The first scream didn’t come from the door.

  It came from inside.

  I felt it before I heard it—a sudden pressure in my chest, as if the Palace of Sel?nrah had inhaled all at once and forgotten how to exhale. The oil lamps trembled in unison, not from wind, but from something deeper, something that crawled through the corridors like an emotion pushed past its limit.

  That’s when I saw them.

  Yareen’s followers didn’t advance in formation.

  They didn’t move like an army.

  They hurled themselves forward.

  Human bodies, eyes gone glassy, movements erratic, their will suspended somewhere between fear and devotion. Some still wore the clothes of ordinary citizens—market fabrics, servants’ robes, ill-fitted guard armor from people who no longer remembered whom they were meant to protect. Others were barefoot, their skin carved with symbols drawn without care, as if someone had written inside them without asking.

  They didn’t shout slogans.

  They didn’t recite prayers.

  They laughed.

  A broken, stuttering laughter, mixed with spasms and half-choked sobs. There was no coordination, but there was no hesitation either. Each of them was an overflowing vessel, shoved forward by an emotion that no longer belonged to them.

  —Formation! —Zayrah’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and urgent—. Don’t surround them, don’t try to restrain them—bring them down!

  Too late.

  One of them slammed into a column and released a burst of raw despair so violent the stone cracked, as if it were weeping hot sand. Another dragged himself across the floor, nails carving grooves, and when he lifted his head he let out a hysterical laugh before shattering stained glass with a wave of emotional backlash.

  They weren’t fighting.

  They were being used.

  —They don’t feel pain… —I heard Neyra say, her voice tight, as she deflected a clumsy but savage charge—. They don’t feel anything of their own.

  And I understood.

  They weren’t soldiers.

  They weren’t conscious devotees.

  They were people trapped in an emotional trance, held upright by someone else’s broken will.

  Then the air changed.

  There was no explosion.

  No warning.

  The sand along the floor drew back slightly, as if recognizing a presence. When I looked up, I saw her crossing the main archway without hurry, without needing to force her way in.

  Yareen entered the palace like someone returning to a place she already considered hers.

  She didn’t raise her hands.

  She didn’t raise her voice.

  Her presence alone was enough.

  The entranced bodies went rigid all at once, like strings pulled tight, and the chaos stopped being erratic. It became direction.

  A chill ran down my spine.

  —There she is… —someone whispered nearby. I couldn’t tell if it was fear or hatred.

  Yareen tilted her head slightly, studying the scene with an unsettling curiosity. Her black robe was dust-stained where blood had once been. The space where her arm was missing didn’t drip—it throbbed, wrapped in an invisible pressure that made it hurt just to look at.

  Her white eyes swept across the hall.

  When they landed on me, I felt the impact.

  —Begin —she said.

  And the Palace of Sel?nrah—and everyone inside it—understood that this night would not end without something being irreparably broken.

  The fight became illegible in seconds.

  There were no fronts.

  No lines.

  Only bodies falling, rising… and coming back.

  I cut the first one cleanly in half. The strike was precise, final—the kind of motion Blood Crown executes almost on instinct. The body split and collapsed like an empty sack.

  I stepped forward.

  And both halves kept moving.

  They didn’t bleed. They didn’t scream. Where there should have been something recognizable, there was only a dark, formless mass, thick and unpulsing, stretching and pulling itself together as if the body were a shell poorly sealed.

  —No… —I breathed, airless—. They don’t die.

  I took another head. It rolled and struck a pillar. The body took two steps… three… then bent to retrieve it with clumsy hands, as if death were nothing more than an inconvenience.

  Pain slammed into my side. Nails. Teeth. Someone bit into my shoulder with feral strength. The pain was real—hot, immediate. I snarled and flung them away with the flat of my blade, but another was already on me.

  Cuts.

  Scratches.

  Blows without technique, without logic.

  They were dangerous precisely because they didn’t know how to fight. They moved on raw impulse, on emotional hunger, crashing into us like malformed waves that never thinned.

  —Lyss! —I heard Velka shout somewhere—. They won’t stop!

  I knew.

  Yareen walked among them.

  She didn’t dodge blows.

  She didn’t shield herself.

  Bodies parted on their own, as if her proximity tightened their strings. She passed one missing half its torso, and the body reknit itself with a dark spasm—obedient.

  She laughed.

  Not openly.

  Low. Intimate.

  As if she found it interesting.

  She lunged without warning. I felt the strike before I saw her. Something cracked through the air like a whip and hurled me into the wall. The impact tore the breath from my lungs and left my vision sparking white.

  —You smell like her —she said, very close.

  I lifted my head. Yareen stood in front of me. Too close. Her white eyes traced me as if reading beneath my skin.

  —Of ancient sorrow… —she murmured—. Of a sleeping Mother.

  I tried to rise. A follower threw himself on me, biting into my forearm with frantic strength. I screamed, drove the blade into his back, split him—

  and felt the weight not disappear. He was still there. Gripping. Pulling.

  The palace groaned.

  Sand lifted from the floor in erratic spirals.

  Voices overlapped—orders, screams, shattered prayers.

  I saw Neyra bleeding from the brow, still standing, turning aside impossible attacks.

  Caelia holding a flank, taking blows meant for someone else.

  Velka fighting with bottled fury, her smile completely gone.

  And Yareen at the center of it all—moving, striking, testing us, as if every second were another experiment.

  She wasn’t waiting.

  She wasn’t observing.

  She was playing.

  And the worst part…

  was that she was starting to enjoy it.

  The fight stopped being something I could follow with my eyes.

  The Guardians were everywhere.

  I saw Zayrah pushing forward, teeth clenched, every movement clean, precise—beautifully—and still not enough. She brought down one follower, then two, then three, and the space she carved closed again immediately with bodies that didn’t know when to stop.

  Irsah held just behind her, hands open, serenity stretched outward like a fragile field that bent but refused to shatter. Every time one of the constructs struck too close, I felt her power tighten, stretched thin to the brink.

  Mahtani fought without restraint. Her body was healed, but her face wasn’t. Every strike carried more than strength—it carried bottled rage, a near-desperate refusal to fall again. I saw her take a blow to the side and stay standing, snarling, refusing to give ground.

  Luma crossed the hall wrapped in brief flashes of light and heat, striking impossible angles, moving fast—almost feverish. She didn’t shout orders. She didn’t shout at all. She fought as if silence were the only way not to think too much.

  Then I saw something different.

  Shadira advanced slowly, ceremonially, moving through the chaos as if walking through a memory. Followers who approached her hesitated for a heartbeat—just one—before being taken down by a force that wasn’t entirely physical. Her presence made the air feel heavier, as if she carried guilt that didn’t belong to her.

  A few steps away, Nazeera stood firm, unmoving in the midst of the devastation. She didn’t strike immediately. She watched. And when she moved, it was to impose balance—a single gesture enough to deflect a charge, to force a body to stop for an instant, just long enough for another Guardian to finish it. Her gray eyes showed nothing. No fear. No fury.

  And still, it wasn’t enough.

  The followers didn’t fall the way they should have. The constructs struck indiscriminately, crushing bodies, tearing through walls, forcing us apart again and again. The palace groaned beneath every impact, as if it were growing tired of holding us up.

  Through all of it, Yareen kept moving.

  Sometimes I felt her behind me.

  Sometimes in front of me.

  Sometimes I couldn’t see her at all and still knew exactly where she was.

  She lunged at me again. I blocked, retreated, felt another blow rip the breath from my lungs. Blood Crown vibrated in my hands, but every cut was deflected, absorbed, returned with a pressure that made my arms shake.

  —Look at them —she said, gesturing vaguely at the chaos—. All of them trying to hold together something that’s already falling apart.

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

  A construct slammed down between us, the impact shaking the floor hard enough to force us apart. Dust. Sand. Shattered stone. Screams. Orders dissolving into noise.

  The duel didn’t break.

  It was postponed, suspended beneath a greater violence.

  I forced myself upright, my body burning with cuts and bruises. Around me, the Guardians kept fighting. All of them. Without exception. No one was safe. No one was spared.

  And in the middle of it all, Yareen watched—satisfied—letting the broken world do her work.

  That’s when I understood this wasn’t just a battle.

  It was a measure of how much everything could be broken…

  before someone crossed a line that could never be undone.

  The constructs began to move all at once.

  They didn’t advance.

  They broke in.

  One formed halfway in front of me, dragging fragments of floor and a fallen column along with it. Another surged up behind me, striking without direction, without pause, without recognizing anything. Each impact made the air shudder, as if the palace were about to collapse inward.

  I lunged at the first one without thinking.

  Blood Crown cut through the compacted mass, tearing it apart into hardened blocks of sand that immediately began pulling themselves back together. I stepped back, struck again, searching for a core that simply wasn’t there.

  —Not like this! —I shouted, not knowing to whom—. Not like this!

  Another construct crashed down on a nearby Guardian. I turned, forcing my body to move faster than it could sustain. Every second we lost meant someone else being struck, thrown, buried under something that didn’t know when to stop.

  I focused on them.

  I had to.

  If we didn’t contain the constructs, no one would get out alive.

  I cut.

  I deflected.

  I leapt aside to avoid an impact that shattered the ground where I’d been a heartbeat earlier.

  And in that heartbeat…

  I felt her presence too close.

  There was no warning.

  No word.

  The strike pierced through my shoulder with a force that wasn’t only physical. I felt something drive into me, the pressure slamming me into the floor and ripping the air from my lungs all at once.

  I screamed.

  Pain blurred my vision. The sword nearly slipped from my hands. I tried to rise and couldn’t. My arm wouldn’t respond. The pressure stayed there, pinning me in place, anchoring me to the ground as if Yareen had decided that was where I belonged.

  —You get distracted —she said, very close—. That always has a price.

  The world turned to noise.

  Constructs crashing.

  Voices shouting my name.

  Sand spiraling upward in violent currents.

  —Help! —I screamed, without pride, without calculation—. Anyone!

  Yareen didn’t pull away.

  She pressed harder.

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  And with a clarity as cold as iron, I knew that if no one reached me in that second, there would be no duel left to finish.

  Only silence.

  Then as if my prayers were responded by a god...

  it happened.

  The tremor didn’t come from the ground.

  It came from everything.

  The air froze.

  The screams were cut short, as if someone had closed a fist around the world itself.

  And then—silence.

  Not an empty silence.

  A heavy one. Charged. The kind that comes before a storm that already knows where it will strike.

  The pressure vanished from my shoulder.

  Not because Yareen stepped back.

  But because something greater had arrived.

  I barely lifted my head in time to see her.

  Nerys was there.

  She didn’t walk.

  She didn’t descend.

  She simply was.

  Her feet didn’t touch the ground. Her silhouette looked like still water shaped into the outline of a woman, threaded with dim sky. There was no fury on her face. No visible pain. Only ancient eyes—deep, immeasurable—surveying the battlefield the way one looks at an open wound already destined to close.

  She said nothing.

  She extended one hand.

  The crystal harp formed without a sound, as if it had always been waiting to be called.

  And then the world wept.

  Thousands—no, tens of thousands—of fragments of water rose from the air itself. They did not fall. They did not flow. They sharpened. Every drop tightened, stretched, became a translucent blade vibrating with a note you couldn’t hear with your ears, only with your chest.

  Nerys lifted her other hand.

  And the invisible ocean obeyed.

  The water-blades surged forward in perfect formation. They did not collide. They did not miss. They pierced bodies, magic, half-formed shapes—and wherever they passed, something went out forever.

  I saw the followers fall without screams.

  I saw the sand freeze midair, then settle gently, as if it had remembered its place.

  I saw Yareen step back.

  Not in fear.

  In recognition.

  Sorrow did not shout.

  It did not roar.

  Sorrow ended things.

  Nerys took a single step forward, and with every silent note of the harp, the battlefield emptied, cleansed, became bearable again. No traces of struggle remained. Only conclusions.

  A Mother does not fight.

  A Mother decides.

  And in that moment, with a clarity that chilled my blood, I understood something:

  If Nerys had wished it…

  Yareen would already be gone.

  There were no lingering screams. No time for the black mass inside their bodies to reorganize. Each cut arrived before the next heartbeat, before the corrupted magic could understand it needed to rebuild. The puppets unraveled in silence, as if they had never truly been people, as if sorrow itself had decided to erase what was already dead.

  I felt my spine straighten on its own.

  The anger was still there, boiling beneath my skin—but no longer spilling over. Blood Crown answered with a steadier pulse, clearer, sharper. It wasn’t borrowed strength. It was restraint. Like an ancient hand pressed between my shoulder blades, telling me without words: breathe.

  Velka froze for a second too long.

  Not out of fear.

  Out of frustration.

  I saw it in her clenched jaw, in the way her fingers tightened and loosened around her weapon. This—this—should have been over already. With that kind of power, with a Mother present, Yareen should not still be standing.

  But she was.

  Neyra understood first. I saw it in her eyes, in that nearly imperceptible shift where strategy fractures and understanding takes its place. Nothing was failing. No strength was missing.

  What was missing was resolve.

  The harp sounded again.

  This time, it was music. Not joyful. Not solemn. A sustained lament that slipped into the chest and made exhaustion retreat by a single step. Wounds hurt less. Fear became manageable, like a beast with a muzzle. Around me, the Guardians moved better, more in sync, as if remembering why they kept fighting after everything they had lost.

  But something was wrong.

  The blades of water circled Yareen.

  They pushed her back.

  They contained her.

  They closed in like a sea that refused to seal shut.

  They never pierced her center.

  Never.

  Yareen laughed, unhinged, dried blood streaking her side, her eyes shining with hunger. Her body tore itself apart and reformed again and again, as if the world itself could not decide whether to let her exist.

  —LOOK AT HER! —she screamed, spinning in place—. NOT EVEN YOU DARE!

  The harp did not answer.

  Nerys stood there—whole, real, immense. Her form did not tremble. Her face showed no doubt. She guided the blades with one hand, precise, relentless… and yet every trajectory avoided the final point.

  Then I understood.

  Nerys was not incapable of killing.

  She was incapable of committing that act.

  Sorrow has no conviction.

  It has memory.

  It has guilt.

  It has fear.

  The followers were already dead—that was why there was no hesitation in erasing them. Yareen was not. Yareen breathed. Thought. Reflected too much.

  For Nerys, killing her meant accepting that not everything could be saved.

  Caelia moved in front of me, covering a flank without a word. To her, Nerys was a perfect wall—and a wall that does not advance does not win wars, it only prevents collapse.

  Velka clicked her tongue, furious, a humorless laugh escaping between her teeth.

  And I tightened my grip around Blood Crown.

  If the Mother could not do it—

  then it was up to us.

  The harp sounded once more, deeper, heavier. Not to kill. To hold us steady while we chose to cross the line she could not.

  Yareen spread her arms, ecstatic.

  —Come —she whispered—. Show me which of you has the courage.

  Sorrow held us.

  The decision was ours.

  The battle lost its shape.

  It was no longer a front or a center, but overlapping layers of screams, magic, and stone tearing itself apart. Yareen was everywhere and nowhere—advancing, retreating, warping, reforming. Every wound we inflicted didn’t weaken her; it made her more erratic, more dangerous, like a cornered animal that starts biting without distinction.

  We attacked together.

  Caelia carved a path as she always did, her presence a living wall. Whenever one of the constructs tried to circle us, her spear found the precise point where the form failed, where the black mass inside the body couldn’t hold itself together. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.

  Neyra moved at my side, breathing hard, eyes razor-sharp. She didn’t fire on instinct—she waited. Calculated. Each arrow was a decision, not a reflex, and still her hands shook a little more with every shot. Raw magic saturated the air; I could feel it intoxicating her the same way it was intoxicating me.

  Velka laughed.

  Not a happy laugh.

  Not her laugh.

  It was that tight, fractured sound she uses when everything starts to hurt too much. She darted between shadows and debris, striking, covering flanks, shoving us out of the path of blows she didn’t always see coming. Every time she passed near me, I felt her magic brush against mine like a brief discharge, as if she were trying to keep me anchored to the ground.

  The Guardians fought around us.

  Zayrah shouted orders with a torn voice, holding together a rhythm that threatened to unravel. Irsah kept her field of serenity barely intact—just enough to keep us from collapsing—though I saw blood running from her nose, her hands clenched tight with the strain. Mahtani, still stiff, fought with contained fury, as if every strike were a way to deny how close she had come to dying.

  Yareen lunged at us again.

  Not with technique.

  Not with strategy.

  With hunger.

  Her magic detonated in irregular waves that warped the ground, raised walls where nothing had been, split open fissures that spat out formless constructs. I cut forward, advanced, cut again. Blood Crown vibrated in my hand like a living creature, answering every heartbeat of rage.

  Too much rage.

  I felt it then—the dizziness, the tightening in my chest, the pulse spiraling out of control. This wasn’t exhaustion. This was my body starting to lag behind, unable to keep pace with the emotion.

  —Lyss! —I heard someone shout, far away.

  Yareen appeared in front of me in a blink, her smile twisted, an incomplete arm rebuilding itself into something that should not exist. I crashed into her with everything I had. I wounded her. I saw her bleed. I saw her stagger back one step—then another.

  It was working.

  But every step we gained made the world break a little more.

  The ceiling groaned.

  Not as a warning.

  As surrender.

  I felt the shift in the air before I saw it. Something gave way above—something heavy, irregular, torn loose by the distortion Yareen had imposed on the sanctuary. I turned on instinct, lifting the sword, too late to think, too occupied to flee.

  Yareen smiled.

  Everything happened very fast.

  It was then.

  Not a sharp blow.

  Not a crash.

  A tear.

  The sanctuary stopped holding itself together. It didn’t collapse—it gave way, as if it were tired of existing under Yareen’s pressure. I felt the vibration surge up through the floor, climb my legs, lodge itself at the base of my skull.

  I looked up.

  The fragment of ceiling was coming straight at me.

  It wasn’t a clean stone. It was long, irregular, sharpened by the break, spinning clumsily through the air, aimed at me with an intention that wasn’t its own. Blood Crown reacted too late. I reacted too late.

  I was too close to Yareen.

  Too full of rage.

  Too slow.

  I heard Velka shout my name.

  I didn’t turn.

  I felt her weight first.

  The impact tore the air from my chest. I slammed onto my back, the world collapsing into white noise, a high-pitched ringing that left no room for thought. Something heavy landed on top of me. Something warm. Something alive.

  The stone didn’t pierce me.

  Not me.

  Velka was over me, her body arched at an impossible angle, the rock buried deep in the lower part of her side, driven through her diagonally. The force of the impact had lifted her off the ground for a split second before pinning her there, as if the sanctuary itself had decided to exact a price.

  Velka didn’t scream.

  Her breath came out broken, wet, and I saw blood spill from her mouth when she coughed. Her hands trembled. Even so, she lifted one—slowly, as if every inch weighed a ton—and placed it against my dust- and sweat-streaked cheek.

  The rage was killing me.

  I felt it then with brutal clarity: my chest tightening to the point of pain, my heart slamming without rhythm, my vision darkening at the edges. This wasn’t fury anymore. It was collapse.

  —Princess… —Velka whispered, her voice in pieces—. Don’t let her… win.

  Her palm ignited.

  Not in an explosion.

  Not as an attack.

  It was a brief, contained pulse that passed through my skin and sank into the center of my chest. It didn’t erase the rage. It held it. Lowered it just enough for my body not to tear itself apart from the inside.

  The world snapped back.

  Air rushed into my lungs as if I had never breathed before. My heartbeat slowed—violent, painful, but alive. I felt the rage recoil, not extinguished, but compressed into something I could control.

  Velka let out a long breath. Her magic died instantly, like a flame starved of oxygen. Her body lost all tension, her weight collapsing fully against me.

  —Velka… —my voice broke.

  Her eyes found mine one last time, bright, exhausted. A tiny smile—almost an apology—crossed her face.

  Yareen shrieked.

  Not in pain.

  In fury.

  The sanctuary responded like a wounded beast. The constructs around us dissolved into shapeless black mass, collapsing over one another, crushed by their own instability. The floor split into jagged fissures, the walls buckled, magic detonated without direction.

  Everything got worse.

  And I was on my knees, holding Velka impaled by the stone that should have killed me, Blood Crown trembling in my hand, and a certainty burning hotter than rage:

  If she had been able to hold me like that…

  Then I had no right to fall.

  I felt Nerys falter.

  Not in a visible gesture.

  Not in a sound.

  It was as if the air lost its tension, as if the sorrow holding us together had blinked upon seeing Velka impaled over me. The harp stopped singing one heartbeat earlier than it should have.

  One second.

  Just one.

  Yareen felt it.

  She lunged.

  Not at me.

  Not at Velka.

  At Nerys.

  Her body warped mid-movement, stretching beyond any human shape, skin splitting into impossible lines, her mouth opening far too wide, as if it could never be enough for what she meant to devour. The surrounding magic folded inward, violently drawn toward her.

  —NO! —I screamed.

  Caelia reached her first.

  Not with brute force, but with precision. Her daggers flashed in unison, cutting through points that were neither flesh nor energy, but intent, forcing Yareen’s body to veer just enough to break the perfect trajectory.

  Neyra reacted a heartbeat later.

  Her staff snapped open with a dry crack, its rings separating as she released a concentrated pulse of raw magic that struck Yareen’s shifting torso head-on, driving her back even as her form tried to rebuild itself.

  The Guardians attacked at once.

  Shouts, prayers, overlapping commands tearing through the air as they tried to close the distance, cut off the advance, buy time.

  We were too late.

  Yareen managed to touch her.

  It was not an embrace.

  It was not a grip.

  It was a partial absorption, brutal and chaotic. Fragments of Nerys’s sorrow were torn away, as if someone were trying to drink an ocean with their teeth. The harp shrieked, an impossible note that rattled through my bones.

  Nerys screamed.

  For the first time.

  Her body folded forward, the light draining from her in layers, like a sky having its stars ripped out. I saw her drop to her knees, gasping, hands shaking, her face drained of all color.

  Yareen was hurled backward.

  Not by her.

  By us.

  The impact was enough to tear apart what had already latched on, to break the connection before it could fully seal. But the damage was done.

  Nerys collapsed.

  She was breathing.

  She was alive.

  But the Mother who had held us together was no longer standing.

  Yareen rose slowly.

  She was no longer recognizable.

  Her shape swelled and contracted at once, as if multiple bodies were trying to exist in the same space. Where there had been skin, there were now glowing fractures. Where there had been eyes, there was a sick, over-aware gleam. The laughter that escaped her had no throat large enough to carry it.

  —Now… —she slurred, her voice layered, broken—. Now I finally feel something.

  The sanctuary stopped obeying any law.

  The walls bent inward. The floor breathed. Magic spilled without direction or master. Constructs began to form again—more twisted, faster—attacking anything that moved.

  New chaos.

  More violent.

  More desperate.

  I clenched my teeth, holding Velka with one arm, Blood Crown burning in the other, Nerys fallen behind me, and a truth driving deeper than any wound:

  If we don’t stop her now…

  there will be nothing left to save.

  We weren’t gaining ground.

  Every time we advanced, something broke behind us. Every time we wounded Yareen, the sanctuary folded in on itself, as if reality were trying to expel us. The Guardians fell back on sheer will alone. Caelia bled from the side. Neyra breathed hard, her staff vibrating in her hands as if it were about to come apart.

  Yareen found me in the middle of the chaos.

  She didn’t run.

  She didn’t strike.

  She appeared.

  Her hand closed around my throat before I could lift the sword. I felt the world tilt, my feet losing contact with the ground. Rage reacted first—violent, overflowing… too much.

  —Your blood… —she murmured, drawing her warped face close to mine—. It smells like a Mother. Like origin. Like a mistake.

  I tried to cut.

  Blood Crown slammed into something that didn’t give. A violent pulse tore up my arm and the sword was ripped from my grip, spinning through the air before striking the ground with a dry, final sound.

  No.

  My chest tightened again. My vision fractured. I felt my heartbeat spiral out of control, my body on the edge of failure once more—this time without Velka to hold me together.

  Yareen tightened her grip.

  —Now —she whispered—. Now you stay still.

  The world shrank to points of light.

  Then I heard something strike stone.

  Not close.

  Behind me.

  —NEYRA! —Velka’s voice came out shattered, barely a thread—. NOW!

  I turned my eyes just enough to see her.

  Velka lay on the ground, pale, soaked in blood, one hand trembling over the impossible wound in her side. With the other, she held the sword.

  My sword.

  Blood Crown.

  She couldn’t stand. She couldn’t fight. But she could still choose.

  With a cry that wasn’t pain but pure resolve, she hurled the blade.

  The world seemed to slow.

  The sword spun once in the air—red, ancient, heavy with history. Neyra dropped her staff without thinking and caught it by the hilt with both hands.

  And something in her clicked.

  It wasn’t anger.

  It wasn’t fury.

  It was absolute focus.

  Obsession snapped shut like a trap.

  Neyra didn’t scream. She didn’t hesitate. She moved through rubble, constructs, and screams as if nothing existed beyond that path. Yareen tried to turn—but it was too late.

  —No —Neyra said, her voice steady, terrifyingly calm—. It ends here.

  She drove Blood Crown into the center of Yareen’s chest.

  Not where the human heart lay.

  Deeper.

  Where the second beat.

  The impact was silent.

  Then the world screamed.

  The sword drank everything—the distortion, the excess magic, the malformed hunger. The second heart fractured in a pulse of dark light that collapsed inward on itself, like a dying star.

  Yareen opened her mouth.

  No sound came out.

  Her body broke from within, losing shape, losing intent, losing name. The glowing fractures winked out one by one until there was nothing left to hold.

  She fell.

  The sanctuary, exhausted, stopped trembling.

  I dropped to my knees at the same time, air tearing into my lungs in ragged gulps, free at last.

  Neyra let the sword fall.

  Velka closed her eyes.

  And for the first time since all of this began…

  the silence was not a threat.

  When everything ended, I dropped to my knees and then rushed towards Velka.

  Velka was gasping, her dark blood soaking my hands.

  I held her face.

  I said nothing.

  There were no words.

  I don’t remember how I reached her.

  Only that when I saw her there—her breathing tearing like wet paper—I understood that all my rage, all my fury, meant nothing if I couldn’t hold her.

  I knelt beside Velka.

  Took her face between my hands—and I couldn’t stop myself. I tapped her cheek softly, again and again, my fingers trembling.

  —What were you thinking…? You idiot —I sobbed, my voice shredded—. You absolute idiot, Velka. Completely insane.

  She smiled, lips split, blood clinging to the corner of her mouth.

  —If you’re trying to finish me off, princess… you’re doing a great job —she rasped, so unmistakably her that relief almost made me scream.

  Her hand—cold, stained red—reached for my cheek.

  Her eyes, impossibly alive despite everything, filled with something that wasn’t fear.

  It was truth.

  —Lyss… I… I love you —she whispered. No joke. No grin hiding behind it. Just her, bare and honest—. Not like a sister. Not like a soldier. It’s bigger than that. I knew it in Eiswacht. I confirmed it every day after. I was scared of ruining everything if I told you… —she let out a weak laugh, blood bubbling at her lips—. Guess I ruined it anyway.

  I froze.

  Then I tapped her cheek again—gentler.

  —See? Idiot —I sniffed, crying like a child—. How could you think I’d see you as strange for this? Velka… I’m sorry. Truly. I can’t love you the way you want. But listen to me —I pressed my forehead to hers, our breaths mixing—: I love you too, in my own way. And that will never change. This… this makes us stronger. Not broken.

  She closed her eyes, a rough chuckle escaping her.

  —I knew your chest would be as soft as I imagined… —she murmured as I pulled her against me.

  —Velka! —Neyra burst out, half a huff, half a broken laugh, arriving with Caelia. Both dropped to their knees beside us.

  Caelia brushed Velka’s sweat-soaked hair back.

  —You’re the pillar that keeps us standing —she said, no drama, just truth—. More important than all of us put together, Velka Aurel. Don’t forget that again.

  Velka nodded faintly.

  Thin red lines slid down her cheeks—not tears, but her new mark: the living scar of her purifying power.

  Neyra rested a hand on her shoulder.

  —You saved us again, jester. Don’t ever stop doing that.

  That was when Nerys reached us.

  She was pale. Almost translucent. But her eyes were clear.

  She knelt with effort, fingers trembling as she touched Velka’s wound.

  —I will keep her alive —Nerys said softly—. But only this once.

  Her sadness poured out—not crushing, not violent. It wrapped the wound like mourning hands, sealing vessels, slowing the bleeding, knitting flesh just enough to hold.

  Velka screamed when we pulled the stone free—a raw, living sound that tore through me.

  The wound closed.

  Not perfectly.

  But enough.

  Nerys swayed.

  Then she collapsed.

  —Nerys! —someone shouted.

  For a heartbeat, the world stopped.

  Azhara was the one who knelt beside her, fingers at her throat, her breath caught in her chest.

  Seconds stretched into agony.

  Then—

  —She lives —Azhara said, her voice breaking—. She’s only sleeping. Deeply.

  Relief hit me so hard I nearly collapsed beside her.

  Velka was breathing steadily now. Alive. Scarred. Still Velka.

  She cracked one eye open, a crooked grin forming despite everything.

  —Nice scar, huh? —she murmured—. Guess now you and I match even more, Lyss.

  I laughed.

  Through tears.

  Neyra laughed.

  Caelia too.

  Because Velka was Velka.

  The stubborn, brilliant, unbreakable heart of all of us.