It didn’t walk. It glided. One moment it was hovering above the water, the next it was inches from Kael’s face, claws slicing through the air with a sound like splitting bone.

Kael ducked, rolled, and launched a torrent of fire upward. But the Shadeborn twisted through it, unaffected, like it enjoyed the heat.

Ashen shouted from behind: “You can’t kill it with flame alone! It feeds on rage—it was rage, once!”

Kael grit her teeth. “Great. And we invited it to a bonfire.”

Beside her, Lira raised both hands, summoning a wave that crashed into the Shadeborn and swept it across the shattered ruins. It reformed mid-air, hissing—its mouth stitched shut by black frost.

Kael turned to Lira. “You good?”

Lira’s voice was soft but fierce. “No memory of you. But the sea says you’re real.”

“Close enough. Let’s sink this thing.”

They moved in sync—fire and water, circling the Shadeborn from both sides. Kael blasted it with heat, forcing it into the open, while Lira summoned tendrils of water to bind its limbs.

The Shadeborn screamed—though no sound came—its body stretching into monstrous shapes, trying to tear itself free.

Ashen stepped forward, drawing a curved blade laced with runes.

“You must burn the frost inside it.”

He tossed the blade toward Kael. She caught it—and it lit up in her hand.

Kael leapt high, spinning through the steam and smoke, fire surging down her arm and into the blade. She drove it straight into the Shadeborn’s chest.

The creature exploded into black mist and shards of ice.

Then silence.

The ocean calmed. The fog thinned. And Kael dropped to her knees, chest heaving.

Lira stood nearby, staring at her hands. “It was inside my mind… like a cage made of memories I didn’t know were mine.”

Kael looked up. “You remember anything?”

Lira nodded slowly. “You. A battlefield made of glass. Fire on the left. Water on the right. We stood together… and then everything froze.”

Ashen stepped in. “The Frost King shattered the first circle of warriors by erasing their pasts. This time, we hold the line.”

He held out a map. One symbol now glowed brighter than the others—a pulse of green light, deep in the southern jungle.

Kael traced it with her finger. “That’s Earth, right?”

Ashen nodded. “His name was Ryn. In your past life, he was the shield that stood between you and death.”

Lira met Kael’s eyes. “Then we find him. Before the Frost does.”

Kael smiled. “Let’s rebuild the circle.”

And far above them, unseen in the mist, a shard of ice lingered—watching, waiting.

Then it cracked, and vanished into the wind.