The Warden’s Return

When Cecile and Fawks burst back onto the surface, they found themselves above where once the tall mountains had divided Orrendale from Myrrholt and Dravenholt. To their right, as they steered toward what seemed like one of the broken fragments of the Riesental Valley, a pale white light loomed.

It rose from where Orrendale had once stood.

It was the Void. With one hand she held the Watcher by the face, his body dangling lifeless. For several moments she hovered, her presence heavy, her breath ragged – whether from weariness or malice, Cecile could not tell.

The Void gazed down at the ruined city. Then, with a casual flick, she let the Watcher fall. His body plummeted, vanishing into the shattered depths below.

A heartbeat later she unleashed another terrible cry. And the cataclysm began again.

♦♦♦

And without warning, the quake returned – the rending of earth, the tearing of ground, all of it.

“It’s happening again!” Bard cried.

But this time the destruction was worse. The scattered chunks of land, which had broken away moments before, now surged with furious momentum in every direction. They slammed into one another, shattering apart, sending deadly fragments hurtling through the air.

Red ran to the edge and swung her hammer, smashing aside a massive slab that came barreling toward them. Across from her, Bard thrust out his harmonica, releasing concussive waves of sound that blasted shards off-course. The shrill vibrations rattled their teeth and sent ripples skimming through the very air, sharp enough to split smaller fragments mid-flight.

But most effective of all was Elias. For each great mass he saw bearing down, he raised a small pillar from its ruins, guiding the chunk away or halting its charge outright. Sometimes the sheer force broke it apart, but at least it no longer threatened to crush them.

The Common Ground itself was unrecognizable – a chaos of drifting islands, where up and down no longer mattered, where no gravity pulled them toward a single fate.

Elias looked up in disbelief. An entire floating island, inverted, passed overhead, shade warriors still standing upright upon it – just as he and his friends clung to their own fragment below.

♦♦♦

The wind buffeted Cecile’s fiery seagull, but little else. From high above she and Fawks beheld the catastrophe stretching across the horizon – the whole Common Ground fracturing as far as sight could reach.

First came beams of light spearing upward from the suns below. Then the land itself split into countless shards, breaking again and again. Some sank into darkness; others surged upward with terrifying speed, rising level with the bird’s flight.

They pressed onward, steering toward the valley. But then, across the shifting maze of islands, the Void turned. Her glittering eyes locked on them, cold and merciless. For a heartbeat, the world itself seemed to hush – no quakes, no wind – before she glided forward like a predator breaking cover.

Moments before she reached them, a deep, thunderous roar swelled from their left. It rose, deafening, drowning even the quakes. The air itself seemed to split with the sound.

♦♦♦

Amid the chaos, Red glimpsed the white light moving to their right. But they too were drifting, carried upward and outward.

Then another figure broke through the storm. It fell with unstoppable force onto the pale light, colliding in a flash that rippled outward in a wave of brilliance – then vanished.

Though still far away, the cry that followed was immense. Red knew it at once.

“It’s the Warden!” she shouted, hope sparking in her chest.

♦♦♦

That mighty cry – the Warden’s battle roar – was enough to stir Fawks.

“Fawks?” Cecile whispered, hardly daring to believe. Tears poured down her cheeks.

The boy struggled to open his eyes, dazed, trying to grasp where he was and what had happened. He had no strength to speak, only to stare in shock at the broken world below. The beautiful Common Ground – his home – shattered into pieces before his eyes. Tears streamed from him as well, until he could no longer hold them back, and a broken weeping sound escaped him. Cecile reached for his face with one trembling hand, pressing her palm gently against his cheek as if to steady him, to hush the sobs that shook his frail chest.

“Save your strength,” Cecile urged, though her voice trembled with joy that he was still alive.

“Come on. Let’s find your father,” she whispered, turning the seagull toward where she last thought she had seen him.

♦♦♦

Red kept her eyes fixed upwards, on the clash. The Warden had seized the Void and hurled her hard against a jagged ridge behind her. The impact carved a massive crater into the floating stone.

For a heartbeat, all destruction paused again. Everything hung suspended in eerie silence – not even a tremor this time.

“Is it done?” Elias asked, his voice low, as their drifting island continued to glide, now painfully slow.

“Elias!” came Cecile’s cry from above. She swooped down at full speed, her colossal seagull landing beside them.

“My son!” Elias shouted, racing forward, tears of relief stinging his eyes.

Poor Fawks had no strength left. He had already been weeping endlessly, as though a hidden spring inside him had burst.

“D…dad,” he managed to whisper.

Elias bent close, eyes wide, to catch every word.

“It was me…” Fawks forced out, each syllable like lead. “I did all this.”

Elias blinked, unable to understand.

“We freed the Void,” Cecile said bluntly.

“The Void?!” Red gasped in disbelief. “That’s why the Warden said the Common Ground would end if Orrendale fell–”

"Because the princess... the Void," Bard corrected grimly, "would be loose." Then, after a heavy silence, he raised his voice almost bitterly, "And we freed her ourselves?!" But his eyes fell on the broken boy still weeping in Cecile’s arms, and his anger softened.

Then the world began to stir again, slowly.

High above, the Warden raised his hand and formed a blazing sword of fire, readying for another strike against the Void.

“It’s not over. We have to help him!” Red cried.

Suddenly – from directly behind them Vorath came, bounding from stone to stone. “Ha-ha-ha! Yield to our Queen!”

“Take him, Cecile – fly!” Elias barked, slashing his hand in a fierce, dismissive gesture. But before they could escape, Bard leapt onto the giant seagull with her, and together they charged the creature, forcing Vorath back into the abyss. Without looking back, they soared higher, further away.

Yet right after them the First Shade rose again – flying upright upon a winged beast of his own making.

“I thought shades didn’t use imagination!” Cecile gasped.

“Well, he does!” Bard shot back with a bitter smirk, glancing over his shoulder at the relentless pursuer. “I’m sick of him… not dying!” he spat.