“The Shadowcryst have broken through the gate, Karalinde!” Ember’s voice held a rare note of panic.

  Fear seized Kar. He forced himself to run toward the nearest set of steps built into the wall—or tried to, his legs were still shaky. His right arm twinged with every step, and he glanced down, noticing the large crack running down its length.

  The grinding groans of shifting rubble drew Kar’s attention to the Shade-Titan’s hulking form below.

  It wasn’t dead.

  It reached up slowly and grabbed hold of the jagged Encryst with both clawed hands. Then it wrenched the crystal protrusion from its maw with a muted scream that still shifted the ground. Cracks and fissures had split open all across the Titan’s body, but that didn’t stop it. The creature tossed the Encryst that had wounded it aside and rolled onto all fours, then pushed to its feet, swaying.

  “Rifting hells…” Kar muttered to himself, slipping down the remaining steps.

  The Titan twisted toward him, its tail swiping a chunk from the damaged outer wall. The Titan wasn’t his only worry down here, though—to Kar’s left was the breach the Herald had started.

  Shadowcryst continued to stream through it—not unopposed, however. Valorcryst and their cryst-soldiers fought nearby—on the wall and on the grounds—pressing to stem the tide.

  Kar was certain Melisdra was there in the thick of it.

  He chose to focus on the Titan for now. Kar was light-headed, bereft of Focusing Energía. He wouldn’t be blasting, healing, or re-energizing himself from here on out. It would come down to what he and Ember could forge together.

  As he squared up and craned to look up at the Titan’s ruined face, Kar began to wish he had stayed atop the wall.

  “Why are you stopping?” Ember asked. “They need your help inside the Fortress!”

  A frustrated grunt escaped Kar as he jogged parallel to his vast foe, never taking his eyes off it. “This thing is still kicking, and there’s a lot of Shadowcryst out here too. Can they hold out in the Hall?”

  “They are trying to. Nat and the others are with Erio now.”

  He hoped that would be enough.

  A seismic boom erupted behind Kar, flattening him to his stomach. He rolled over, blinking frantically… and saw the Void Herald. Her left arm dangled uselessly at her side, blood and hair matted thickly to her face.

  Her eyes held a frightening fury as she stalked toward Kar, cursing in a foreign tongue. He scrabbled to his feet and drew on Ember, forging a new chain. There was no sign of the one he’d wrapped her in earlier.

  She stopped in her tracks, then edged back and gestured with her one good arm toward the wall. She whipped that hand toward him, and chunks of stone came flying at him in a cloud of debris.

  He braced himself, forging an Encryst shield in his offhand to absorb the impact. An especially large block of stone struck and sent him careening across the grounds.

  Lumbering footfalls announced the Shade-Titan’s presence, and the Herald cursed and vanished just before a massive foot stomped down, cratering the ground.

  “I can sense everything shaking, and the air rippling Karalinde, but not what’s causing it. Are you going to be okay?”

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  Kar coughed, his ears ringing again, and pulled himself to his feet.

  The Titan twisted toward him, its back to the outer wall now and Kar’s to the inner one. Figures blasted overhead, cylinders in hand. They landed and started taking shots at the Titan. Valorcryst joined them with Focus-forged pikes and charged the beast’s legs.

  “This way!” a stern voice called to him. Kar obeyed Melisdra’s instruction without hesitation, as she had drilled into him over the past couple of months.

  Her forces had somehow succeeded in cutting off the Shadowcryst incursion at the wall, and now her reserves were here to take on the Shade-Titan head-on.

  Kar felt immense relief as he stumbled over to her and her Valorcryst guard.

  Another deafening crack rang out, and the Herald reappeared above them. A pair of Blasters took aim at her, but their bearings were intercepted by a barrier like the one the other Herald had used at the Causeways.

  Working against cramping muscles, Kar Ember-forged. He thrust the Encryst short-spear he made toward Melisdra. She snatched, then hurled it in one fluid motion toward the floating Herald.

  The dark Focuser tried to jerk out of its path. Too slow. The spear pierced her through the leg and the woman tumbled from the air and fell. She ripped the spear free just before striking the ground, and vanished with yet another thundercrack.

  Maybe that would buy them some time.

  Kar collapsed down in the grass, too tired to speak just then. He started forging as fast as he could draw the Energía from Ember to do so. Spears and lances piled up beside him, and one Valorcryst after the other ran over to grab them without a word. They deployed their new arms against the Shade Titan, now beset on all sides.

  Melisdra hovered beside Kar, scanning the skies for any sign of the Herald.

  “Tell those blasters to come here.” Kar said to her weakly, even as he started crafting a secondary pile of Encryst bearings for their cylinders. He hoped they’d fit.

  A long sliver of black voidcryst split off from his right arm and fell to the ground.

  The scream he’d been trying to ignore in his head sharpened to a drilling point, and Kar’s concentration failed. He couldn’t forge any more even if he wanted to.

  “I-I think I need a rest, Karalinde.” Ember pleaded, a tremor in his voice.

  “Aye, I’m sorry Ember, I’m done, I’m done.”

  Kar laid back in the grass, looking up at the blue sky tinged with black smoke above. The sounds of fighting faded.

  He looked over to see the Shade-Titan being driven back through the breach and outside the wall. It was leaking light, white spears embedded across its body.

  It gave off one last, defiant roar, then staggered back toward Darby. Toward the Causeway.

  The shadow within Kar wouldn’t stop screaming. Ember said something to him, but it was drowned out by that desperate plea. Kar felt his eyes roll back in his head as his body began to shake. What was happening to him?

  Something broke free, the control he’d temporarily asserted giving way, and the next thing Kar knew he was being held up in the air by Melisdra. His voidcryst arm was wrenched back, and Melisdra furiously ripped away his Encryst chestplate and pulled Ember away from him.

  There was something wrong with the Prism—a thin hairline fracture running along Ember’s side.

  Kar shook his head, the screaming gone. “Wha—what happened?” he asked blearily.

  Melisdra tossed him to the ground with a frustrated yell, holding the Prism protectively.

  Kar looked down at his voidcryst arm. It had regrown, swollen. He frantically pulled at his collar, and saw that the black crystal had spread… past his shoulder and partly across his chest.

  Tears pooled in his eyes. He began breathing rapidly, feeling as if he wasn’t getting any air, as if he were choking. He felt at his neck with his Encryst fingers, and pain stabbed through the hard crystal skin there. The voidcryst had spread partway up his neck as well.

  It was going to consume him.

  Bile surged in his throat, and Kar flopped over and emptied what little there was in his stomach onto the churned grass.

  “I—I’m sorry Ember.” Kar sobbed, feeling violated. Feeling as if he had violated his friend. “Is he… okay?” he added, looking up to meet Melisdra’s eyes.

  She looked back at him in horror.

  “It—he says he is ok.” She looked down at the Prism in her hand, disturbed. “What are you?” she looked back at Kar as well, as if the question applied to him too.

  The remaining Blasters and Valorcryst around them had spread away from Kar. They tightened their grips on their weapons and shifted in place. Kar stifled a bitter laugh. They were prepared to strike him down. All Melisdra had to do was give the command.

  The crack of thunder didn’t register for Kar until after the Herald already had an arm wrapped around his Voidcryst arm. He blinked—and when his eyelids lifted, he was somewhere else. Separated from Ember and Melisdra. Outside the fortress.

  He was shoved roughly aside, and the Herald staggered away from him with a snarl.

  Kar groaned, disoriented. Then froze, recognizing where they were. The Causeway yawned open to his left, the dark bore on the other side stretching away into obscurity. A stark contrast from the light of day here in the Darby side of things.

  He focused on the Herald. She wasn’t alone. Two more hooded figures were stationed at her sides. A man and a woman.

  All three stared first at him, then one another warily.

  “Now, you will tell us what you are.” the raven-haired woman said.

  Kar cracked, laughing. “When you figure it out, let me know. Because I sure as hells don’t know anymore.”