The chamber ignited.
Not with flame.
With resistance.
As the intruder stepped forward, the very stones of the ruin pulsed in rejection. Violet light surged up the walls, meeting the shadow with streaks of raw memory.
Kael raised his hand, not in power, but defiance.
"I know what you are," he said. "And I know you don't belong here."
The figure snarled. Its form cracked and shifted, barely holding together. "The realm is broken. I am its reckoning."
Elira, holding Nyra and Riven close, narrowed her eyes. "No. You are what it tried to forget."
The ground shook.
The platform beneath them lit up again, this time from within. Not in runes. In response.
Nyra's silver eyes opened wide.
She lifted her hand.
The air bent.
Riven clenched his fist, and the mist parted like torn fabric.
The intruder screamed.
Kael grabbed the edge of the platform as wind and force circled them.
Veilfire, a pale, ghostly flame, rose around the edge of the chamber. It did not burn the realm.
It burned the corruption.
The figure stumbled back, smoke peeling from its limbs.
Elira stepped forward now, voice like winter.
"Go back to the rot that bore you."
And the twins, together, reached out.
The figure vanished in a blink of inverted light.
Gone.
For now.