Solvane was a wound in the world.
The land around the crater was dead—no birds, no wind, no light save the twin moons hanging overhead like watchful eyes. The stone was scorched glass, veins of pale starmetal threading through the ground like old scars. Alaric and Lysera stood at its edge, gazing into the hollow where gods once fell.
"This place feels… wrong," Lysera whispered, her aether flaring instinctively. "Like the world still remembers what happened here."
Alaric didn't answer. His core pulsed in response to something below—deep, ancient, hungry. His Chronoaether twisted inwards, pulling at the unseen threads of time tangled in the ruins. Somewhere within the crater, something waited.
Together, they descended.
At the heart of Solvane lay a fallen temple, half-swallowed by the earth. Its gates were cracked open, but its runes still shimmered faintly, refusing to die. As they passed the threshold, a pressure closed in—a silent command.
Only the worthy may tread here.
The Crucible burned in Alaric's chest. It knew this place.
Each step inside felt like walking through the memories of a world long dead. Hallways shifted. Murals depicted wars between the Titans and the Celestials—massive beings of fire, light, and storm. In one, a radiant figure wielded a Crucible at the heart of a collapsing star. Another showed a Void Titan being sealed by chained souls.
And in every carving, the same figure appeared: faceless, cloaked in twilight, bearing a fourth flame that lit the heavens.
"That's you," Lysera breathed. "Or it will be."
Alaric didn't know how to respond. He didn't feel divine. Not yet.
They reached the temple's center, a shattered altar overgrown with thorned vines of starlight. As Alaric approached, the Crucible in his chest blazed to life—and the world split.
He stood alone, in a field of ash.
A figure stood across from him—tall, regal, and cloaked in mirrors. Its voice was thunder made quiet.
"What are you willing to lose?"
Alaric frowned. "What is this?"
"The Trial of Soul. You carry Fire. Stone. Time. But Soul... Soul must be earned."
The landscape shifted. Before Alaric appeared visions—his past battles, every life he'd taken, every time he'd failed. He saw his father's face again, broken and bloodied beneath the bandits' blades. He saw Maeryn turning away, corrupted by her choices. He saw Lysera, looking at him like she didn't know who he was.
"Stop it!"
"Soul is not power. It is memory. Pain. Sacrifice."
Then the mirror figure stepped forward—and became Alaric himself.
"If you want to ascend, you must defeat yourself."
The battle was silent, but furious.
His double mirrored every move—Fire crashing against Fire, Stone meeting Stone. When Alaric turned time against his foe, the reflection rewound, grinning with his own twisted face. The fight became a spiral of brutality, a contest not of strength, but of conviction.
He faltered.
He remembered what the Crucible showed him.
Soul is not a weapon. It's what you carry when the weapon breaks.
He stopped fighting. He opened his arms.
The reflection raised its hand to strike—and hesitated.
Then, like smoke caught in the wind, it vanished.
And his fourth core ignited.
When Alaric returned, Lysera was kneeling beside the altar, her hand glowing with healing light.
"You've been gone for hours," she said, breath catching. "What happened?"
Alaric looked down. A fourth orb now hovered in his aether, silver and pulsing, quiet and steady.
"Soul," he said simply. "I understand now."
Behind them, the temple began to crumble.
As they escaped into the open air, the moons overhead flared—then darkened. A wind returned to the crater, sharp with warning.
Lysera turned toward the horizon. "We have to get back."
Back in Thalenreach, the Council was in uproar.
Vel Corvan's ashes still smoldered. Erenthall had sealed its borders. And Maeryn had been spotted near the Weeping Spires, leading a host of living shadow.
Voidbinder warbands had begun claiming Shrines of Binding—ancient vaults that once held the Titans in check.
"She's not just sowing chaos anymore," Lord Varen said grimly. "She's unsealing them."
A scout entered, pale with fear. "My lords… she's headed for the Embervault. The Titan of Chains still slumbers there."
And in the distance, the skies churned with black flame.