The corridor leading to Alaric’s office was thick with smoke and hurried footsteps.

  Elira walked at the front, short spear still in her hand, its blade stained with dried blood. Kael followed half a step behind her.

  They didn’t speak.

  They didn’t need to.

  When they turned the final corner, silence struck them like a wall.

  No shouting. No orders. Only the faint creaking of damaged beams and the low murmur of guards who had stopped at the entrance, not daring to step fully inside.

  The room was in ruins — table split apart, shelves overturned. Slanted light poured in through the shattered window, cutting the air in two and illuminating the center of the chaos.

  Alaric was there.

  Motionless.

  Resting against a column, partially covered — but not enough to hide the obvious.

  Renar stood near the door, sword lowered, his expression unreadable.

  Something broke inside Elira’s chest.

  She stopped at the threshold.

  Eldric was the first to enter.

  He didn’t ask questions. His eyes swept across the room in a single instant — the destruction, the tension, the dense silence that had not yet faded.

  Then he saw him.

  Alaric.

  Chest torn open. Eyes closed.

  Elira stopped behind Eldric. Kael, still in shock, clung to his mother without fully understanding.

  Selene remained standing, though she seemed smaller than before. Not fragile. Just worn down.

  Renar stayed rigid at one side of the room, as if the air itself did not belong to him.

  Eldric took two steps forward.

  He knelt slowly beside the body.

  He did not touch him.

  He simply remained there, looking at one of his old companions.

  In silence.

  Then he spoke.

  “Where is he?”

  He didn’t say the name.

  Selene understood.

  She swallowed before answering.

  “He lost control… The seal reacted… I tried…”

  Her voice faltered. She couldn’t find the right way to say it.

  Renar stepped forward.

  “He went east. Crossed the inner wall.”

  Eldric nodded once.

  “How long?”

  “No more than fifteen minutes,” Renar replied.

  That was enough.

  Elira whispered his name, but Eldric was already turning toward the door.

  “Stay here,” he said without looking at her.

  Renar followed without another word.

  Selene remained staring at the closed door.

  Her hand trembled slightly.

  No one said anything else.

  Silence settled again.

  The air outside was cold.

  Too still.

  Eldric moved quickly.

  Renar walked behind him, studying the ground. The trail was obvious. They needed no guide.

  The first body lay only a few meters away.

  Then another.

  And another.

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  The earth was marked deeply. The fight had not been brief.

  Renar frowned.

  “This wasn’t defense.”

  Eldric didn’t respond.

  He kept walking.

  Further ahead, the damage was worse. Clean cuts. Precise strikes. No unnecessary chaos.

  There were no signs of loss of control.

  There was efficiency.

  Renar understood it without wanting to admit it.

  “Does he always fight like this?”

  Eldric didn’t answer.

  They moved forward.

  Then it happened.

  A faint flicker in the distance.

  A pulse.

  Eldric stopped.

  Renar saw it too.

  The seal.

  It glowed weakly between the grass.

  Eldric changed direction without a word.

  Another pulse.

  Fainter.

  They found him a few meters ahead.

  Lucan was slumped to one side, as if he had fallen and lacked the strength to finish the movement.

  Eldric reached him first.

  He knelt.

  Touched his face.

  Too cold.

  He searched for a pulse.

  It took a second longer than he liked.

  There.

  Weak.

  But steady.

  The seal on Lucan’s back burned faintly beneath torn fabric, like embers hidden under ash.

  It was fading.

  Renar stepped closer.

  “That… wasn’t like that before.”

  Eldric lifted his gaze briefly.

  “No.”

  Nothing more.

  Lucan didn’t react to the contact.

  His breathing was shallow.

  Too controlled for someone who had just killed that many men.

  That was what unsettled them.

  There was no trace of fury on his face.

  Only emptiness.

  Voices echoed in the distance.

  Guards.

  Eldric lifted him into his arms.

  The weight wasn’t the problem.

  The lack of resistance was.

  Lucan didn’t move.

  The first men arrived and stopped at the sight.

  “No one touches anything,” Eldric ordered without raising his voice.

  It was enough.

  No one argued.

  Renar glanced at the seal one last time.

  That glow wasn’t normal.

  Not the way he remembered it.

  And that disturbed him more than the massacre.

  Eldric began walking back.

  Lucan remained cold in his arms.

  The seal gave one final pulse.

  Then dimmed almost completely.

  Renar followed in silence.

  He knew something had changed.

  Alaric’s office still smelled of iron.

  Even though the body was no longer there.

  The windows were open, but the air wasn’t enough to erase what had happened.

  Selene remained standing in the same place where it had ended. Where Alaric fell. Where Lucan’s seal changed.

  Elira closed the door softly.

  The sound was small.

  But final.

  “Sit,” she said.

  Selene didn’t.

  Her hands were covered in dried blood. She hadn’t noticed until she tried to flex her fingers and felt the skin pull tight.

  “It’s not mine,” she murmured.

  Elira didn’t ask whose it was.

  “Start from the beginning.”

  Selene inhaled deeply. Too deeply. As if preparing to dive underwater.

  “They came through the west wing. Not many.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Lucan reacted first. Like he always does.”

  She remembers the movement — precise. Controlled. Certain.

  “The seal was normal. A steady violet glow.”

  She pauses.

  “One of them tried to circle around me. I hesitated for a second. I thought it was a distraction.”

  One second.

  In combat, that’s an eternity.

  “Lucan intervened. He stepped between the attacker and me.”

  Her voice tightens slightly.

  “And that’s when it changed.”

  Elira frowns.

  “What happened?”

  Selene slowly raises her gaze.

  “The seal shifted. It felt like the air compressed.”

  Elira understands that’s worse.

  “I called his name,” Selene continues. “Twice.”

  Nothing.

  “When he turned toward the second attacker… he wasn’t fighting the same way anymore.”

  The room feels colder.

  “There was no anger. No tension in his face.”

  His eyes were… empty.

  Not lifeless.

  Without emotion.

  “He moved with a precision I had never seen before.”

  Faster.

  Cleaner.

  More… distant.

  “And then I realized something.”

  Elira waits.

  “He wasn’t out of control.”

  She almost whispers it.

  “He was completely focused.”

  As if what he was doing was inevitable.

  As if there had never been another option.

  Silence stretches.

  “I should have acted sooner.”

  The words carry weight.

  “If I had attacked first… if I hadn’t calculated so much…”

  Elira steps closer.

  “You survived.”

  Selene slowly shakes her head.

  “That doesn’t mean I did the right thing.”

  She looks at her hands.

  “He carried all of it.”

  And for the first time, real fear surfaces.

  “And I don’t know if that was Lucan.”

  The room remains suspended in that sentence.

  Darkness.

  Then sound.

  Uneven breathing.

  Metal scraping stone.

  Distorted voices.

  “Endure.”

  “Focus.”

  “Not yet.”

  Hands gripping his shoulders.

  He tries to move.

  His body is younger.

  Smaller.

  The seal on his back is incomplete.

  Only the first lines.

  Violet.

  Burning.

  The pain isn’t only physical.

  As if something is trying to push from the inside outward.

  Alaric stands in front of him.

  Younger as well.

  But steady.

  “Look at me.”

  Lucan does.

  Alaric’s eyes hold no fear.

  “You are not what he wants you to be.”

  Who is “he”?

  The scene distorts before an answer forms.

  Shift.

  Renar watches from the shadows.

  He doesn’t intervene.

  Only observes.

  Lucan feels that gaze even within the dream.

  Another transition.

  The pain fades.

  The scene brightens.

  A long table.

  Aeris arguing with Darian over something trivial.

  A normal moment.

  No tension.

  No threat.

  Lucan reaches out.

  He wants to touch the table.

  To confirm it’s real.

  But the surface ripples.

  Like water.

  The seal beneath his skin pulses.

  Once.

  Twice.

  The air grows heavy.

  The voices return.

  But they are different.

  Not commands.

  Echoes.

  Many.

  Too many.

  He can’t distinguish words.

  The scene shatters.

  Darkness again.

  But this time he isn’t alone.

  The void has depth.

  As if the ground doesn’t exist.

  Lucan stands… but feels no support.

  Then he sees it.

  A presence.

  It doesn’t emerge from the darkness.

  It was already there.

  He can simply perceive it now.

  A tall silhouette.

  Not fully defined.

  No clear face.

  But shape.

  The seal on his back responds.

  Burning.

  The figure tilts its head.

  Not in greeting.

  In evaluation.

  The voice doesn’t come from a fixed point.

  It resonates everywhere.

  “They can no longer contain it.”

  Lucan tries to speak.

  No sound comes out.

  The seal pulses harder.

  “It was never a prison.”

  The words feel… correct.

  That unsettles him the most.

  As if he had always known.

  As if the seal wasn’t trapping something.

  It was regulating it.

  “What they did was delay it.”

  The void cracks slightly.

  Thin fractures spreading like broken glass.

  Lucan looks behind the figure.

  And then he sees it.

  A larger shadow.

  Not human.

  Not fully formed.

  But immense.

  It doesn’t seem to be attacking.

  It’s waiting.

  The silhouette steps forward.

  Space vibrates.

  “Now.”

  The seal explodes in light.

  Not outward.

  Inward.

  Lucan feels something reorganizing inside him.

  As if pieces that never fit are finally aligning.

  The pain returns.

  The void collapses.

  The figure disappears.

  The massive shadow remains for one second longer.

  Then everything goes black.

  End of Chapter 21