The vault's chill clung to them like something alive, like frost with teeth. Verek didn't speak. He stood slightly apart from the others, cloak trailing along the dust-etched floor, one hand resting on the polished bone of his staff, the other tucked behind his back. His silver-blonde hair hung loose, wind-tousled from the crossing, the faint starlight in his eyes dulled by what they'd just uncovered.
Caylen was the first to break the silence. He rubbed at his jaw like he could scrub something loose—grit, guilt, maybe the shape of a thought he didn't want. "He's not just after power or relics," he muttered, voice ragged. "It's blood. Something in the blood itself."
Ezreal didn't look up from the fractured glow that curled and breathed across his palm—the Mark of Ves'harad pulsing like it knew it was being watched. His voice landed sharp in the stillness. "If the relics are bones of dragons long gone, and the bloodlines still hum with what they left behind, then Malarath isn't just collecting… he's stitching. Trying to sew a dragon back together."
Dax started pacing. His boots scuffed over the edge of a discarded scroll, and he didn't stop to notice. Fingers twitched like they needed something to punch. "He's building something. Not just flesh. Something old. Twisted up in faith, in memory, in… blood magic." His voice had a burr to it, like the edge of a knife that'd seen too much bone.
Verek finally spoke, voice quiet but steeped in iron. "A lattice," he said. "Woven from lineage and leyline. If he finishes it, it won't be a creature. It'll be a channel."
Caylen turned toward him, eyes wide. "A channel for what?"
Verek's gaze didn't waver. "For whatever waits to be born through it."
Caylen's hand curled around the crystal in his pocket. It pressed cold and hard against his palm. "If that's true," he said, "then we're already losing. This world... it could tear itself apart from the inside. Not war. Not fire. Something smaller. Like a sickness that starts in the blood and spreads outward."
Ezreal's voice came softer now. "And if the Mourning Song ties to that—if it was meant to wake something or hold it down—then my past isn't just a scar. It's a warning."
Dax stopped pacing. He stared down at a cracked piece of pottery with a sigil burned halfway through it, like he could wring meaning from the ashes. "We're not just chasing Malarath anymore. We're tangled in the same thread he is. If we don't figure out what he's missing, we're not opponents. We're ingredients."
Ezreal's gaze shifted to the long shadows bleeding out from the corners of the vault. "We need to move. He's already ahead. Writing the ending while we're still guessing the start."
The quiet that followed wasn't peace—it was weight. The air hummed with old magic, the kind that didn't fade so much as nest in your lungs. They felt it even as they left, the dust of prophecy clinging to their boots.
The ruins behind them faded into distance like a swallowed dream. Their footsteps softened as the wind picked up, and even Thimblewick—usually a bundle of spectral nerves and smug gliding—had gone still in Verek's satchel, curling into the folds of a spare cloak like he knew silence was safer.
Caylen walked at the front, pulling his cloak tight, wind biting at his golden hair. "It's all connected," he murmured, voice half-lost in the breeze. "The relics, the bloodlines, the names carved into dust... He's not just finding them. He's assembling."
Dax trailed beside him, crunching through the underbrush like it owed him answers. "Assembling what, though? You can't build a map from fairy tales and gut feelings."
"You can," Ezreal said from the rear, "if you know what you're looking for."
Verek walked in silence beside him, eyes flicking from the broken skyline of Phokorus to the strange warping in the clouds. "He's not working randomly," he said at last. "The shards he's hunting... they resonate. With places, with people. They're chosen."
Caylen looked back at him. "Chosen how?"
Verek's voice came low. "Each one's a trial. A crucible. Not to keep out thieves, but to draw in certain kinds of seekers... and break them."
Ezreal nodded, the motion sharp. "He's right. The guardians aren't just defense. They're mirrors. You walk into a tomb of rage carrying vengeance, you die. You enter a temple of silence with a voice too loud... you disappear."
Dax let out a breath through his teeth. "So they're like traps... but not really. More like tests. Or... sieves."
"Exactly," Ezreal said. "They sift for something. A trait. A flaw. A frequency."
Caylen blinked at him. "A frequency? That sounds like spellwork."
"Deep ritual layers," Ezreal said. "It's ancient binding magic. The kind meant to make a soul hum a certain way before it fits into a bigger pattern."
"A ritual that big," Verek said, "would require not just relics, but intention. A design. And a vessel."
They all stopped walking at once.
Caylen's voice cracked through the wind. "The egg."
Ezreal turned, sharp and fast. "The one in the mural?"
Caylen nodded. "That dragon-shaped thing in the sealed shrine. Looked like it was about to burst open. Glowing from the inside."
"You think it's real?" Dax asked.
"I think Malarath does," Caylen said. "And he's trying to rebuild it. One piece at a time."
"A dragon queen," Ezreal said, jaw tightening. "Not a metaphor. Five heads, five shards. And every one tied to some specific type of will."
Verek's fingers flexed at his side, thoughts spinning through sigil patterns and old prophecy fragments. "Then the shards aren't just fragments. They're keys. To unlock not just a being, but a state. A return."
Dax exhaled, voice rough. "He's reassembling her. And every second we waste... he gets closer."
Ezreal looked toward the horizon. "Then we find the next shard before he does. We stop playing catch-up and cut the path in front of him."
Caylen was pacing now, muttering through clenched teeth. "We tell Kaelith. She needs to know what we've seen."
"She won't like it," Dax said.
"She doesn't get to like it," Verek cut in, voice suddenly cold. "If she wants to survive what's coming, she'll have to stop pretending the war is still about borders and names."
They reached the edge of the city just as the sky turned the color of dying embers. The silver bridges stretched over quiet water, and the towers of Phokorus stood tall, watching them like silent judges.
Lanterns flickered to life, casting long ribbons of light that didn't quite reach the corners. The magic in the city felt off somehow. Quieter. Like the spells knew something was wrong.
Caylen stopped and looked back at the group. "This is where it shifts, isn't it?"
Dax gave a shrug like his bones were tired. "Hasn't it already?"
Caylen shook his head. "Before, we were chasing ghosts. Now... now we're chasing something with teeth."
Ezreal stared at the Spire in the distance. "Then let's give it our names before it decides them for us."
Phokorus didn't greet them with its usual hum. The spells that lined the roads felt dormant, the prayers etched into the walls whispered too softly to catch. The guards at the Spire barely moved, but their eyes followed every motion.
A scribe stepped forward to announce them, quill raised, but Verek brushed past him without a word. His voice echoed in the quiet hall, steady and low. "No time for pageantry."
Queen Kaelith Serpantwind stood beneath the rune-etched arch like a blade held sideways. The Spire's glow caught on her armor, and the expression she wore wasn't surprise. It was something harder.
"You look haunted," she said, her gaze sliding over each of them. "Speak."
Ezreal stepped forward. "We know what Malarath is doing. He's almost halfway there."
Caylen added quickly, "He's piecing together something ancient. A dragon egg. Not for hatching, but... for return. To wake her."
Kaelith's eyes narrowed, voice cool as glass. "The five-headed queen."
Dax stepped in, voice gravel-thick. "The places he's hitting? They're more than treasure troves. They're tests. Built to break people like us. Which means we're on his list."
Her advisor moved to speak, but Verek spoke first. "We need more than your permission. We need your trust. And your silence, if you want to live long enough to question us later."
Kaelith didn't flinch. She held Verek's gaze for a long beat, then gave a small nod. "Then go. If this Crucible is real, walk it. But don't expect rescue if you falter."
Dax cracked his knuckles. Caylen stood taller. Ezreal didn't move—just stared at the floor like it might open up and show him what was coming.
Verek turned first, his voice trailing behind him like the tail of a spell just cast. "We walk forward. Eyes open."
As they stepped out into the dusk again, the wind rose hard and sudden, carrying with it a bitter scent—like smoke curling out of a cracked altar.
The first trial waited. And the world had stopped pretending it was kind.