Cryo's gaze ran over the wide cracks that spanned the rock beneath the Celestial's Eye.

"DragonFae and Golem have that under control, right?" said Pegasus, glancing between the mountainside and the others as Ella sheathed her Lightblasters and made her way over to Wyvern.

Cryo caught one, possibly two violet flares of light close to the waterfall. Large, load bearing sections of rock that should have already fallen remained steady. Other areas looked like the rock had been cracked and pulled together again, especially closer to the bottom, where--

"No," said Cryo as it clicked. He froze a small, shaped pillar of ice beside Banshee, helping her to lean against it as he spoke. "DragonFae's Invoke won't last forever, and there's too much damage to stop it from collapsing."

Pegasus gave a nervous whinny. "Then we need to do something!"

Cryo finished steadying Banshee against the ice, who gave him a tired nod before he stood up and strode over towards Pegasus.

Cryo pointed a claw towards the waterfall, tracing the shape of the fallen stones. "Look where the stone is falling. Golem knows the water is coming down, and he's building a wall at the base of the waterfall to direct it away from Cevinari. I'm willing to bet that he's rearranged other stone inside so when Fae's Invoke ends, the water will be directed towards Taori, where the forest can take the main force of the wave."

"So we fly up, reinforce the wall, try to do what we can to redirect the wave towards Taori?" said Pegasus, flaring his wings. "Let's go!"

Cryo glanced towards Nereid, who had left Wyvern. She knelt at the water's edge, her fingers skimming just below the surface, leaving gentle ripples that continued outwards despite the agitated waves rolling in.

Pegasus caught Cryo's look. "She just got her Ascended back, and we don't even know if that fixed anything!"

Nereid stood up slowly. A thin stream of water trailed her fingers, rising every inch from the lake as easily as she straightened her legs. With a delicate gesture, she coiled the water around her arm and looked back over her shoulder towards them.

"I can feel the water," she said. "I can hear--"

From the ruins, a final sigh of breath rushed through reality, followed by the silence of a Song that Cryo hadn't realised he'd been hearing.

DragonFae's Invoke had ended.

One glimpse at the others told him that they'd felt it too--that whatever time they'd been given, it was up.

"Nere!" said Pegasus, crouching low and readying his wings for takeoff. "Jump on, I'll carry you over--Nere?"

Nereid wasn't moving towards Pegasus. She strode deeper into the water, bringing her arms up at the sides. Twin tendrils of water rose to meet her fingertips, lured up in elegant arcs from the eerily still surface of the lake around her. Her feet shimmered beneath the surface, no longer quite as solid as they'd been a moment before.

A thundering crack echoed from the mountain as something crucial in the rock gave way.

"Nere!" called Pegasus.

"Go!" she called back, sparing him a glance--one single glance with tight-pressed lips and a determined, wide-eyed gaze that said a million things when they had time for none. "I'll be with you!"

With those last few words, Nereid swept her arms over her head. The water swallowed her, quickly embracing her form into its mass as her ultimate activated.

For a brief moment, Nereid's liquid silhouette remained upright. Her hair was the gentle flow of a river, cascading down to white-flecked tips where it met her shoulders. Each fin was a smooth, quivering membrane stretched between watery spines, and her gaze the echo of a quiet, still pond.

Then she melted, diving beneath the surface and leaving nothing but a building wave, racing towards the waterfall against the ripples that fled from the mountain's wrath.

Cryo didn't give Pegasus the chance to panic. "Pegasus, fly with me! Reinforce whatever of Golem's wall that you can! When the water comes down, do whatever you can to shove it towards Taori!"

Pegasus took off from the ground with an almost spring-loaded energy, nearly knocking Cryo over with the warm breeze that rushed behind.

Cryo turned back towards Ella, who still at Wyvern's side, had her Liaiser up to her ear and was yelling at someone on the other end. She quickly noticed his gaze and lowered the Liaiser, expectant.

"Keep Banshee safe," was all he said.

Then he took off, flying as fast as he could manage towards the crumbling cliff.

*+*+*+*

Every part of Banshee's body felt like it was dying.

There was an ache so deep and lodged in her bones that even Cryo's frosted touch did nothing to soothe it. It was an ache on her spirit, her soul, her Song. Even now, she still felt the moment that the ShadowSong had ripped into her when she'd Screamed.

Only now was she realising exactly how vast the ShadowSong itself was. How much power lurked within the symphony, the layers below the surface she'd barely skimmed yet almost drowned in. To transform, to twine its Song directly around her own had been insanity. It wasn't like putting on a costume or picking up a weapon. It was more like tying a boulder to a twig, pushing the boulder off a cliff, and expecting the twig to hold.

Banshee drew in a long breath through her nose and forced herself to focus.

Her twig of a Song might have been dragged along behind more than was generally considered healthy, but it wasn't broken. Battered? Check. Bruised? Double check. But broken? It was gonna take more than a couple of Screams, a Skinwalker, and a stubborn bat to shut her up permanently.

With an effort, Banshee managed to throw her weight forward and lean away from Cryo's support pillar. She caught herself on her hands, locking her elbows and shoving every bit of will she had into making sure they held her up.

Ella moved over from Wyvern, one hand on Banshee's shoulder. "Here, let me help you up. We gotta get you out of here."

Banshee dragged yet another determined breath in through her nose and locked her gaze on Wyvern. He still hadn't moved since Nereid had laid him on his back, but she could see him breathing. "You have to get Wyvern--"

"Banshee, I... I don't think he's gonna make it," said Ella. "He's--"

"If the wave hits him, he won't," said Banshee. "I'm not leaving him here to just drown!"

Ella tried to loop her hands under Banshee's arms and pull her up. She managed to get Banshee most of the way to her feet before Banshee twisted free and managed to half collapse, half stagger her way over beside Wyvern, throwing herself on top of him and refusing to let go.

"Starlight dim you, Banshee!" Ella tried once more to pull Banshee away and failed. "You're gonna get yourself killed pulling this kind of Other-cursed crap one day, you know that, right?" Ella stood up, lifting a Liaiser to her ear as she bolted off towards the temple. "I need a Gleamerbike or some really good swimmers over by the temple shore--no, they're stopping the damned mountain from collapsing on top of us! Why on Skypillar's peak do you think I'd be asking if--"

Ella's yelling became too distant for Banshee to hear. At Wyvern's side, Banshee pushed herself off his chest, somehow managing to find the energy to sit up with her legs tangled beneath her.

Wyvern's chest expanded, quickly compressed by a weak cough. "She's right, you know. You'll get yourself killed one day like this."

"Like you can talk," said Banshee, nudging him with a knee. "I shadowstepped your ass out of the Serpent's lair and almost died for it. I'm not just gonna let you drown and die on me now."

"I don't think there's much even you can do about that," murmured Wyvern. His voice was so quiet, so... calm. "That presence, the Other--it was something else. It... it broke something. I can feel it in here."

Wyvern tried to lift a hand to his tattoo. His hand barely made it halfway before it fell back to the ground beside him.

Banshee's face prickled with something as the words slipped out of her mouth. "You pushed it back before. You broke out of its grip, even if you were still Manifested."

Wyvern snorted. "Only because you were infuriating. Mocking me, insulting me, telling me that you and Cryo knew each others names, that you'd have everything I never could. I underestimated how cruel you could be."

"And you're just gonna let me get away with that?

He managed a small, breathy chuckle. "It won't work this time."

Banshee went silent.

Wyvern's head rolled back a little further as he closed his eyes. "Whatever the Serpent's up to, it needed you able to Sing. Work with the Hunters. They're fanatical, but they're efficient. We tried to find the Serpent's lair. It's not inside the ruins. The Serpent won't go near them. It fears whatever lays inside."

She heard the defeat in his words.

A shaky breath lifted Banshee's gaze to the sky as she fought back the exhausted tears lurking in the corners of her eyes.

Across the lake, Cryo and Pegasus were swooping along the rock wall. Ice and Cloud covered the stone like a strange kind of moss. Rocks were still falling from the cliff, the cracks were still spreading, but it hadn't quite given way yet. From this distance and with her vision rapidly blurring, Banshee couldn't be too sure, but the waterline didn't look even. The waterfall had doubled in size, warping from its usual shape.

Nereid. She'd taken Banshee's vague plan and succeeded. Not only her, but Cryo, and Pegasus, and DragonFae, and Golem--all of them. They'd all come through, had all banded together without a second of hesitation, throwing themselves at the danger with no second thought for themselves--only their partners. Just like Ella and Andrew and Gwen and Wyvern--Michael.

Needed you able to Sing.

Banshee wiped her eyes and sat herself up straighter against the ache set into her bones.

There was one last thing she could try, one last ditch effort to drag Wyvern back.

Banshee placed her hand on Wyvern's tattoo.

She closed her eyes, opening the part of her that had always heard the silent melodies around her. She knew exactly what she was looking for. A simple, stubborn melody that dragged on despite everything. A melody that probably should have died a long time ago, stripped back to its raw, bare pieces where one note barely linked to the next thanks for a decade of poison.

Through the Shadowsong that squeezed around her own, she found it.

It was broken.

Most notes had been cracked open and left to bleed out until they were achingly hollow, like something had merely wanted to see what was inside. Some were missing entirely. The rest were scattered across a dying score, descending into its final rest.

She had no idea where to start fixing it. She grabbed for a note, telling herself that if she could save one, then maybe she could do the next, then the next--but a Song was more than just sound, and Envy had decimated it.

Banshee tried to force out a few notes, to demand that they hold together, trying to remind them of what they were.

A hand on her wrist stopped her.

"You hear it, don't you?" murmured Wyvern. His voice was so soft now, barely more than a breath. Banshee squeezed his hand just to make him open his eyes and glare at her again. Another flare in his broken melody, but it was weak--it was so, so weak. "You hear the Song."

She didn't trust herself to speak, but she did anyway. Her voice cracked. "Wyvern--"

"You've finally realised," he muttered. Even now, the smallest trace of a smirk sat on the corner of his lips. "You can't save everyone." He sighed. "No one can."

"Why do you sound so damned happy about that?" said Banshee, unable to stop the anger from biting into her words. "Do you enjoy seeing me fail so much you'll die for it?"

It took Wyvern a long moment to reply.

"If you could save everyone," he said slowly. His body tensed, his brow creasing like it was taking everything he had left to keep speaking. "It would mean that I could have saved Maria."

Wyvern's words from the ruins, when he'd pushed Banshee out of the way, came echoing back.

For Maria.

"For our amulets, Harpy and I had to ensure an orphanage in Kaladrel was cared for," said Wyvern. "Harpy bonded with the kids. I resented it, thought it beneath me. We rooted out corruption. Discovered cases of missing kids. Got the place cleaned up."

He paused, gathering his strength.

"There was one kid. Maria. Orphan like the rest, maybe seven years old. She took a liking to me. The one kid who preferred me over Harpy. One day, one of the officials we'd outed for corruption Manifested. Invisible bastard. Harpy protected the kids while I dealt with him. Only, I couldn't. I went down. And Maria came out to help me."

The mountain rumbled.

"I always thought you were childish and naive, but I watched you in the Serpent's cage. The darkness didn't break you. You never turned Joy on yourself. You never gave up. Part of me hates you for it."

The water at the top of the Celestial's Falls began to plummet as its rocky basin finally gave way.

"Thank you," said Banshee. "For what you did at the ruins. I think Maria would be honoured."

Wyvern reached down, somehow managing to get his fingers inside his pocket. With a strained effort, Wyvern removed his starstone amulet and little by little, dragged it firm into Banshee's palm, closing her fingers around it.

"Take... take my amulet to where Maria is at rest," he said. "Harpy--Gwen--she knows where." Each breath was a little shallower, each word harder than the last. "And... what you said about Cryo--I hope it's true. With your fate, you deserve that, at least."

Tears spattered the inside of Banshee's visor. "High praise coming from an old bat like you."

The creases on Wyvern's face smoothed out as after twelve years, he let go of the poison. His shoulders relaxed, his head leaning back against the starstone ground as for the final time, Michael Poisonheart opened his eyes and looked up at the sky with starlight gleaming in his gaze.

"When you fix Kael," he whispered. "Tell him... tell him that I can... can finally see the stars again."

"I will, Wyvern."

She felt the moment his Song ended.

Across the lake, Cryo and Pegasus flew clear, heading down the canals of Taori and Kaladrel as the torrent of water plunged down. Banshee watched, Wyvern's amulet still clutched in her hand, as the water surging down the cliffside, ripping apart the cracked and shaken stone like it was nothing, was brought under control by the unseen hand of his successor.

For the heartbeat of an eternity, the world held its breath as somewhere beneath the layers of reality, one girl became the flood.

The Wavesong was on Banshee's lips as the water beneath the falls swelled, rising above the all too small wall of rock that protected Cevinari from being smashed. No matter the Frost or the Cloud, no matter how Cryo and Pegasus froze and attacked the wave, without Nereid holding it back, none of it would have mattered.

The water at the shoreline crept higher, up and over the lip of the golden starstone. It inched forward, lapping at Banshee's legs, at Wyvern's hair, but still, Nereid held... and held... and held--right up until every single drop from the lake above had been absorbed into the waiting wave at the base of the falls.

Only then did the wave rise, revealing a watery silhouette with a river for hair. Though it stood with hunched shoulders, it remained strong. The remaining rocks that careened down the ragged cliffside, smashing and sinking into the gathered wave did not bother it, as with one, final effort that strained the Song, the Wave of Skypillar turned and swept the water that should have drowned so many out to sea.

The lines of water that perfectly traced the shape of the canals were visible over the tops of the temple buildings, even from the ground. The Wavesong was impossibly loud in Banshee's ears, whether from her own voice or the water beneath her she couldn't tell. It pounded through her head with the same demand, the same force that a river eroded the bedrock until finally, the water around Banshee's legs receded.

The Song grew quiet.

And with it, Banshee blacked out.

*+*+*+*

A/N - ;-;

Also I lied, there'll be one more part than I said. C60 will be the last chapter/epilogue of B3. <3 

Edit: C60 will only be the end of book 3. The ShadowSong series is at least ~5 books long, possibly 6, though I think I'll be taking a break from it for a while after I finish B3 <3