The wind beyond the Crucible didn't whisper or wail. It bit. Not the kind of poetic breeze that carried secrets, but something with teeth. It chewed through cloaks and skin, sank down into muscle, scraping bone like it wanted to clean them out and leave nothing but hollowed shells rattling in the dirt. It didn't feel like weather at all. It felt personal. Like the land had taken one look at them and decided it wanted them gone. Not just gone—dead, rotted inside, forgotten.
Ezreal hunched deeper into his cloak. The fabric slapped wet and cold against his ribs like a dead animal he couldn't shake off. It was useless. Just another layer of misery clinging to him. His boots slipped on the grass—slick and sticky, like something had sweated fear all over the slope. Every step up pulled at his spine, dragging like the pack weighed three times more than it should. The shards inside weren't glowing anymore, but they didn't feel quiet either. There was this pulse, low and mean, like a fever that buzzed in your teeth. Not voices. Just pressure. Like they were humming something awful straight into his bones.
Behind them, the door had vanished. Not closed. Not hidden. Just... not there anymore. Like it had never been part of the world in the first place. No crack in the rock. No shimmer. Nothing. The Crucible didn't care about goodbyes.
They climbed until the ridge broke the sky, a dull line against the choking clouds. The last of the light died somewhere behind them.
Phokorus stretched out below, or what was left of it. The plains looked scorched and wide, like the earth had tried to scream and just torn open instead. Trees had stood there once. Now they were stumps, leaking sap thick and slow like blood. Smoke dragged across the valley, sluggish and bitter. Not just from fire. Something fouler. It clung. Up on the northern ridge, a siege camp had spread across the land like infection. Rows of tents. Firelight twitching through haze. Iron catching glints. The kind of place that wasn't just ready for war, but hungry for it.
Caylen crouched beside a half-collapsed cairn. His fingers touched the stones, moving slow, like they might give up some kind of secret if he was gentle enough. His jaw ticked. A twitch, small, but there. That thing he did when his stomach turned but he hadn't decided whether to scream or keep it buried.
"Ironcrag," he muttered. His voice was rough, ground down to the grain. "Too clean. Too tight. Mercs don't march in straight lines."
Ezreal stepped beside him and narrowed his eyes at the haze. Then he saw it too. The banners, rippling in the wind that hadn't stopped biting since they surfaced. Crimson wolf. Iron anvil. Both catching firelight.
Dax let out a noise that might have started as a laugh, but ended up more like a cough. Then he spat over the rocks.
"Bastard did it," he said, mouth curling like it tasted bad. "Torvald threw in with Ironcrag. Didn't even blink."
Ezreal shrugged off the pack and let it thud to the ground. His spine cracked loud as he straightened. The shards still buzzed. A constant hum that sounded like something furious asleep.
"Kaelith can't hold Phokorus like this," he said. He leaned forward, palms on his knees. "Not with the court fractured and the Spire Council pretending none of this happened."
"If she's even alive," Caylen said, too low. Flat. The kind of flat that meant something had snapped.
Nobody argued.
She'd vanished. After the battle. After pulling apart a demigod without lifting a finger. The smoke swallowed her. No one's seen her since.
Ezreal gritted his teeth and forced himself upright again. Bones popped like dried bark.
"If they flank from the east, it's over," he said. "No supplies in. No one out. Phokorus will rot on its feet before they knock down a single wall."
Dax tilted his head. His expression didn't shift much, but his eyes sharpened.
"So what now? We stumble back into a city already choking to death? Just the three of us, limping, hauling the end of the world in a sack? They didn't trust us before. Not even when they weren't starving. What's changed?"
Ezreal didn't look away from the campfires.
"We've got the shards."
Caylen straightened, arms crossed tight. His whole posture screamed about everything he hadn't said yet.
"We swore we wouldn't use them."
"We swore we wouldn't finish the egg," Ezreal shot back. "Big difference. We're not lighting it. Just making sure no one else gets the chance."
Dax made a sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn't been empty.
"So we show up, shake the box, and hope Ironcrag flinches?"
Ezreal lifted a shoulder. "The Crucible didn't cleanse anything. It handed us fire. Now we choose what burns."
Caylen held his gaze a moment longer, then nodded. Sharp. Final.
"We take it back to the city."
They moved at night. Muscles sore, old wounds screaming. Blisters tore open over older scars. The land didn't make it easy. Roots tangled underfoot. Cracks opened in the ground, deep enough to swallow an ankle or a leg. Frost touched everything. Even the trees looked like they were shrinking back.
Somewhere behind them, war drums started up. Not a rush. No panic. Just steady. Measured. Orders moving.
Ironcrag was ready.
They reached the aqueducts by dawn. What was left of them. Stone blackened like meat left too long on fire. Towers leaned, some bent to the point of breaking. One had collapsed entirely. Looked like it had tried to kneel and given up halfway.
No birds. No rats. No sound.
Scouts caught them before the city gates did. Metal hissed out. Three blades. Two bows. Kaelith's colors, faded but still there. The soldiers looked half-dead. Pale. Eyes ringed with the kind of shadows you get when sleep forgets your name. Armor patched and scorched. Some of it looked like it might still be bleeding.
Ezreal held up the token. A flat bone coin. Carved serpent. No words.
The lead scout took one look, met Ezreal's eyes, then gave a nod.
No challenge. No questions. Just passage.
Phokorus wasn't gone. Not completely. But it was close, and dying loud. Not from battle. From something slower. The kind of rot that crawls out of throne rooms and seeps down into alleys.
The streets were quiet. Doors shut. Markets empty. Even the air was wrong. Tasted like smoke and copper and spoiled wine.
The scouts didn't use the main roads. They led the group through alleys and shadowed backways. Past statues that had lost their faces to time. Stone eyes gouged out by wind or malice. No one looked at them long.
The observatory sat at the top of the hill.
Or what was left of it.
The dome had cracked down the middle. Like a skull split just enough to spill the contents. Once, it had glowed with magic and curiosity. Now it just looked abandoned. Cold. Like hope died in there.
Inside, seven people waited. Not a council. Just leftovers. A few minds that hadn't run. A few bodies that couldn't.
Tarrin Greystone sat slumped in a ring of burned cushions. He looked like someone who'd lost an argument with death and refused to admit it.
He lifted his head when they walked in. His eyes were dark. Tired.
"Tell me you didn't come back empty-handed."
Ezreal didn't say anything. Just dropped the pack on the floor. The shards inside let out a low, angry hum. Like something sick and dangerous had just stirred.
"We brought the one thing Ironcrag doesn't have."
Tarrin stared at the bag. Lips thinned.
"You finished the egg?"
Ezreal shook his head.
"No. Just the shards. That's the line. But if Ironcrag wants to gamble with gods, then they can look the odds in the eye."
Tarrin leaned back. Ran a hand down his face.
"They'll call it a bluff."
Caylen stepped up. Voice like broken glass.
"Then we bluff louder."
Thunder cracked outside. Real thunder. Not magic. Not omen. Just the sky tearing open.
Caylen moved to the shattered window. His posture didn't change, but something in his eyes did. He stared down at the valley.
Quiet. Then:
"They've started."
Siege engines. Fires blooming across the hills. The slow, sharp scream of war unraveling.
Ezreal sat beside the pack. His knees didn't like it. He stared at the shards. Didn't touch them.
"If we want to keep this world in one piece," he said, voice barely above a breath, "then we better learn how to fight without dropping it."
No one had anything better.
Below, the horns began to howl.