The Final Price

From the rubble of the shattered cliff, the Void began to rise again.

“You fool!” she roared at the Warden. “You don’t have the strength to defeat me without the Watcher… and now he’s dead!”

The Warden only stared at her, his world-weary gaze unshaken. “I never needed him to beat you. Only to bind you – his idea.” He leveled the blazing sword. “Otherwise, you would already be dead.”

“I am undying. This is MY realm,” she hissed – and with a gesture she called one of the greatest suns, Huron perhaps, tearing it upward at blinding speed. As it surged, it shredded entire landmasses in its wake before crashing straight toward the Warden.

“No!” Red cried.

The star’s diameter was so vast there was nowhere to flee. In an instant it swallowed the Warden in a flood of searing light, carrying him helplessly across the heavens until it collided with one of the dim night-suns. The impact burst in a nova that shook the void itself.

With the Warden also gone, the long-paused destruction resumed – fiercer than before. The intensity multiplied like a chain reaction: some fragments imploded to stardust, others crumbled away, others simply… dissolved. The Common Ground unraveled at terrifying speed.

Red leapt forward with all her might, hurling herself straight at the Void from her drifting island, hammer raised.
With no gravity beyond the floating islands, Red was no longer tethered. “So this is how he did it,” she thought, and hurled herself through the expanse, flying by sheer will, hammer in hand, straight toward the Void.

Elias, paralyzed by the scale of ruin, stretched out his arms embracing what remained of the collapsing world. Desperately, he raised hundreds, then thousands, then countless small pillars across every shard of land he could reach – trying to hold them, to pull them together.
Agonizing pain tore from deep within him. At first he gave only short, sharp gasps, but soon the cries turned into ragged screams as the impossible burden threatened to rip his arms from their sockets.

Cecile and Bard hurled the products of their imagination against Vorath, who was pursuing them. He evaded each strike with ease and continued to close in. Seeing Elias standing amidst the ruin, and Red soaring alone against the Void, they banked wide in an arc to turn back.

Red was just an inch away from striking the Void with her hammer when she caught it and shattered it with such force that Red was flung backward. The sound of splintering metal rang like thunder shards pierced into her body, some burying deep – painful wounds, though none fatal. The breath was knocked from her lungs and crimson streaked her side.

Tears streamed down Elias’s face as he fought to pull his outstretched hands closer, against the wrenching force tearing the world apart.
A scream of pure despair erupted from Elias, raw and uncontainable, as he tried once more to draw every fragment – and every soul still clinging to them – into one.

And he did. With the Void locked in combat with Red, Elias pulled his arms together with a deafening clap. At once, wreckage from every side shuddered and began to gather – some fragments even sliding back into their former places. He could sense the outskirts nearly intact again, and the mountains –though now piles of rubble– settling roughly where they once stood. The valley below remained scarred and broken.

That was all. He was spent.

The Void lunged at Red, who spun, braced on a stone behind her, then flipped downward to another shard just below – narrowly evading her foe.

“Hah! Pathetic weakling…” the Void hissed.

But Red, though bleeding and battered, was still aflame with resolve. Her eyes burned with vengeance.

The Void turned away, seeking once more to undo everything Elias had pulled back together.

He couldn’t hold any longer. “This world is going to be undooooone!” he screamed, voice breaking. His gaze fell on Fawks – soaring above with Cecile and Bard, circling in their great arch to return.

Tears blurred his vision – not of agony this time, but of grief. His son would perish, fading into nothing with all the rest of this world.

With a final effort, pouring out every last shred of strength he had – even beyond what he no longer possessed – Elias shaped something new beside his head: a world, a sphere that grew and grew, rising beyond the Void’s reach. Its surface shimmered with form: the very city many had once glimpsed collapsing half-born before Orrendale. And again, as before, an archway. From it spilled fresh air, the sound of life. The sphere began to ascend.

“Save him, Cecile!” Elias cried, trembling, staggering, his body already fading, weathering away like ash on the wind. “Save my son!”

“Dad!” Fawks screamed.

Cecile and Bard veered their fiery seagull toward the sphere.

As they swept past Elias, he and Fawks shared one last look. The boy’s strength returned in a surge of despair. He thrashed, sobbing, “No! Dad! Please, no!”

But Cecile and Bard pressed on, bursting into the new world. Vorath tried to follow, only to smash against its barrier and tumble back into the void.

“Goodbye, son,” Elias whispered, barely audible, no longer feeling pain.

Red, hearing the cries and seeing Elias’s sacrifice, felt her vision blaze white – her eyes like the Watcher’s. In her hands appeared a true white, shining war hammer, long-handled and identical in design to the one lost at Tarlmere. With astonishing speed she charged. The Void turned too late – Red struck, hurling her like a comet… uncontrollably toward Elias.

A shudder ran through him – not of fear, but of final resolve. He drew inward, gathering everything he was: every breath, every memory, every word left unspoken. The power rose, not in rage, but in quiet, immovable weight.

The air trembled, warping, as though the world itself held its breath. He was no longer standing, no longer struggling. He was burning – giving. Light flared from him, brighter, tighter, until he was no longer a man but a sphere of brilliance, searing white at the core.

For a heartbeat it held still – a sun suspended in the ruins of the Common Ground. Then it surged outward, not exploding but releasing: a wave that tore through the shadows, casting the Void into nothingness, as though even her malice could not endure the weight of sacrifice

Bard’s eyes shone with tears as he watched from within the sphere, recalling what Buck had once spoken by the hearth: “a giant sphere of energy, at its center a man who had gone beyond his limits.” His face carried the expression of a mourner.

Unwilling to do anything but fulfill their final promise to Elias, Bard and Cecile –already dismounted from the seagull– turned inward. Within, all was radiant, peaceful, beautiful, as the Common Ground was meant to be. Elias’s city stood there, wondrously crafted. It was the kind of place you would think: I want to live here.

Without pause, Bard gathered the broken Fawks into his arms and hurried toward the archway. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, holding him for a moment before moving to cast him inside.

“Wait!” Cecile caught his arm, lowering it. She opened hers instead and embraced Fawks. “Goodbye,” she whispered. The boy only wept, uttering a muted “goodbye.” She eased him back to his feet, steadying him by the shoulders. He sniffed, then turned to Bard.

“Goodbye, little man,” Bard said, brushing his hand over the boy’s hair.

Together they gave him the faintest push forward. Before stepping through, he turned back one last time… but the archway drew him in.

And then it stood empty. Cecile and Bard were left staring at the grass beyond.

Bard lowered his head. “I hope he went somewhere nice,” his voice rough with grief.

Cecile’s reply came soft yet firm. “He went home.”