It was quiet in my arms.
Not still. Not lifeless. Just... quiet.
I cannot hear its songs...
This... long rifle, strange and cold, pressed against the curve of my elbow like an exhausted beast. It didn't hum. It didn't throb. It didn't sing like the weapons forged from the resonance of Arts and blood. This thing had no presence—no echo.
And that unsettled me.
I am no Lord of Fiends. Theresa with the Crown's powers could feel emotions ripple across a field, taste the hearts of men before they opened their mouths.
I am no such sovereign.
But even an old seer like me could usually sense the Arts woven through blood and breath. The spark of Originium is not easily hidden—not from one like me. Sanktas and their tools? Yes, they carry their gifts in blessings and precision. Their guns are conduits—blessed, honed, saturated with their divine Law. You can feel it when they fire, like cold light splitting the air in judgment.
But this… this rifle?
This thing of metal and scorch and smell?
It had nothing.
I stared at it as we trudged through the half-howl of the fading storm. It remained silent, as if ashamed of its own existence. As if it knew it didn't belong.
Yet I had seen it.
We had seen it.
We had seen what it did.
That bolt of blue line of light, shot out so sharp it looked like a tear in the world. It had launched from this rifle's mouth and struck, not with thunder, not with the booming wrath of a Sarkaz caster's spell, but with a quietness that was more terrifying.
One warrior fell instantly, his chest blown open like rotten fruit. Two more behind him collapsed, their torsos punctured straight through. It wasn't just death.
It was excision.
But no Arts were sung.
No pulse of power. No Arts catalyst. No reaction to the surrounding Originium-rich dust. The light was clean. Sterile. Not even residue lingered.
And the girl...
She lay unconscious in the Prince's arms, I can see half of her pale face slack with sleep—or stupor under the dirt and muck on that helmet of hers. Yet even like this, even reduced to breathing and bruises, she was loud to me.
Not in her voice, not in presence, but in the emotions that spilled from her pores.
Fear.
Yes. Like a whipped animal, twitching at the edge of nightmare.
Confusion. Understandable.
But most of all...
Regret.
Deep. Gut-bound. Not the kind that flickers and fades. The kind that gnaws.
She had killed. Shot down our kin—warriors, mercenaries, kin who may not have known peace, but still knew loyalty. And when the smoke cleared, I think—no, I know—she wished she hadn't.
Curious...
She was not trained like a Sankta with a gun.
Not steeped in war like a proper killer.
And still, she had wielded an instrument of death in her arms.
Without Arts.
Without rhythm.
Without soul.
Just steel. Heat.
And blue light.
I let my fingers run along the rifle's frame again. Still cold. Still quiet.
"How are you so silent? Why?" I whispered under my breath.
It didn't answer.
But in some twisted way, I admired it.
That something so utterly empty could cut so deep.
Yes...
Curious.
It was not a Sarkaz craftsmanship.
That was also the first of many things I noticed about the armor the girl wore.
Streamlined. Flexible. Far too clean in its design. Not ceremonial, not ritualistic, not even theatrical like those mass-produced military armours and hoods Theresis's loyalists paraded in.
No, that suit of armor had purpose in its design, but none of the weight one would expect from our own smiths. No flared shoulders, no family crests etched in brass, no blacksteel plates layered like scales.
It was foreign.
Seemingly too light, too smooth. The joints molded perfectly to her small frame. The plating and leather-like materials flexed where it should have resisted, flowing like it was grown rather than forged. Even the color—muted gunmetal and ghost-pale silver—seemed to reject the dust and blood of battle. Practical. Not beautiful. Not terrifying.
And yet… it disturbed me.
Because it was made to protect something frail.
I found myself staring longer than I should have. Not at her wounds, but at the seams of that armor. What metal was it? It didn't hum with any Arts. No telltale glow, no resonance. Not even enchanted with any glyphs. That made it worse. It was simply better. Designed for movement, silence, speed.
Who gave it to her?
And why would someone like her... wear something like that?
Then I saw the blade the little one had wielded, now in the King's side.
Short. Single-edged. Unadorned.
That same sword had tasted the blood of the prince.
And suddenly, a memory stirred in my mind.
A voice—low, rough, grinding like stone beneath teeth.
Scareye. The Cyclops who ruled the Scar Market. I remember the way his black mask glinted when he said it, so many years ago:
"A sword to slay the regent king. A spear to pierce the royal ring."
The regent king…
That was Theresis.
It... had to be. Even the most secluded hamlets in Kazdel whispered of what was happening in the courts. Our merciful and gentle King, Theresa—was slowly and painfully being carved apart. Her vision for peace mocked silently and openly by everyone in and out of the court. Her power leeched. Her name fading into simple ceremonial hushed tones.
Theresis was seen as the new dawn. The prince with the army. The marching banners. The echo of steel and fire and strength. One that resonates well with Sarkaz's mindset for violence and vengeance.
And here I stood, watching a girl in pale armor pierce that future.
The prophecy wasn't some old myth anymore.
It was bleeding, here, now.
And I—I felt nothing but exhaustion.
I did not return to fight for flags or fates. I only came back because Theresa asked me.
How could I say no? She wrote me herself. No gilded seal, no royal envoy. Just her handwriting. Just… her.
That was enough.
But I was tired. So damn tired.
Once this was over, I would leave again. Back to the Convallis, back to the cliffs and wind. Back to where my sisters and kind smiled because they wanted to, not because politics demanded it.
I'd find a quiet life, maybe a husband.
My aunts and sisters never let me hear the end of it.
"Still unwed? You'll grow fangs before you find a man at this rate!"
They weren't wrong. But where would I even find one?
The men I met were either too foolish, too angry, too obsessed with purity. Sarkaz pride. Bloodline strength. That whole toxic sermon.
It disgusted me.
As if strength could maintained through breeding.
I've seen the opposite. Purity leads to rot. Even in the highest blood, I've seen weakness bloom—bone-deep, mind-fracturing, soul-twisting weakness.
True strength lies in will. In defiance. In those who endure.
Like Theresa.
Like... the girl in the armor.
Like me.
And yet… I don't want to endure anymore.
I want to live a quiet life.
But not yet.
Not until I see how this... supposed prophecy ends.
...
...
...
I felt the air shifted.
Not with steps, but with a quiet folding of space, a soundless displacement—as though gravity itself made room.
My handmaidens parted like black silk curtains drawn by an unseen hand. Their bodies bowed instinctively, but not from protocol. Reverence? Perhaps. But what trembled in their limbs was something deeper.
Dread.
I turned slowly.
A giant drifted forward. Suspended inches above the marble like a corpse mid-ritual, robes trailing as if in deep water, untouched by the breeze. The black folds of his long vestments shimmered with whispers of red, stitched with veined runes that pulsed dimly as he moved. Thin strips of metallic silver and iron adorned his torso, hanging like sharpened ceremonial chains across his chest and shoulders.
And from beneath the crown of pale, chitinous spikes, writhing tendrils hung like an executioner's blindfold, obscuring all but the faint glint of something ancient and terrible beneath.
Nezzsalem.
King of the Nachzerer.
He floated like a figure from a fevered scripture, and behind him, a half-circle of his retinue mirrored his motion—levitating above the dunes with eerie stillness, cloaked and silent, their robes undisturbed by motion or wind. Each bore staffs of gnarled, blackened root, and their veils seemed stitched shut, as if to trap the words they might one day utter.
"Banshee Queen of the Convallis," Nezzsalem intoned, his voice echoing not in sound but in pressure—like something brushing against the skull from within.
I smiled, faintly. "King of the Nachzerer. Floating above the earth now, are we?"
"A necessary measure," he replied. "The ground has forgotten how to bear my weight."
"You should be careful with such poetic phrasing. Someone might mistake it for humility."
"My legs are simply unable to bear my weight, young one." he mused.
I raised a brow. "You sound like you're trying to summon me from a grave, Nezzsalem."
A rasp, almost laughter, slipped from somewhere inside him. "If I were, I'd bring incense. And fruit. And at least one wine jug."
"You forgot the harpist."
"That would be your preference, not mine."
I allowed myself a thin smile, arms folding across my chest and the gun. The blood of battle still stirred within me, but his presence chilled it—like frost crawling over iron left too long in the sun.
"Was it you or one of your jackals who spread the prophecy?" I asked.
He gestured faintly with one clawed finger toward the distant land beyond the storm, where Kazdel may possibly be at. "T'was Scareye, actually. He always did enjoy the flair. Left us nothing but vague echoes."
"Cyclopses rarely have the patience for detail. And the small girl in the King's embrace became a part of his prophecy, literally."
My gaze slid to the long gun resting in my arms.
Pale like the woman's suit of armour. Long. Silent. A gun, yes—but one that defied simple description. The metal was too still. The geometry, too intentional. It absorbed light, drank sound. It wasn't from this land.
He drew closer, robes trailing behind him like funeral drapery caught in slow decay. Every inch of his approach felt like a calculated violation of natural law itself.
And yet, when his gaze—hidden though it was—fell on the long gun in my arms, something flickered.
"May I?" he asked, voice gentle as cracking parchment. "In all my eons, I have seen blades with memory and axes with names. But never a Banshee bearing a gun."
I smirked. "Would you rather I cradle a man instead?"
A skeletal hand rose to his chest, mock-offended. "Ah... You wound me. And yet... I feel overlooked."
"You'd collapse under the weight of my affection."
"Hah. Not if I bit first."
A real laugh escaped me. Dry, short, unexpected. Not cruel. Not ritual.
Just... real.
Nezzsalem tilted his unseen gaze downward to the weapon again. "And what do you make of it?"
"It sings," I replied. "Like all guns do when it fires. But I cannot hear the any resonance nor memories of it."
He nodded slowly. "I thought I heard that. The sound of something remembering. This weapon doesn't just kill. It recalls its old purpose."
I glanced down at it, the etched runes along its length seeming to ripple faintly at the edges.
"It was made to end things cleanly. Quietly. Efficiently."
"An effective weapon. Far more effective than any guns in Terra. Hmm... May I?" he asked. His voice was parchment-thin, but reverent.
"You want to hold it?"
He gave the smallest of nods, the floating tendrils brushing lightly in the air. "Just for a moment. I swear it."
I offered it without hesitation, giggling softly as I placed the weapon in his hands. "Then you should savor this moment, Nezzsalem. You may never see it again."
He accepted it slowly, carefully, like it might unravel in his fingers.
"So light," he whispered. "And yet it bears more weight than any relic blade I've known."
"It doesn't crave blood," I said.
He traced the surface with his skeletal finger, careful not to disrupt any dormant features of it. "This... was made to end monarchs."
++++++++
- 3rd Person POV
Nezzsalem's bony fingers caressed the long gun's frame with the care of a scholar handling a relic. The weapon sat unnaturally still in his hands—too still. As though it had no weight in this world, or carried too much from another.
"The craftsmanship is… unholy," he murmured. "Ten Sarkaz warriors. Two swordmasters, three casters, and the rest? Mercenaries. Efficient. Surgical. Not even the Officers from K.M.C could've responded in time."
He lifted the weapon slightly, its barrel tilting skyward. "And yet, no smoke, no Arts and Originium residue. Just a beam of death." He hummed, "Would it be possible, I wonder… to mass produce this? Imagine such arms in Kazdel's barracks. We could shatter Laterano's stranglehold on firearms."
A scoff. Quiet, bitter.
"That would be your concern, King," Laqeramaline said, eyes hooded as her veils stirred gently with the air. "When this war is done, I will return to the Convallis. I will resign from the Royal Court. No more war councils—even if we already disband it and change it to the Military Comission, no more knives in my back at midnight."
She turned her gaze to the skies above—gray, indifferent. "I am tired, Nezzsalem. Tired of the endless fighting. The endless infighting. We are a nation ruled by rot. Even if we could forge this again…" she gestured lazily to the weapon, "…last I remembered, Kazdel still lacks the forges, the minds, the discipline to replicate something this… alien."
Nezzsalem remained silent. The gun in his hand pulsed once, faintly. Curiously.
Laqeramaline continued, "Speaking of the blood it spilled… what will become of them? Those ten. Cremated in the Furnace of Souls when we arrived in Kazdel, perhaps?"
A sigh.
Then, a slow shake of the head.
"You know the truth, young Banshee."
Her breath hitched.
Together, their gazes lifted. Across the stone plains beyond the Court's boundary, the silhouettes of the Free Men of the Wastes trudged solemnly, carrying the ten corpses wrapped in ceremonial shrouds. Their feet stirred dust, and they chanted no songs. But the air shifted with the rhythm of something...
Wrong.
Nezzsalem's voice slithered through her thoughts.
"They will not burn them. We both know that. Everyone know that. The Free Men do not offer to the flame of souls. They will take the bodies… to the deep wells beneath the black salt marshes where their Skarns are. There, they will... extract the dead's water."
Laqeramaline froze.
Behind her, the youngest of her handmaidens whimpered, instinctively drawing her veil tighter.
"…Harvest their waters, yes?" she whispered. "Like they do to their own dead?"
Nezzsalem said nothing.
The air was thick. Unclean.
Her voice grew colder, edged with pain. "We are Banshee, Nezzsalem. Our duty—our nature—is to soothe the passage of the dead. To still the sorrow in their souls. If the Free Men desecrate them, they will linger. Wail."
"Yes, young Banshee." Nezzsalem said simply. "And you will hear them. As I have, for eons."
Laqeramaline closed her eyes. Somewhere in the far wind, the faintest echo of a shriek—thin, damp, buried—scraped against her senses like bone on slate.
"We were... similar, in the sense that we treat death not as tragedy, but freedom, a release, peace." Laqeramaline said, "but... they treated them as resource."
"They call it Veylan," Nezzsalem replied. "Soul-water."
"I know."
Her voice hardened.
"They don't extract it—they unweave it. Drain the corpse until only husks remain, and then offer what's left to the sands. It is not reverence. It is predation dressed in robes."
"They believe otherwise. young one."
"They would," she scoffed. "They think Oripathy isn't a curse. Just… inevitability. Like wind erosion, or famine. Some who had lost their minds in the South even call it a blessing."
"They do," Nezzsalem agreed. "Those who are most afflicted believe it brings them closer to truth."
Laqeramaline's mouth twisted into a scowl.
"The truth is that they walk among us like vultures. And we let them. We let them carry our dead, drain our warriors, walk untouched through the Wastes. Why?"
Nezzsalem's gaze didn't leave the horizon.
"Because, when the Free Men stop taking… they begin... gathering."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"What do you mean by that?"
He turned his head slightly, the chitinous crown on his brow catching the dying light like a cracked halo.
His answer came like an ancient blade drawn across centuries of blood.
"Jihad."