Chapter 33

  The blast had torn through the inn like a wrathful god’s breath.

  No one had stood their ground. Everyone had been thrown back as the shockwave obliterated windows, shattered beams, and ripped open the walls. And then—suddenly, unnaturally—the blizzard surged inward, pouring through every crack and broken board like it had been waiting for its invitation.

  Now, Simon lay half-buried under a chaotic tangle of splintered wood, snow, and fragments of once-cozy furniture. Around him, the ruin of what had once been a warm sanctuary groaned beneath its own weight. The air was sharp and dry with frost, the howling wind outside muffled only slightly by the collapsed structure.

  Beside him, Maira was pinned beneath the remains of the staircase. The thick wooden frame had collapsed across her chest and legs, but she was awake—barely. Her lips were pale, and her breaths came shallow and slow, but she blinked once when Simon turned his head toward her. Her arm twitched slightly. That was enough for now. She was alive.

  Simon himself hadn’t gotten out unscathed. He had leapt away just in time to avoid being crushed, but landed hard, back-first against a snowdrift now piled high through the broken wall. A thick beam had caught both of his legs—either they were broken or, at the very least, the blood flow was being steadily cut off. His toes were already numb. He didn’t want to look.

  Across the shattered room, Vin was doing only slightly better. She had been flung back, but remained miraculously untrapped. Still, she was half-buried under loose debris and powdered snow, and every time she tried to dig herself out, the shifting weight of the room above groaned threateningly.

  She’d been calling out, again and again.

  “Simon! Maira! Are you alive?”

  Her voice was hoarse, tinged with desperation. She didn’t wait for answers—just clawed through the snow, making painfully slow progress toward them.

  But it was what she had said about Luken that worried Simon the most.

  “He’s not moving,” she had shouted. “He’s right next to me. Completely still. He’s not breathing—he’s not even twitching.”

  Simon’s gut twisted at her words. Luken—dead? No. That couldn’t be right. The armor he wore should’ve shielded him from the brunt of the blast. Unless…

  Unless it wasn’t a physical injury. Unless something else had taken hold of him—some lingering spell, some magical interference.

  No. He shoved the thought away. Not now.

  And as for Markus and the Crytomancers—gone.

  No sign of the cloaked spellcasters, nor of the figure who’d unleashed the catastrophic blast. At least, not most of them. Vin had claimed she saw something just before the smoke thickened—a muscular man, barely touched by the destruction, kneeling in the far corner of the room. Meditating, she had said. In the middle of the chaos. Like it didn’t touch him.

  A theory had begun forming in Simon’s mind then, dark and strange and disturbing. But there was no time to dwell on it.

  They had to move.

  They had to get free, get out from under this ruin, and make it into the chamber below before it was too late.

  Then Vin’s voice rang out, sudden and breathless, cutting through the groaning wood and the whisper of falling snow.

  “He’s moving!” she cried, with a strange mix of relief and unease. “Luken’s waking up!”

  Simon blinked. That… wasn’t necessarily good news.

  If Luken was awake, that didn’t mean he could help them. He was just as buried as they were—probably more. Simon doubted even a Paladin could crawl out from under collapsed beams and half a building’s worth of snow.

  But, oh, how wrong he was.

  Vin’s next words were filled with alarm. “Wait—what the hell? He—he’s growing wings! Out of his back! Wings, damn it! What is—?!”

  Before Simon could shout back, a deafening crack rang through the air. It wasn’t thunder. It wasn’t breaking wood. It was something… deeper. He felt it in his skull first, like the world had just struck a gong inside his head. A brief spike of pain tore through his ears, followed by the numbness of a temporary deafness.

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  Then came the aura.

  It rolled over the room like a living tide—thick, suffocating, ancient and unknowable. A pulse of dark energy that flooded every corner, pressed into every bone, and coiled itself around the soul. It wasn’t simply magic. It felt sentient. Hungry. A moment passed where Simon genuinely thought he wouldn’t survive it—that he might drown in that unnatural weight, crushed not by debris, but by the pressure of something far older and far more malevolent than any spellcaster they had ever faced.

  Then—just like that—it faded.

  The pressure receded. Simon gasped, drawing in air as if resurfacing from deep underwater. Beside him, Maira let out a ragged breath too, eyes wide with shock. And then something happened that he couldn’t explain.

  The snow was vanishing.

  Not melting. Not blowing away. It was dissolving—turning into curling wisps of black smoke that drifted upward like ash from a dying fire. As they disappeared, they left behind tiny sparks—golden and red like fireflies—that danced and twisted as if freed from imprisonment.

  And then, something else began to stir.

  A darkness began to spread across the broken floor—thin at first, like mist, then thickening into strands, like ropes of living shadow. They slithered across the ground with eerie purpose, wrapping themselves around the shattered beams, the collapsed furniture, and every last splinter that pinned them down. Simon barely had time to react before he felt the weight on his legs lift—not shift, but levitate, as though gravity itself had reversed in those precise places. The debris rose into the air, held by the tendrils of darkness like offerings to some unseen god.

  The pressure in his legs eased. Blood began to flow again, bringing with it a stabbing ache—but he was free.

  He scrambled upright, using the moment of weightlessness to his advantage. “Maira—come on,” he grunted, grabbing her under the arms and helping her wobble to her feet. She winced but stood, leaning against him with gratitude and confusion in her eyes.

  And then, together, they turned.

  Their gazes followed the origin of the dark tendrils, tracing them to their center—to the eye of the storm. And what Simon saw next stole the breath from his lungs.

  In the very heart of the ruin, where the snow had turned to smoke and the darkness gathered thickest, stood a figure. No longer buried, no longer trapped. The room seemed to pulse around him. His black armor gleamed like obsidian in the flickering light of the remaining fire. And from his back… wings. Large, curved, leather wings - still dripping in front of a dark liquid that acted like condensed, black smoke - unfurled with unnatural grace, casting jagged silhouettes along the ruined walls.

  Luken.

  But not the Luken they had known.

  He stood tall, unmoving, eyes glowing faintly beneath the shadow of his helm. Simon couldn't see them. He could feel them.

  The aura radiating from him wasn’t just magical—it was oppressive, primal, and entirely unfamiliar.

  Simon felt a chill crawl up his spine.

  Whatever had awakened… it wasn’t just a Paladin. It was something far more dangerous. Far more ancient.

  And yet, despite everything that had just happened, Simon wasn’t filled with panic. Instead, a strange feeling washed over him—one he could hardly name. It was a bubbling mixture of fascination, disbelief, and an almost childlike curiosity. The fear that had moments ago clutched his chest like iron bands had simply... vanished.

  He stood still, eyes sweeping over the smoldering chaos—over what, mere minutes ago, had been a shattered ruin. And now...

  The dark tendrils, those shadowy strands, began to move with an almost gentle precision. They coiled around the broken support beams, the collapsed walls, the splintered window frames, and what remained of the bar. But instead of tearing them apart or devouring them—as Simon would have expected—they began to reassemble them. Not like craftsmen with tools, but like some ancient, alien force that simply knew where every piece belonged.

  Debris lifted into the air, spinning slowly until each piece glided precisely back into place—and stayed there.

  Cracks in the walls pulled themselves shut as though guided by invisible fingers. Shattered glass chimed softly as it returned to the windows, piece by delicate piece. Even the front door—once wrenched from its hinges and half-destroyed—now stood whole again in its frame, as if it had never groaned under the weight of time.

  Simon slapped a hand to his forehead in disbelief. Beside him, Maira and Vin stood frozen, mouths agape, eyes wide. No one spoke a word.

  This wasn’t destruction. It wasn’t the flood of dark magic from nightmares. This was... restoration. Healing. In a strangely solemn, eerie kind of way.

  Luken was repairing the inn.

  And Simon... Simon laughed.

  It started sharp and sudden—then grew louder, wilder. Uncontrolled. He laughed like a man standing on the edge of a breakdown—or already halfway beyond it. He laughed because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Laughed because he could finally breathe again. Laughed because something that might have been hope had stirred inside him once more.

  The final beam landed into place with a quiet clack.

  Then... silence.

  The shadow strands slowly withdrew, like a creature curling into its nest. They slithered back toward Luken, vanishing into his body—into his back, between the slowly folding wings—until the wings themselves dissolved into smoke. The dark aura, which had hung over the room like a second, crushing gravity, lifted at last, dispersing like mist at sunrise.

  Luken finally moved.

  His body, which had stood motionless at the center of the room, tilted its head upward. His armor still smoldered faintly, black embers glowing between its seams. Then his eyes opened—no longer glowing. Just the familiar, clear blue.

  He looked at Vin first. Then at Maira. Then at Simon.

  His gaze was calm. Aware. Free.

  And Simon could’ve sworn he saw the faintest twitch of a smile on Luken’s lips—a real one.

  Then, as if nothing had happened—as if he hadn’t just done the impossible, hadn’t sprouted demonic wings or mended an entire building with ancient shadow-magic—he spread his arms wide and shouted cheerfully:

  “I’m back!”

  The contrast was so absurd, so ridiculous, that Simon burst into laughter again—this time joined by a disbelieving giggle from Vin.

  Maira pressed a hand to her forehead and muttered, “What the hell are you, Luken…?”

  But he just shrugged with a grin—like someone returning from an innocent stroll through the woods.