The Codex had been precise about the summoning requirements for the Sky Aerie—but precision in ancient elemental texts, Kael was learning, meant something very different from simplicity. The Sky Aerie was not a place. It was a formation: five elder gryphons, each carrying a different elemental flame class, flying in perfect harmonic resonance with a soul-tethered pair at the center.
When the formation was complete, the five outer gryphons and the central bonded pair generated a combined elemental field strong enough to project a solar barrier capable of burning away Archon-class shadow magic permanently. The problem was finding five willing elder gryphons in the middle of a Frost Archon invasion. Ignis had a plan.
Kael understood it not through words—gryphons did not speak in the human sense—but through the soul-tether's deepening bond, through a complex transmission of intent and image that arrived in his mind like a vivid waking dream: Five aerie locations. Hidden. Ancient. Each elder gryphon in isolation, waiting for exactly this summons for exactly this reason.
"You've known where they were the whole time," Kael said, staring at Ignis with wide eyes.
The gryphon chirped once, spreading his wings. They flew north first, into the highest reaches of the Aethelgard range where the granite peaks became pure white with permanent snow fields. In a massive natural arch cut into the highest cliff face, they found Solara—a female elder gryphon twice Ignis's size, her feathers deep copper and gold, her eyes the pale amber of noon sunlight.
She had been waiting. When she saw Ignis and felt the soul-tether's resonance, she spread her wings immediately and fell into formation.
East next—to the volcanic rim above the Solar Core access point, where a scarred and ancient male elder gryphon named Ashmark roosted alone, his feathers scorched black with a lifetime of Solar Core proximity but burning with a deeper, more stable heat than Ignis's still-maturing fire. Ashmark joined without hesitation.
South—to the ancient ruins of the original Aethelgard fortress walls, where twin elder gryphons—Vela and Kiran—had roosted in the broken towers for so long that the stones around them had calcified into warm amber volcanic glass from the sustained heat. They joined together, their elemental signatures perfectly synchronized.
West—to the murmuring Spire's highest peak, where a fifth elder gryphon, the oldest of all—Thornfire, a male whose amber feathers had turned deep crimson with age—had watched the frost invasion from solitary silence, waiting.
Thornfire looked at Kael for a long moment before joining the formation. In the elder gryphon's ancient eyes, Kael read something the soul-tether translated with quiet clarity: You are young. But the bond is true.
The Sky Aerie formation rose above the Aethelgard Peaks—six gryphons and one human elementalist, wheeling in precise formation through the frost-dark sky—the combined thermal resonance of their elemental fields creating a visible aurora of amber and gold that cut through the Frost Archon's shadow darkness like a sunrise. Fourth rite: complete. Below them, the shadow-frost columns covering the valley began to thin at the edges under the aerie's warmth.
The Frost Archon knew what had been assembled. Kael felt the cold respond—gathering, concentrating, building toward the final confrontation.