My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

  The tavern was silent except for rain drumming the roof. The shadows were gone - every last one. What remained were bodies. Limbs tangled in broken wood. Blood mixing with rainwater across the floorboards like red ink.

  Damy.

  The name wouldn't leave my skull. Children's voices, distant and small, scraping against the inside of my head until I thought it might split.

  Mary's hand found my arm. "Damian - are you okay?"

  I almost answered. Then the explosion hit.

  The shockwave rattled the walls. A column of orange light bloomed in the distance. Thunder followed.

  "Lord Arthur's in trouble," Adrian gasped, trying to push off the wall. His knees buckled. He hit hard, one hand clutching his side where blood seeped through torn uniform.

  "Mary," I said. "Help him. Please."

  "What about you?" Her eyes widened.

  "Arthur's still fighting. I'm going."

  She grabbed my wrist before I could turn. Rain streaked her face, but her eyes were steady. "Don't let the Bishop get in your head. He wants you there. Nothing good-"

  "I know." I pulled Adrian's discarded jacket on over my soaked shirt - still warm from his body heat. "But hiding won't help."

  “Then go. But come back.”

  She let go of my wrist, he gaze lingering on mine.

  "Please."

  I only nodded.

  I couldn't promise her that.

  As I opened the door, the air outside hit me like a slap - cold, wet, and thick with ash. The rain had turned the ground into mud, swallowing my boots as I walked. The street ahead was chaos frozen in silence.

  The vanguard was gone.

  Their bodies lay scattered across the square - leading up to the tavern in a pathway of carnage, torn apart in ways I didn’t have words for. Some were missing limbs, others half their torsos. One man’s head rested on his chest, eyes still open to the sky. There was no pattern, just carnage - like a beast had fed and lost interest halfway through. I forced myself not to look too long.

  Among the soldiers lay other bodies - normal people. Civilians. The bishops puppets.

  Their eyes were empty, black no longer, just dull glass. Limbs limp. Strings cut.

  I crouched, prying a rifle from a dead soldier’s hand. It was slick with blood, but the bolt slid smooth when I checked it. One bullet left.

  I whispered a quiet prayer - though I wasn’t sure who to anymore - and kept moving.

  The fires ahead had grown, swallowing the town whole. The two buildings the Bishop had lit earlier were now infernos. The fountain that once marked the center of the town was rubble, shattered under the weight of something titanic. Every building surrounding the fire either burned or lay flattened.

  The only thing left untouched was the cathedral.

  Then, through the haze, I saw movement to my right. In the treeline.

  Flashes of light - gold and black colliding.

  Arthur.

  And the Bishop.

  I broke into a sprint, boots splashing through puddles and ash. The closer I got, the clearer the battle became.

  When I reached them, Arthur was already losing.

  Not obviously. To someone who didn't know better, it might have looked close. Arthur's sword blazed golden-hot, each strike a miniature sunrise. Fire roared around him, pulled from the burning trees themselves. His coat was torn, his face smeared with soot, but his stance never wavered.

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  But I could see it. The way he gasped between swings. The tremor in his arm. The way his eyes tracked the Bishop's movements with increasing desperation.

  The Bishop danced between the attacks, fluid and joyful. He didn't defend - he simply wasn't where Arthur's fire landed. Every dodge left a smear of darkness in the air, tendrils of shadow curling around his limbs like patient things.

  He laughed. Not the laugh of someone fighting for his life. The laugh of someone playing with prey.

  "You're getting slower," the Bishop called, his tone almost friendly. "I can feel it. Each strike a little weaker. Your fire burning a little dimmer."

  Arthur bared his teeth and raised his hand. A line of fire exploded from his fingertip - a perfect arc that cut through trees and soil alike, turning everything to molten light.

  It passed through the Bishop harmlessly.

  The trees behind him fell in a single motion, smoking and cleanly bisected. The Bishop didn't even blink.

  "Oh, Arthur," the Bishop sighed, as if disappointed. "Come now. You're smarter than that. Attack me in multiple areas, not just one."

  Arthur lunged instead of answering. Their swords met in a shower of sparks - gold and black canceling each other out. They separated. Met again. Separated.

  Each exchange slower than the last.

  Arthur's breathing came in ragged gasps now. His sword arm hung lower. The flames around him were dimming.

  The Bishop's movements had become almost casual. He wasn't pressing. He was waiting.

  I moved to the side of the clearing, rifle raised. Steadied my breathing. My hands had stopped shaking - my mind calming to a standstill in the middle of battle.

  I lined the sights on the Bishop's head, tracking his movements. Just needed one opening.

  Arthur raised his hand again, desperate now. Flames from the burning trees around him gathered - spears, arrows, sheets of golden fire all at once. A last stand. A final surge of everything he had left.

  The Bishop teleported. Again and again. Each reappearance just ahead of the flames, laughing between jumps.

  "Oh! New tricks! The Empire really did train you well!"

  Then Arthur landed a hit. A close strike - one of the flame spears grazed the Bishop's shoulder. It caught, spread, hissed and red - smoldering as if it were a spreading infection.

  For the first time, the Bishop paused.

  He touched the wound, curious, almost delighted. "Well, that's something new. A scratch. How... novel."

  Arthur gasped for air, bent forward, using his sword as leverage to stay standing. Even exhausted, he sneered. "You can only teleport to places you can see. That's your weakness."

  The Bishop tilted his head. "That only really applies for my main body. But still, it seems you can learn. Perhaps pigs aren't entirely mindless."

  He rubbed the burn again, and his tone turned light.

  "But still - this really does hu-"

  The rifle cracked.

  The shot broke the sentence in half.

  The Bishop’s head snapped back - just enough for the bullet to miss, the round splintering into the tree to his right.

  Silence followed. Then, through the drifting smoke, his green eyes shifted and met mine.

  A grin split his face behind the cracked porcelain.

  “Ah,” he said, voice smooth and bright. “The guest of honor has arrived.”

  Arthur’s head snapped toward me the moment the shot rang out. His eyes went wide - first in recognition, then in fury.

  “Damian!? What the hell are you doing here?!” His voice cracked through the chaos like thunder. “Get out! Now! He's too-”

  Before he could finish, the Bishop moved.

  He didn’t run. He didn’t even take a step. He simply vanished.

  The air cracked where he’d stood, shadows curling in on themselves like smoke being inhaled by the earth.

  Arthur cursed under his breath, spinning just in time to meet him. Flame erupted from his sword, clashing with black light as the Bishop appeared in front of him, blade drawn.

  The collision sent a shockwave through the clearing, the force hurling ash and sparks into the sky. Their swords met again and again in blinding bursts of yellow and black, light tearing through the fog like lightning in a storm. The ground beneath them cracked from the impact.

  Then the Bishop twisted his wrist.

  The force of the strike sent Arthur flying backward. He hit the ground hard, dirt and embers exploding around him as he slid through the mud. He gritted his teeth, as he quickly got back to his feet.

  But it was all too late.

  “Damn you-”

  Before he could finish, the Bishop disappeared again.

  He reappeared in a blur, directly in front of Arthur. The movement was so sudden it barely registered.

  Arthur raised his sword with his last strength, blocking the bishops strike. But it was too little too late.

  The bishops free hand shot forward, piercing through the Arthur's shoulder like a spear. The sound that followed wasn’t human - wet, sharp, final.

  Arthur’s breath hitched. His sword clattered to the ground, the light fading from its blade.

  “Ah,” the Bishop said softly, his tone almost conversational. “So the great Solar Prince bleeds like an Easterner after all.”

  With an almost casual flick, he hurled Arthur’s body aside. His eyes betrayed nothing but disdain.

  "Disgusting."

  Arthur crashed into the tree beside me, the impact rattling my teeth. He slumped against the trunk, eyes rolling back, blood spilling from the wound in his shoulder. His sword lay half-buried in the mud, its flame extinguished.

  For a second, I just stared. Shocked. Not registering the danger that now presented itself in front of me.

  The Bishop straightened, his broken mask catching the orange light. Then, slowly, he turned to me.

  “Well,” he said cheerfully, brushing soot and blood from his gloved hand. “That was messy.”

  My pulse thundered in my ears. I drew my sword with my right hand, my revolver with my left. Both felt heavier than usual.

  He took a few steps toward me, boots crunching over burned grass. His posture was relaxed, almost polite. “Disgusting, really,” he went on, wiping his stained palm against his sleeve. “A pigs a pig, but I never expected Eastern blood was so dirty. I guess the people of the West and the East really are no different after all.”

  He stopped a few paces away, tilting his head. That cracked mask, half-smile showing beneath it, made him look almost friendly.

  “Now then…” His tone brightened, as if greeting an old acquaintance. He outstretched his hand, as if inviting me. “I've been waiting so long to meet you again, Damian. Let's finally have that conversation.”