Veil of the Firstborn Part 3

The morning sun broke weakly through the dense mist coiling around the valley, painting everything in a pallid gold. Vaelin tightened the leather bracer on his forearm, eyes fixed on the path ahead where the abandoned temple loomed—half-swallowed by vines and crumbling stone. The relic they sought, the Shard of the Firstborn, was said to be hidden within. Rumor claimed it could sever or forge any bond, mortal or magical.

Elira crouched beside him, fingertips brushing the damp earth. Her soul-magic whispered through the ground, trailing like misty silver veins beneath her skin. She listened not with her ears, but with something deeper—something newly awakened since their encounter in the hollowed sanctum two nights ago.

“There’s something... wrong inside,” she said quietly, the humor that usually laced her words absent now. “The Shard is awake.”

Vaelin slid his sword free of its scabbard with a low rasp. “Then we best knock before we’re invited.”

They moved together toward the temple steps. Ivy clung to the crumbling archways, their leaves unnaturally still despite the restless breeze. As they passed into the shadowed interior, the air grew heavy, crackling faintly against Elira’s skin.

Ancient murals lined the walls, depicting celestial beings crowning mortal kings and queens. Over time, the faces of the mortals had been scratched away, leaving only the serene, indifferent visages of the Firstborn.

At the center of the chamber, atop a dais broken by age, floated a jagged sliver of crystal no larger than a hand. It pulsed, slow and deliberate, like the beating of a slumbering heart.

But they were not alone.

With a sudden, grinding roar, figures stepped from the temple’s shadows—hulking warriors clad in iron and bone, their eyes burning a ghostly blue. Sigils branded their armor, the same ones Vaelin had glimpsed in the forbidden tomes back in the coastal archives: the Mark of the Bound Legion, servants of the ancient blood rites.

One of them—a towering brute with charred, cracked skin—lifted a cruel-looking axe. “The Shard belongs to the Firstborn. You shall not take it, oathbreakers.”

Vaelin tightened his stance. “We’re just borrowing it.”

Elira's magic flared, tendrils of shimmering soul-light twisting from her hands. Unlike before, her control was sharper, her reach deeper. She wove the threads into thin, shimmering blades that hung around her like a halo.

The first warrior charged, and the fight exploded into motion.

Vaelin moved like a shadow, intercepting the brute’s axe with a bone-jarring parry. He twisted low, driving a dagger into the man's knee, then pivoted to avoid a second strike from another. Every move was precise, brutal, efficient. The training of the Nightblade Circle ran in his blood like a silent rhythm.

Elira, meanwhile, was a storm of shifting power. She darted between the warriors, her soul-blades slicing with surgical precision, disintegrating the spectral blue flames animating them. With each kill, she grew more sure, more deadly. Yet there was a cost—Vaelin could see the strain around her eyes, the tremble in her fingers between spells.

He cut down another warrior and shouted over the clash, “Elira! The Shard—it’s feeding on your magic!”

She hesitated for half a heartbeat, and a spectral warrior seized the opportunity, grappling her arm and forcing her back toward the dais. The Shard flared hungrily.

“Elira!” Vaelin roared, surging forward.

But Elira had already decided. With a fierce cry, she turned inward, pulling not from the Shard, but from the hidden wellspring she'd only begun to understand—the Flameheart tethered inside her, the phoenix spark buried deep.

A burst of radiant silver and gold magic exploded from her, obliterating the last of the spectral guardians in a single devastating pulse. The temple trembled, cracks racing across the walls.

When the dust settled, Elira stood alone on the dais, her hand inches from the floating Shard.

Vaelin approached carefully, sheathing his blade. “You alright?”

Her smile was weary but real. “Remind me not to grab any ancient relics today.”

He offered a hand, steady and familiar, and she took it without hesitation.

As they touched, the Shard pulsed again—and Vaelin caught a glimpse of something not meant for mortal eyes: a vision of Elira in a life long past, crowned in flames, commanding armies of light and fire... and weeping alone atop a field of ash.

He squeezed her hand gently, grounding her. Her eyes widened, and he knew she had seen something too—something of him.

The connection broke with a brittle shiver of air, and the Shard, sated, dimmed to a soft glow.

Neither spoke as they wrapped it in Vaelin’s cloak, their minds reeling with the unspoken truths now laid bare between them.

As they stepped out of the crumbling temple, the mist parted before them, and for a brief, fragile moment, the world seemed to hold its breath.

The road ahead was darker and deeper than either had expected—but they would walk it together, bound by something no Shard could sever.

And somewhere in the unseen reaches of the valley, something else stirred, aware now that the Firstborn's bloodline had awakened once more.

Vaelin cast a glance at Elira, offering a crooked, dry smile.

“Well, at least it’s not raining.”

She laughed softly, and for the first time that day, the weight on their shoulders seemed just a little lighter.

For now.

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All Parts of the Series

Veil of the Firstborn Part 1

Veil of the Firstborn Part 2

Veil of the Firstborn Part 3

Veil of the Firstborn Part 4

Veil of the Firstborn Part 5