? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  The air reeked of ash, blood, and scorched flesh. It felt as if the world had consumed itself and retched up the cinders. The atmosphere pressed against her chest, heavy as molten lead, slicing her lungs with every breath. The wind carried only one thing: screams. Short. Brittle. Final.

  Susie had long since stopped counting bodies. Every boundary had been crossed; every debt had been burned away. She stood leaning against a splintered spear-shaft, breathing like a beast that had run itself into exhaustion. Her shoulders trembled—not from the cold, but from a fatigue that had burrowed into her marrow. Her once-immaculate Inquisitor’s mantle was now nothing more than a filthy, blood-soaked rag.

  The wyvern lay nearby, twisted and dead. Its neck, looking like a demon’s spine, was snapped in several places. Its scales were charred, its eyes clouded—even death in these lands felt foul. From its shattered throat protruded a spear—the same one Susie now leaned upon.

  Beside her sat Vane, resting on one knee. His dark armor, riddled with cracks and gouges, looked as if it had been stripped from a cooling corpse. Across the Reaper’s back lay a two-handed greatsword—ancient, dented, looking as though it had survived a hundred battles and won none without sacrifice. Beneath him, a black fluid pooled, thick as tar. Blood, venom… or something worse. A jagged bite mark tore through his arm. He cinched a leather strap tight around his shoulder, grinding his teeth until they groaned.

  “Alive?” A raspy question, asked without looking.

  “Bitten, but not fatal… I hope,” Vane whispered, forcing a grimace that might have been a smile. His face was ghostly, but his eyes remained sharp. “I’m taking a tooth. For the memory.”

  Wincing in agony, he wrenched the trophy from beneath a plating of his armor. He tucked it into a leather pouch—one that would soon smell of sweat, death, and stubborn pride.

  Susie turned. Half of her face was masked in caked, dried blood. She ripped away her scorched mask—the fabric had fused to her skin, taking a chunk of flesh with it. The pain passed without a cry; she had already stepped beyond the threshold where a scream meant anything.

  In a mirror, she would not have known herself. One eye was swollen and bloodshot; her cheek was split by a deep scar, like a fissure in parched earth. Her face had become an iconography of rage and survival.

  She only grimaced. At least now, the outside matched the inside.

  Only six remained of the Inquisition squad. Of those, only two were fit for combat. One was blind. The second—missing a leg. The third simply stared at the sky, waiting for God to take him.

  But the heavens were silent. There was a different master here.

  “Vane, lead them back to the pass,” Susie said, the words cutting her throat. “Tell the Prince… that I have gone on.”

  “Susie…” Vane looked up at her. His face froze in icy realization.

  “Tell him I will return with an answer… or I won't return at all.”

  She didn't look at him. She knew that if she did, she might stay. And she would never forgive herself for that. Susie closed her eyes, and the image of Him appeared—the First. Clad in heavy plate, wielding a flaming sword, wearing that smile. The real one. She shivered instantly, fear burrowing in her chest like a live rat beneath her ribs. She knew well what awaited her if she returned empty-handed.

  Death would be the best outcome. The worst… she had seen it, she had done it. She refused to take their place.

  Vane nodded in silence. He watched her go as one watches a shadow vanishing into the night.

  ? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  She never even neared the settlement. The moment the scent of smoke touched her nostrils again, Susie knew: only death waited there. Not Violetta, but a trap. Everything was too clean. Too precisely arranged. As if someone had meticulously erased the traces of… life.

  She changed direction sharply. First sideways into the thicket, then upward along the ridge, moving like a shadow that had lost its master. She tried to bypass the area where the air stank not just of ash, but of something worse—doom. The earth there seemed to exhale death.

  But the snow erased the paths, and the wind shifted directions as if mocking her. She wandered among the pines, through deep drifts and a grey silence that swallowed her with every step like a midnight sea.

  Just as she lost all sense of direction, she saw them.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Below, moving between the trunks, was a group. Small. Confident. Orderly. Humans, not wolves. Not ghosts. Her heart constricted. Them… or her.

  “Finally.”

  Susie froze. She clenched her teeth, a shield against the rising wave. Something boiled inside—rage? Hope? Despair? A primal instinct that had no name. She took a step forward to see better…

  …and her foot betrayed her.

  “Agh—”

  A stone, slick with frost, slid from beneath her foot like a cold tongue. Her balance shattered. The world inverted. The slope claimed her the way nature claims the dead—without mercy.

  Something snapped in her shoulder. Something tore in her chest. She tumbled through wind, snow, and pain, swallowing the space like a scream that never reached the air.

  And then—void. Silence.

  ? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  Dreaming came strange, like a borrowed memory.

  In it, she was a child again—fair-haired, with freckles dusting her nose like stars. Her fingers reached for butterflies dancing in beams of sun that felt hot as copper. Her laughter rang like crystal—clear, carefree, innocent. Everything breathed with a warmth that was almost holy.

  Then—the shadow.

  Black, thick as soot, it crawled through the grass, whispering soundlessly. A hand grew from it—long, thin, cold as ice. It gripped her palm.

  “If you kill—do not look them in the eye.”

  ? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  Susie woke with a spasm in her chest. Air lunged into her lungs like water after a long submersion. Her throat rasped; her ribs reminded her of the fall with needle-sharp stabs. She tried to rise—in vain. Her hands were bound. Her back pulsed with a dull heat.

  Figures loomed over her. Blurred, like prints on steamed glass. People. Strangers.

  One of the figures leaned down.

  Not tall, slender. She moved with a precise, synchronized grace, like a well-tuned mechanism. A fox mask concealed her face—static, almost serene in this wild, broken tableau. But her eyes…

  Violet. Obscenely clean for this world.

  There was no anger in them. No contempt. Only silence. Deep, enveloping—like a battlefield after the slaughter, when all decisions have been made. Like a sentence that wasn't about death. It was about something far worse.

  Susie wetted her lips. She forced the words out hoarsely:

  “You… Vi?”

  The girl didn't answer. She only tilted her head slightly—and watched. There was something in her gaze broader than human. As if she saw the world from both the outside and the inside. As if she saw her.

  Susie felt something within her tighten. Her spine. Her soul. Suddenly, she felt toothless, exhausted—a grey shard in a colorful dream that had somehow chosen her.

  “What now?” she whispered. “Will you kill me?”

  “She won't,” Brenn spoke. His voice was low, hollow, as if coming from a cavern.

  Then—the sack. Darkness became fabric once more. This time, it was real.

  ? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  They healed her and carried her. Susie lay in something that swayed—litters, perhaps. They didn't hit her. They didn't interrogate her. They didn't humiliate her. They simply carried her—carefully, almost gently. Like something broken. But still needed.

  Nearby, someone was chewing. Someone coughed. Someone quietly cracked a joke—and someone else replied, almost laughing. The world drifted past, dissolving into shadow.

  Only one thought circled in her head: Why did she pity me?

  And behind it, another. Quieter. Worse. One she was afraid to even name: And why… am I grateful?

  Susie ground her teeth. Was this envy? Their laughter was real. Their touch was alive. There were few of them, but they held together like a single organism with multiple hearts.

  She suddenly realized she had long forgotten this feeling. That it had burned out of her. That in the Empire—and even more so in the Oculus—nothing human survives. There, you either walk over heads, or someone walks over yours.

  Right now, Susie wanted only one thing: to be left alive.

  ? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?

  A few days later, the group emerged from the woods. The road was narrow, rutted by wheels like an old wound that refused to heal. The air still held the summer heat, but a damp autumn tang was beginning to ring through it.

  It was time to decide the prisoner's fate.

  Brenn and Odd were against it. Each had their own truth, their own wounds. Anger and fear nested in their voices. But Violetta spoke her piece quietly. So quietly that arguing felt almost shameful. There was always more strength in her silence than in the words of the rest.

  Susie sat apart. Her hands were still bound. Her hair was matted, her face a map of scratches, yet she sat straight—with that cold composure that comes after falling from the peak of a cliff, both physical and moral.

  Dried leaves rustled around them. The wind played with them like unspoken words. Susie spoke first. Her voice was level, almost a whisper. But every word was a stone.

  “Why didn't you kill me?”

  Violetta was silent. Her gaze was direct, but not harsh. Not soft. Precise. That same look that sees through flesh—to where it hurts. The violet eyes didn't burn; they glowed softly, like fireflies in a night forest. Calm. Inevitable.

  She removed her mask. The click of the buckle sounded like the final line of a verdict. The fox mask—delicate, exquisite—lay in her hands.

  “Because for me to hide my true self,” she said softly, “I had to wear a mask.”

  She stepped closer. There was no threat in her movements: only silence, only a shadow of pity. She leaned down. Her fingers touched Susie’s cheek—not roughly, not coldly. With that strange, uncharacteristic tenderness only someone who knows pain can give.

  She placed the mask over Susie’s face.

  “But for you…” Violetta paused. The air stilled. “...you no longer need it. It grew into you long ago.”

  Susie didn't look away. Only her pupil twitched—quick, sharp, like lightning in the clouds. She understood. Deeply. To the bone. She said nothing—for there was nothing left to say.

  Violetta straightened. She brushed her hands as if wiping away invisible filth. She looked ahead—to where the last golden rays of the sun fell between the trees. Warm. Peaceful. Like a promise you don't yet believe in.

  “And also,” she added flatly, firmly, “because I don't want to be like you.”

  She turned. She was about to walk away.

  “Oh… I almost forgot.”

  Violetta dropped a freshly created, blunt knife onto the ground.