphs.
Alexandra's brow furrowed. "Maintain focus, Regent. If your pattern slips… the Veil snaps shut."
Laverna summons her jamadhar through her tiger eye necklace, guarding Shin's flank. "Nobody distracts him."
Maika scanned the ridges. "Clear—"
A tremor rolled beneath their feet. Crimson banners crested a dune: Hi Okami Renegades. At their center strode the warlock who had escaped Orahm, face half‑veiled, staff crackling with voidfire runes.
"Seven crests converge," he hissed, voice carried by arcane amplifiers. "Falzath commands the loom of destiny—and today we cut the silver thread."
Behind him, dune skiffs slid across the sand, loaded with lancers and bow‑mages. Overhead, bone‑kite familiars circled, shrieking.
Shin's portal flickered. "Hold them!" he ordered, voice steady but strained.
The first volley of eldritch arrows streaked toward Shin. Maika blurred in front of him, twin daggers crossing, the Sunfire Mask on her face. Time slowed—her Sunfire Crest dilated the very second between heartbeats. She deflected three arrows mid‑air, each impact sending sparks that burned away as her daggers reignited with solar fire. In that ripple of slowed time, she pivoted, launching the arrows back toward their casters before the Renegades even realized they'd loosed.
The bow‑mages fell, armor slagged by their own corrupted projectiles.
Laverna slammed both jamadhars into the sand and shouted a wordless cry. A geyser of glass‑hot wind erupted, flinging a skiff skyward. She flipped through the updraft, carving an incandescent helix that sliced through another kite familiar. Shards of crystallized sand rained like diamond dust.
Tessara advanced with calm grace. With a single chord from her throat and the slam of the butt of her staff, dunes twisted into a mirrored maze, bewildering Renegade lancers. They swung at phantoms, striking only reflections. When they finally met her, they saw not a blind priestess but a towering moon wraith. Panic fractured their line.
Clarent gleamed sapphire as Zera charged the warlock. He raised his staff, voidfire hissing. "Your father's blade cannot sever the Abyss," he sneered.
Zera spun, parried a blossom of black flame, and crashed her sword into his ribs. Clarent sang—a twin‑note promise of retribution. Sparks of lunar and solar energy cascaded as blade met staff.
"Your stolen scroll belongs to us," she growled.
With a decisive riposte, Zera shattered the staff's upper segment, exposing the fragment of prophecy scroll embedded within. The warlock recoiled, clutching the broken stave.
Shin's portal brightened.
Maintaining the amulet's weave, Shin spread his free hand. The orb morphed into a mirror‑disk reflecting the desert sun. He angled it, casting a horizontal beam that severed a charging Renegade giant in half. Yet each attack strained the lattice; sweat beaded across his brow.
Alexandra lifted her voice—a resonant hymn of fortitude that wrapped around Shin like a second spine. The silver lattice steadied.
But the warlock, gasping, hurled a shard of void crystal toward the portal's threshold. "Let your gateway become your tomb!"
Zera leapt, catching the shard mid‑arc and hurling it back. It detonated harmlessly in the sky. Maika flash‑stepped beside her, retrieving the prophecy fragment from the broken staff.
"We have what we came for," Maika said.
Shin's voice cut across the skirmish. "Everyone through!"
Tessara collapsed her illusion maze, guiding disoriented allies toward the spiraling gateway. Laverna covered the rear, wind, and flame, carving a corridor through scattered Renegade ranks.
One by one, they dove into the vortex. Shin was last. As he crossed the threshold, he twisted the amulet, reversing the weave. The portal buckled, then imploded, severing the desert from Orahm forever.
On the far side, a blast of cool night air hit them. They tumbled onto starlit sand—somewhere in the vast western badlands. Behind them, only a swirl of dust remained where the gateway once stood.
Shin collapsed to one knee, chest heaving. The amulet cooled, dark and inert for now. Alexandra knelt beside him, hands glowing with soft lunar light.
"You carry too much," she whispered.
He managed a weak smile. "No retreat."
The distant horizon flashed—crimson signal flares. Hi Okami scouts regrouped, far behind.
Back in the desert ruin, the warlock clutched his cracked staff, gaze burning. A bone‑kite landed on his shoulder, whispering secrets. He hissed, blood‑laced sand slipping through his fingers.
"Seven crests… converge… Tristan will know." His eyes turned skyward, madness and determination in equal measure. "Falzath will feast on a fox's heart."
The party made camp in the shallow of a sandstone ravine. Maika and Laverna erected wind shields; Zera examined the recovered scroll piece. Tessara traced fingers over its glyphs.
"It speaks of the Loom of Dawns," she murmured. "And the ninth tail."
Alexandra's eyes met Shin's. "Tristan will not sit idle. Orahm is sealed, but the war escalates."
Shin closed his fist around the amulet. "Then we move faster."
Overhead, the twin moons rose—one crescent, one full, like mirrored eyes upon the world.
The forge of destiny waited. And no one in the party looked away.