They reached the Sun Vault after several hours of hard travel.

  The land had changed as they approached—the mountain winds hit harder, snow blanketing everywhere the eye could see, the air growing heavy with latent mana that pressed against the skin even before the structure came into view. The entrance was carved directly into the mountainside, vast and deliberate, its geometry too precise to belong to any living age.

  The pressure hit like a hammer.

  Ronan dropped to one knee with a sharp exhale, teeth clenched as the ground seemed to tilt beneath him. Kael staggered, bow slipping from his grip as he caught himself on the rock. Lira gasped, staff biting into the earth as she fought to stay upright.

  Mana flooded the ridge—dense, crushing, hostile.

  Eis remained standing.

  Heat flared beneath her sternum, sudden and intense, burning like a living ember. Mana surged outward from her without conscious effort, flowing around her body in tight, controlled currents—parting the pressure as water parts around stone.

  She felt it clearly.

  Not resistance.

  Counterbalance.

  Lira noticed through the haze first, forcing her eyes open despite the strain.

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  “Eis—” Her voice caught. “The mana… it’s not touching you.”

  Eis turned, taking in the sight of them—strained, grounded, struggling—while the air around her shimmered faintly, untouched by the vault’s pull.

  “It’s flowing around her,” Lira said, disbelief cutting through the pain. “Like it’s avoiding her.”

  Kael dragged in a breath, eyes narrowed. “Why would mana—”

  “I don’t know,” Eis said. Her voice stayed level, though the heat in her chest continued to pulse in time with the vault.

  The pressure began to ease.

  Slowly, reluctantly, the mana storm settled back into the world. Ronan pushed himself upright, shaking the numbness from his arm. Kael reclaimed his bow. Lira leaned heavily on her staff, eyes never leaving Eis.

  Ronan looked at her fully now. “You weren’t affected.”

  Eis met his gaze. She shook her head once. “I don’t know why.”

  A pause.

  Then she looked past them—to the pillar of light tearing sky from earth.

  “But we can worry about that later,” she said. “Vauren has activated the vault.”

  The ground trembled again.

  Figures moved within the glow—shapes twisting, rising, eyes igniting with unnatural light as they surged forward.

  Ronan exhaled once, hard, forcing the questions down where they belonged.

  “Positions,” he ordered.

  Kael raised his bow.

  Lira steadied her staff.

  Steel and spell came ready in practiced unison.

  Whatever Eis was—whatever the mana had recognized—

  That truth would wait.

  The battle did not.