The war room had no ceiling anymore.

  Only the sky—gray and cracked—hung above the battered survivors of Relic, its light filtering through twisted rebar and scorched steel. Smoke drifted in lazy ribbons through the fractured windows of what was once the Hollow Flame’s tower-top sanctuary. The ground below still simmered from the aftermath of Urgohl’s rampage.

  Brinn sat on a slab of rubble, shirt torn, one hand wrapped tightly around the strap of his gear pack. His chest still ached where the demon’s claw had pierced him—healed by Arden’s last magic, but echoing like a memory that wouldn’t fade.

  Jarek leaned against a shattered pillar, arms crossed, boots resting in a pool of rainwater that steamed gently against the lingering heat. His eyes never stopped scanning the skyline, as if expecting the next threat to come hurtling out of the clouds.

  Sai stood apart. Always slightly removed, as if the world’s gravity didn’t apply to him. The wind caught his cloak and billowed it behind him like smoke torn from the ruins. His gaze was locked on Arden.

  The old warrior stood in the flickering projection light of the last intact war-table, the hologram of Relic’s southern hemisphere hovering above cracked stone. With a grim swipe of his hand, he pulled the map lower—revealing a blood-red caldera split by iron lines and glowing rivers of molten earth.

  “The Weavers have it,” he said at last. “The Tracking Artifact.”

  Sai’s voice was soft but sharp. “Are you certain?”

  Arden turned, eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. “I built it.”

  Silence.

  Jarek straightened. “You built the thing that can find the scrolls?”

  “Not just the scrolls.” Arden tapped a glowing node on the map. “It tracks frequency signatures—resonances left behind by elder artifacts. Scrolls, yes. But also materials like void glass… the last known weapon that can hurt what you fought.”

  Brinn’s head snapped up. “Void glass?”

  Sai stepped forward. “We could forge blades.”

  Ramm, sitting on a mangled comms console with Pepe perched beside him, rubbed his temples. “You people are insane. You want to rob a lava fortress, fight elite shadow troops, and grab the galaxy’s most dangerous compass?”

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  Pepe beeped cheerfully. “Correction: it’s a tracking artifact now. ‘Compass’ was too whimsical.”

  Arden didn’t smile. He stepped into the light fully, revealing the burn marks across his chest, the torn sleeve that exposed the fading glow of ancient runes beneath his skin.

  “They took it from me six months ago,” he said. “A Blackhawk-Weaver coalition. The Artifact’s last pulse came from the southern reaches—here.”

  He expanded the map again. A fortress rose from the lava plains like a blade half-buried in fire.

  “Furnace Keep,” Arden said. “Carved into obsidian bedrock at the throat of a volcano. The outer walls are pulse-shielded, resistant to bombardment. It floats—anchored to reinforced pylons above a literal sea of lava. There’s no ground access. No skyport. Only one way in: registered freighter traffic.”

  The map flickered—showing a narrow rail of molten bridges retracting into the fortress’s underbelly as a transport hovered in.

  “They’ve masked it well,” Arden continued. “No signal leaks. No broadcasted manifests. But we've intercepted three unique ID pings. If we hijack a ship with matching codes, we can slip inside.”

  Jarek stepped closer to the edge of the projection. “What defenses?”

  “Turrets. Atmospheric war drones. Flame-barricades with smart sensors. Inside?” Arden’s mouth tightened. “Worse. Guards bred in shadow. Trained in the black chambers of the Weaver spires. And if rumors are true... some are enhanced with bloodtech.”

  Pepe let out a low, concerned beep. “Oh good. Supernatural murder cyborgs. It’s been, what, three days since our last existential crisis?”

  Sai spoke without inflection. “We’ll need uniforms.”

  “I can forge the transponders,” Ramm muttered, opening a cracked tablet from his belt. “With enough time and a generator. But getting in is only the start. How do we find the Artifact once we’re inside?”

  “You won’t have to,” Arden said, and reached into his cloak.

  He pulled out a sliver of crystal.

  It pulsed faintly—a slow, steady glow of ice blue, like a heartbeat in glass.

  “I linked it to the Artifact’s primary thread before they took it,” he said. “This shard is tuned to it. You’ll be able to sense its direction—if you get close.”

  Brinn reached out, fingers brushing the stone. It vibrated softly, almost… aware.

  Sai studied it with faint reverence. “Void-bound. Anchored to old energy.”

  Jarek took the shard, pocketing it carefully. “We’ll get it.”

  “No,” Arden said quietly. “You’ll steal it.”

  He brought the map back up.

  A slow pulse traced from their location to a flight path—timed precisely. A freighter, set to pass within thirty clicks of their outpost at dusk. Its designation: Vaelon IX.

  Ramm whistled low. “That’s a scavenger hauler.”

  “Perfect cover,” Jarek said. “No one checks what scavengers carry.”

  “And they never expect us to be inside,” Sai added.

  Brinn looked toward the horizon, where the sky flickered orange over the molten cliffs. “Then let’s prepare.”

  Pepe hovered higher, his lights flickering brighter. “Operation: Steal the Beacon of Doom has officially begun.”

  “And if we find void glass,” Sai said softly, “we make sure the next demon lord bleeds.”

  The wind howled across the ruined tower, stirring ash and broken flags. In the distance, smoke from the crater still rose—a reminder of what they’d lost, and what they now hunted.

  Above it all, the caldera burned.