The clash of light and void shattered the frozen stillness of the defile.
Aurelia surged forward like an arrow forged in starlight. The armored warhorse beneath her hit the first rank of Hollowborn with thunderous force, its iron-shod hooves trampling through cloaks of anti-light. Her blade, bathed in the blinding luminescence of the bound Shards, swept through the chest of a faceless sentinel.
There was no spray of crimson, no sickening crunch of bone—only the deafening screech of severed glass as the creature dissolved into a spray of crystallized shadows. The sheer impact sent a jolt of recoil vibrating up Aurelia’s arm, but the raw power humming through her veins swallowed the ache whole.
Beside her, Malakor was an engine of pure slaughter.
His drake steed reared, razor-sharp claws shredding a sentinel to ribbons, while Malakor brought his great sword down in a brutal, sweeping cleave. Black fire roared along the edge of his steel, burning away the void spears before they could touch his plate. He fought without hesitation, an ancient terror unleashed in human form, his every strike calculated to butcher.
"Shields up!" Lady Vespera’s voice rang out through the narrow canyon, sharp and commanding over the shriek of dying abominations. "Lock the vanguard! Do not let them flank the defile!"
The disciplined marines of Anchorhead crashed forward, their massive pavises locking together with a resounding metallic thud. Void spears struck the iron shields, hissing and spitting venomous sparks of dark matter, but the northern infantry held fast. Behind them, archers drew recurve bows notched with silver-tipped shafts, loosing volleys that arced through the weeping ash and pinned the gliding horrors to the frozen crags.
A sentinel broke through the front line, moving with unnatural, gliding speed toward Aurelia’s blind spot. Its lance of crystallized void whipped forward, aimed directly for the vulnerable gap beneath her arm.
Before Aurelia could pivot her mount, Malakor was there.
He dropped from his saddle mid-stride, hitting the frost-covered gravel with bone-jarring weight. With a vicious backhanded strike, the pommel of his great sword crushed the sentinel’s smooth bone face into powder. Without pausing, he caught the shuddering entity by the throat, channeling his shadow-fire directly into its core until it burst into harmless black smoke.
He stood amidst the swirling ash, his chest heaving, helmetless and feral. Dark blood—his own, mingled with the foul residue of the void—smeared his cheekbone.
His eyes locked onto Aurelia’s. The hunger in his gaze was terrifying, raw with the adrenaline of battle and the savage, unyielding need to keep her breathing.
"Careful, empress," he rasped, his voice cutting through the ringing clamor of battle. "You lose your focus, and I’ll have to burn this entire canyon to cinder just to keep you whole."
A fierce, breathless smile tugged at the corner of her lips, her heart pounding a furious staccato against the cage of her ribs. "I had it handled, warlord."
"You did," he admitted, his lips parting in a dark, feral smirk that set her pulse racing despite the howling wind. "I just wanted the pleasure of killing it for you."
A sudden tremor violently shook the bedrock beneath their boots.
The ground groaned, fractures racing through the frost-bitten stone. At the mouth of the defile, where the gorge opened into the wide expanse of the Valley of Wailing Runes, the shadows converged. The thousands of scattered fragments of the dispatched sentinels did not dissipate into the ether; they were being dragged across the gravel, pulled by an irresistible gravitational tide toward the center of the valley.
High above, the weeping tear in the heavens pulsed, unleashing a shockwave of cold pressure that dropped several seasoned soldiers to their knees, vomiting blood.
From the heart of the valley, a towering monolith of black stone began to rise from the earth, encrusted with the petrified bones of ancient titans. And perched atop that terrible altar stood a figure—tall, armored in plates of shifting, abyssal darkness, holding a fractured sceptre that mirrored the Five Shards burning inside Aurelia’s chest.
"The Herald of the Hollow Throne," Aurelia whispered, the silver glow beneath her skin flickering in violent defiance.
Malakor stepped up beside her stirrup, his gauntleted hand clamping over her knee with fierce, anchoring pressure.
"Let him have his sceptre," Malakor said, his voice dropping into a lethal, low vow. "We are going to tear it from his hands and bury him beneath his own altar."