The hall smelled of old iron and stagnant damp.

  Cracked columns held up a ceiling blackened by ancient fires. No torches remained lit; the only light fell from a high fissure, filtering down like ashen glow.

  Bodies lay scattered in the shadows.

  Lesser demons strewn like hunting remains.

  Some still kept a defined shape.

  Others were nothing but charred mass, rigid claws reaching toward the ceiling.

  At the center, on a throne of eroded rock, Carmilla rested.

  One leg crossed over the other.

  Back straight.

  Chin slightly lowered.

  Beside her—kneeling in death—lay the Greater Demon who had ruled this territory.

  Three meters tall.

  Broken horns.

  Chest opened from collarbone to abdomen.

  The wound wasn’t explosive.

  It was precise.

  Carmilla held a dark blade resting against the throne’s arm.

  Blood ran slowly along the metal and fell in spaced drops onto stone.

  She wasn’t panting.

  She didn’t look like she had fought.

  Silence hung thick.

  Heavy as ancient smoke.

  A hunchback demon limped forward between the corpses, dragging a misshapen foot. His skin was covered in black warts; his eyes were two wet slits.

  He bowed extravagantly before the throne.

  “My lady.”

  Carmilla didn’t look at him immediately.

  “Where?”

  The hunchback swallowed thick saliva before answering.

  “To the east. Beyond the ruins of Sarth.”

  “A minor warlord.”

  “He has… a hundred. Perhaps a hundred and twenty.”

  “Discipline?”

  “Obedience through fear.”

  Carmilla turned her head slightly.

  Her eyes weren’t furious.

  They were clear.

  Evaluating.

  “Useful.”

  The hunchback showed broken teeth in a twisted smile.

  “Will we recruit them?”

  “No.”

  A pause.

  “We’ll replace them if necessary.”

  “I’ll gather the survivors.”

  Carmilla glanced at the corpse beside her before replying.

  “No.”

  “Only the ones who didn’t tremble.”

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  The hunchback nodded and backed away through the bodies, careful not to step in the freshest blood.

  The hall returned to silence.

  Only the spaced dripping remained—from blade to floor.

  Carmilla slid the sword off the throne’s arm and wiped it with the edge of her dark dress.

  Not from disgust.

  From habit.

  She looked at her free hand.

  Placed it over her chest.

  Two heartbeats.

  Always two.

  The third was absence.

  It didn’t hurt physically.

  It was worse.

  It was space.

  She closed her eyes for a moment.

  She didn’t think about the Church.

  She didn’t think about strategy or armies.

  She thought about the hollow.

  About what was missing.

  About the feeling of something that should be there.

  And wasn’t.

  When she opened her eyes, her expression hadn’t changed.

  “I’ll leave you for last, Ilian.”

  “Death.”

  It didn’t sound like a romantic promise.

  It sounded like certainty of war.

  The echo did not answer.

  Far away, the north breathed differently.

  The air was dry, sharpened by high-altitude cold.

  The White Cathedral rose over the mountain like a structure designed to shelter no doubt.

  Straight lines.

  Stone without ornament.

  Nothing to distract.

  In a private chamber, far from the main altar, the High Priest waited seated before a table of dark wood.

  Not a throne.

  A desk.

  Eighty years had reduced him to structure.

  Thin skin.

  Slender hands.

  Clear eyes that didn’t seem to have aged.

  A bishop entered silently and placed a cylinder sealed with black wax on the table.

  “Report from the south.”

  “Absolute priority.”

  The old man broke the seal and unrolled the parchment.

  No ceremonial headings.

  Only a single word at the start.

  Father.

  He read without changing the rhythm of his breathing.

  Anomaly confirmed. Carrier detected. Ocular rune distinct from mine. Equivalent nature. Collision occurred. Memory retained after reset.

  The old man lifted his gaze slightly.

  Reset.

  He returned to the text.

  The timeline was corrected. Only I retain memory of the event. The other does as well. There exists someone like me.

  The bishop remained kneeling, head lowered.

  The High Priest did not look at him.

  He repeated one word silently.

  Equivalent.

  Not similar.

  Not inferior.

  Equivalent.

  A nearly imperceptible muscle tightened in his jaw.

  The baby.

  The imperfect extraction.

  The report of loss during the siege.

  He had archived that failure.

  He had corrected the procedure years later.

  With greater precision.

  With greater control.

  He took the quill—then didn’t write immediately.

  He thought.

  If The Crow felt threatened, he might act without orders.

  If he felt competition, he might become unstable.

  That was unacceptable.

  Ink touched parchment.

  A single line.

  Capture him.

  Alive.

  He added another.

  Do not repeat collision.

  He dried the ink.

  Rolled the message.

  Sealed it with his ring.

  The bishop received it without reading and withdrew.

  When the door closed, the High Priest was alone.

  His fingers laced beneath his chin.

  “Space…”

  He didn’t say it like a prayer.

  He said it like calculation.

  If the relic had reacted that way, then the first implant hadn’t failed.

  It had survived.

  And now it walked.

  Somewhere in the south.

  The old man closed his eyes.

  Not from fear.

  From opportunity.

  “Interesting.”

  The White Cathedral did not move.

  But something in the world’s balance was no longer invisible.

  Wind blew from the west, carrying the smell of salt before the sea was even visible.

  Ilian walked a few steps behind the group.

  Not because he was wounded.

  Not because he doubted the path.

  He simply walked.

  Cael moved at his side, as lively as ever.

  “If we stay this quiet, people will start thinking we’re a funeral procession,” he said, glancing at Brann. “Though you already look like one.”

  Brann snorted.

  “Keep talking and I’ll bury you myself.”

  Rhea shook her head.

  “Focus.”

  Cael raised both hands.

  “I am focused.”

  “On not dying of boredom.”

  Ilian looked at him.

  Alive.

  Breathing.

  Not knowing.

  The memory hit without warning.

  Rain.

  A hand through his chest.

  Cael’s heart beating in The Crow’s palm.

  Blood splattering mud.

  Ilian blinked.

  The landscape didn’t change.

  But he did.

  “Something wrong?” Maelis asked quietly.

  “No.”

  He answered after a second.

  A lie without any attempt to hide it.

  Cael joked again about not shooting anything with a bird mask.

  Rhea didn’t find it funny.

  Ilian remembered another sentence.

  You know nothing about your power.

  The Crow knew too.

  And that other certainty.

  Ilian clenched his jaw.

  He didn’t understand what he had done.

  He didn’t understand how it happened.

  He only knew the world had died for an instant.

  And he had seen it.

  Brann stopped at the top of a hill.

  “There.”

  They moved to the edge.

  On the other side, the sea stretched gray and vast.

  Below, wedged between rocks and old wood, a small fishing town clung to the coast.

  Low houses.

  Hanging nets.

  Boats tilted on sand.

  “Port Mist.”

  “My town.”

  He didn’t say it with pride.

  He said it like someone naming something that had survived time.

  Wind lifted their cloaks.

  Ilian watched the port.

  Quiet.

  Small.

  Human.

  “From there we can take a barge to Lyranth,” Brann said.

  “It’s the last city before the crossing into the center of the continent.”

  Cael whistled.

  “Sounds expensive.”

  “Sounds civilized,” Maelis corrected.

  Ilian stared at the horizon.

  Beyond the sea.

  Beyond what could be seen.

  If The Crow remembered, this wasn’t a pause.

  It was a truce.

  Rhea watched him.

  “This wasn’t what you were going to do.”

  “No.”

  “And now?”

  Ilian turned his eyes to the sea.

  “Now we find something before they do.”

  “They who?” Rhea asked.

  Ilian didn’t answer.

  He started down the hill.

  From above, the town looked small.

  But the world wasn’t.

  Not anymore.

  And somewhere in the south, a man in a mask was walking too.