My back pressed against the cold stone bench as the priests worked their healing magic, their golden light seeping into my wounds with a warmth that barely touched the bone-deep chill.

  Through the haze of pain, my mind raced through turies of knowledge, searg for anything about Devourers - aexts I'd studied in Everspring's library, whispered tales from the elders of Everspring, fragments of lore passed down through geions. These beasts weren't just demons - they were walking catastrophes, mindless engines of destru that left oiness in their wake.

  Blood trickled down my arm in thick rivulets, pooling at my elbow as I watched Seraphine and Lucas daheir deadly ballet around the moheir coorditacks, refihrough tless battles, barely scratched its obsidian hide.

  The knights' blessed ons, fed in sacred fires and secrated by the highest priests, sparked uselessly against its armor-like skin, each strike ringing out in frustrating futility.

  Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning, sending a surge of desperate hope through my weary mind. Thalindor's words echoed in my memory, clear as the day he'd first shown me his masterwork, his weathered hands cradling the arrows with the tender pride only a master craftsman could possess:

  "These piercer arrows? You have no idea how long it took me to craft these babies. Special alloy. Could pierce a dragon's scales. Been saving them for something worthy of their bite."

  I could still picture his weathered face beaming with pride as he'd held up one of the gleaming shafts to the fe light, the metal seeming to drink in the fmes themselves. The dwarven smith had bored for months perfeg that particur blend of metals.

  My hand trembled as I reached for my spatial ring, fingers brushing against the distinctive silver-and-gold fletg of those particur arrows, arrows I'd beeant to use until now.

  "Here." I pulled two out, the metal shaft gleaming with an otherworldly sheen that seemed to capture and twist the torchlight. The priests paused their healing ministrations to look at me, their hands still glowing with residual divine energy. " you ihis with holy magic? As much as you manage?"

  "The material... it's receptive to entments." I held the arrows out. "If we bihalindor's craftsmanship with your blessings, it might just pierce that thing's hide."

  The head priest took the arrows, his eyes widening as he felt the quality of the metal. "This is remarkable craftsmanship."

  The sounds of battle echoed through the courtyard - steel against demon-flesh, magic crag through the air. I knew we had to hurry.

  "Now is not the time. Please," I said, taking another swig of the potion. "We o act fast."

  The priests formed a circle, their voices rising in an a chorus that made the air thick with holy polden light wreathed their hands as they poured blessing after blessing into Thalindor's masterwork arrows. The metal drank in the magic like a desert abs rain.

  I downed a health potion, the bitter liquid burning my throat like molteal. The familiar coppery taste made me wince, but I forced myself to swallow every drop.

  Then I took out the long bow that Thalindave me before I left for Stonehold from my spatial ring, the masterwork on materializing in my hands with a shimmer of dispced air. Its familiar weight brought fort - bows had never failed me before, and I prayed it wouldn't now.

  As I move my attention to the arrows, I watched, mesmerized, as each sacred word they ted seemed to weave itself into the arrows' very essehe ented metal began to pulse with a rhythm that matched my heartbeat, and I could feel the raw potential building within each arrowhead.

  "You." I caught the eye of a knight pressed against the wall, his armor stained with demon ichor and dust. My chest still burned from the earlier impact, but I forced steel into my voibsp;

  "Tell Lady Seraphio follow my lead at its sed core. I only mawo hits at most before my strength fails." I gripped my bow tighter, feeling the newly blessed arrows pulse against my fiips with their sacred power.

  The knight nodded and darted forward, weaving through the chaos of battle to reach Seraphine. My muscles screamed as I pushed myself up, but I forced the pain down. The health potion had dos work - I could stand, and that was enough.

  I fumbled with my spatial ring, fingers still trembling from pain and adrenaline, until I found the ented part tucked away in a side pocket. The paper hummed with tent magieath my touch - the only remaining part of its kind that I mao finish the night before.

  Blood smeared across the delicate surface as I gripped it. The priests' healing had closed the worst of my wounds, but fresh cuts still wept freely. I grit my teeth against the stabbing pain in my chest and tore the part with a sharp motion.

  Magic burst forth like a dam breaking. The world transformed before my eyes as yers of reality peeled back. Streams of power became visible - ribbons of gold from the priests' healing magic, threads of silver from Seraphine's blessed ons, and the void-dark corruption p from two of the Devourer's cores.

  The head priest's voice cut through my enhanced vision. "The arrows are ready, my dy." He held them out reverently, each shaft now thrumming with trated holy power. The blessed metal sang with potential, its entments so dehey left afterimages in my magically-enhanced sight.

  "Thank you." I took them, feeling the warmth of divine magic pulse against my palm.

  Wind stirred around me as I casted Gale Force, the currents ing around my body like a sed skin. The familiar rush of power flooded my veins as I he first arrow.

  My own wind magic spiraled down the shaft, merging with the holy entment in a dance of gold, silver and green. The a patterns of power iwined like lovers, each strengthening the other until the arrow hummed with barely tained energy.

  The long bow creaked as I drew back, its familiar tension a fort in my hands as I settled into the stance I'd practiced for over a tury. My sight locked on the Devrotesque head where the first core resides, the pulsing mass of corruption a bea to my enhanced vision.

  Time seemed to slow. I could see every detail - Seraphine's bde fshing as she drew the monster's attention, Lucas throwing up a barrier to protect her fnk. The Devourer reared back, exposing its forehead.

  I released.

  The arrow split the air with a crack like thunder. Divine and elemental magibined into a spear of pure destru that puhrough the demon's skull. The impact sent a shockwave through the courtyard as the projectile carved a path from front to back, leaving a smoking hole in its wake.

  "One down," I whispered, blood trig from the er of my mouth. The first core shattered, its pieces scattering across the courtyard floor like broken obsidian.

  My gaze locked onto the sed core pulsing in the ter of its chest - a writhing mass of darkhat seemed to drink in the light around it, like a void thirsting for existeself. Drawing my st arrow with trembling fingers, I gathered every remaining drop of mana in my body, feeling it burn through my els like liquid fire.

  Wind magic swirled around the shaft, growing stronger with each passibeat until a vortex formed, ing the arrow in a miniature storm that made the very air crackle with potential.

  More. It needed more. The Devourer's sed core wouldn't shatter easily uhe first.

  I pushed harder, f every scrap of power through my veins until they felt like they might burst, my vision started blurring at the edges as I eled far beyond my limits.

  A sharp pain shot through my chest, and I gasped, coughing up crimson drops that glistened in the chaotic courtyard light.

  The priests' hands pressed against my back, their healing magic fighting desperately to keep me from colpsing, their sacred energy the only thing preventing my body from giving out entirely uhe crushi of my own power.

  The tornado around the arrow grew, its howling drowning out everything else in the courtyard. The very air seemed to bend around it, dist like heat waves over desert sand. My arms trembled as I held the shot, p everything I had into this final strike.

  "With this, I have returned everything in full." I growled through gritted teeth, my vision blurring at the edges as turies of training and power coursed through my trembling fingers. The wind magic within me burned like dying embers, threatening to e what remained of my strength.

  I released.

  The arrow exploded forward with a thunderous crack, leaving ripples in the air behind it like stones dropped in a still pond. Golden energy trailed in its wake, a testament to the st vestiges of my power poured into this desperate strike.

  The wind magic I'd held for more than a tury seemed to flow into that single projectile, turning the arrow into a bzing et of retribution.

  The force of the shot seaggering backward into the priests' arms, their sacred mantras faltering as they struggled to keep me upright, but my eyes never left the projectile as it streaked toward its target in a brilliant arc of vengeand hope.

  My legs trembled beh me, muscles screaming from the strain of eling such raw power. Through blurred vision, I watched the arrow's path, knowing that in its golden trail flew not just my strength, but the bined will of Everspring and the legacy of fallen Emberveil.