The shrine, when Xavier's strike force reached it, was already alive with the low, thrumming energy of a working nearing completion — dark sigils drawn in something that gleamed wrong in the torchlight, Hardin's stolen blood pooled at the center of a circle etched deep into ancient stone. The air itself seemed to resist their approach, thick with a pressure that made even Liora's most seasoned guards hesitate at the threshold.

Jeanne stood within it, eyes closed, murmuring words in a language that predated the Old Accord itself, and Gianna guarded the entrance with a blade already drawn, her expression carved from pure, cornered desperation. Neither woman looked like the...