The air in Silverveil Citadel reeked of rotting roses and spilled wine. Eldrin staggered through the ruined streets, his left arm encased in jagged**Origin Circuitry** that pulsed with a sickly blue glow.
The **grain**once confined to his forearmnow clawed up his shoulder, its veins branching like frost on a pane of glass. Every breath was a battle. The **fifth shard's** absence gnawed at him, its resonance replaced by a hollow ache.
Beside him, Tira clutched her chest, where the **third shard**flickered beneath her skin. Her dual voicesone trembling, one feralwhispered in unison: *"She's here. In the walls."*
Liora's **Essence Seeker** spun wildly, its needle shattering against the device's glass face. "The citadel's **shadow is alive**," she hissed, her emerald cloak fluttering like a wounded bird.
"Ophira's not just hunting shardsshe's *rewriting* them."
Ahead, the royal palace loomed, its spires twisted into thorned silhouettes. The streets were eerily empty, save for the **blackened vines** snaking across cobblestones. They pulsed, as though breathing.
Nim adjusted her spider-mech's fractured lens, its hydraulic legs sputtering."Those vines aint natural. They're *feeding* on something."
Jace, his face gaunt from his brush with death, gripped a throwing knife."People," he said flatly. "Look closer."
Eldrin did. The vines werent just coiled around buildingsthey *pierced* them. Through shattered windows, limp figures dangled, their eyes hollow, mouths slack. Not corpses. **Puppets.** Their veins bulged black, tracing the same patterns as Eldrin's grain.
*"Welcome home, brother."*
The whisper slithered from the palace gates. Ophira's **shadow** stood there, wreathed in smoke, her form flickering between corporeal and void. She wore a crown of shards, their jagged edges weeping ichor.
Eldrin's chaos-fire ignited instinctively, but the flames sputtereddrained by the vines underfoot.
Ophira laughed, the sound like glass shattering. *"Did you think Frostreach was the end? The crypt was just a *door*."*
She raised a hand, and the vines *moved*, slithering toward the team. *"Now, let's see what You're learned."*
The vines struck like serpents. Eldrin barely dodged, his **grain**flaring as he melted one to ash. But for every vine destroyed, two more sprouted, their thorns dripping with a familiar**black ichor**Ophira's corruption.
Nims mech-legs **screeched** as she vaulted onto a rooftop, plasma cutters whirring. "Theyre targeting the shards! Tira*move!*"
Too late. A vine lashed around Tira's ankle, yanking her into the air. Her shard **flared**, its light slicing through the gloom.
For a heartbeat, her human eye locked onto Eldrin*pleading*before her **feral voice** snarled:*"She's in my head!"*
The vines *pulled*. Tira's body convulsed as the**third shard** pulsed in tandem with the corruption. Her skin cracked, revealing veins of azure light.
*"No!"* Eldrin lunged, chaos-fire roaringbut Liora intercepted him, her crystalline dagger severing the vine. "Fool! Youll *kill* her!"
Tira collapsed, gasping. The shard's glow dimmed, but its light had changed**tainted** with streaks of black.
"Ophiras shadow clapped mockingly. *"Such loyalty. But you cant save what's already *hers*."*
Jace hurled a daggernot at Ophira, but at the palace gates. The blade struck a hidden**rune**, and the doors *screamed*open, revealing a cavernous throne room.
At its center stood a **mass of fused shards**, their surfaces writhing with trapped faces. The **fifth shard**pulsed within, its light eclipsed by Ophira' s shadow.
*"The throne is ready,"* Ophira crooned. *"All it needs is a king."*
---
Lioras dagger flashed, carving a path through the vines. "Eldrin, the throne-*now*! Before she fully bonds with the shard!"
Eldrin charged, his **grain** burning colder with every step. The throne rooms air was thick with **static**, the shards'resonance vibrating his bones.
Ophira's shadow dissolved, reforming atop the throne. *"You still dont understand, do you?"* She pressed a hand to the fused shards. *"Were not*stealing* power. Were *becoming* it."*
The **fifth shard"* *moved*, slithering into her chest. Her shadow solidifiedf- lesh and bone and *hunger*.
Eldrin's fire met her darkness in a cataclysmic**detonation**. The throne room trembled, its walls cracking like eggshells.
*"Youre losing,"* Ophira whispered, her voice echoing from *inside* his skull.*"The grain is *hers*. Just like Tira. Just like *me*."*
A vision tore through him:
A Titan altar. Two childrentiora and Ophirakneeling before a **split shard**. Ophira's hands shoving Liora into the abyss. *"Youre the shadow. Im the light."*
Lioras scream as the shard *burrowed* into her heart.
Eldrin reeled. *"You were never sisters."*
Ophira's laughter was a blade. *"And you were never *human*."*
The throne room **imploded**. Eldrin barely registered Liora's scream as the ceiling caved in, or Nim's mech shielding Jace from falling debris.
Ophira stood amidst the ruin, her form now **half-shadow, half-flesh**, the fifth shard glowing like a second heart. *"Run, little brother. Tell Liora her*experiment* failed."*
Eldrin's **grain** *screamed* in protest as he dragged Tira from the wreckage. Her shards light was nearly **extinguished**, its pulse erratic.
Liora's face was bloodless. "She's not just collecting shards. She's *merging* with them."
The citadel groaned, its foundations crumbling. In the distance, the **sixth shards** resonance flickeredsomewhere deep in the **Nexus Abyss**.
Ophira's whisper followed them into the night:
*"Come find me, brother. Lets finish what the Titans started."*
And beneath Eldrin's skin, the **grain** pulsed in answer.