The sky had turned blood-red as the sun began to sink beneath the twisted clouds over Sorneth. Three griffons soared like lances through the air—each a storm of wings, talons, and roaring wind. Upon the first, Cainan stood between Idrathar and Selvaria, his chains coiled tightly around his arms as if preparing to devour his restraint.
The wind ripped through their cloaks, eyes narrowed against the sky's heatless glare. On the second griffon, the Sovereign Council stood gathered—Lord Garron Volkrath bracing himself like a fortress of fury, Dravok Maernis slouched as if half asleep, Archsage Vharyn cloaked in humming veils of soft magic, and Brax Trenhald silent, pensive, his thoughts hammering louder than any voice.
On the third griffon, painted with the eerie grace of death itself, rode the Painters—bodies like mannequins, faces porcelain and splotched with hand-painted glyphs. Savrec was among them, clad in regal emeralds, with the Dressers surrounding him in elegantly mismatched silk and leather, their appearance somewhere between nobles and executioners.
Idrathar's hand clutched the golden sword that never cooled, its flame dancing quietly despite the rushing air, licking his knuckles with threads of holy fire. His gaze was fixed ahead, stone-cut and ancient.
"Everyone knows the plan," Idrathar said, his voice a clarion call above the wind. "Clear the monasteries. Do not linger. Once your target is finished, regroup at the meeting point. Under no condition do you engage the King or Queen—even if they arrive in person."
The wind screamed past them like a thousand dead voices, but Idrathar's command cut through clean.
"The Kingdom of Sorneth…" he continued, tone shifting into a grim cadence. "Is built upon a legacy of blood. Their monarchs claim descent from a blood god—a creature of ancient nature that once bound beasts, trees, and rivers to their will. Magic in Sorneth isn't a sin. It's sacred. Celebrated. Their people feed their own lifeblood into the altars of this deity in rituals older than their written history."
He turned slightly, golden flames haloing his jaw. "That faith… has led them to Tereza the Crimson. A witch of unimaginable power. She bends the world not with flame, nor curse, but with blood itself. My scout say she's here. If she appears—kill her."
Cainan's voice pierced the wind. "That's dangerous. You know what she is. A real witch, not one of those half-blood pretenders. Most of the council couldn't handle one."
Idrathar turned his head slowly, locking eyes with Cainan. The firelight of his blade painted his face with divine wrath.
And Cainan didn't flinch.
"She's too much for most of them," Cainan said. "You know it. Maybe not for Selvaria, but…the others aren't built like her or me. We're bred to kill them."
Selvaria stood with her arms folded, her expression unreadable.
Garron Volkrath from the other griffon bellowed across the air, "We are not most men, boy!"
"Speak for yourself," muttered Dravok, barely audible over the wind, his lids half-closed. "Why are we even doing this again?"
"Because," Idrathar said, voice suddenly cold and sharp, "the blood monasteries are the lifeline of Sorneth. Their heart. Their faith is their strength. You sever the heart—you bleed the nation dry."
No one said another word. The griffons, almost in response, split apart in a coordinated spiral—each veering toward a different monastery deep within the crimson-tinged forests and towering cliffs of Sorneth.
On their beast's back, Cainan and Selvaria stood in silence. The griffon roared ahead like a cannonball through wind and cloud, wings battering the air. Below them, cliffs spiked up like shattered teeth, and in the distance loomed the monastery—a cathedral of white-stone towers veined in red, like the marble was bleeding from within. It had no windows, only slits of shadow and stone gargoyles with tongues carved like knives. Crimson mist rose from its base, as if the very land bled up into the sky.
Cainan stared at it, chains hissing and coiling. His jaw clenched.
'This is a terrible idea.'
"This is going to kill a lot of people," he whispered. "Not just here. Back home too. This is war."
Selvaria's silver eyes flicked to him. She pretended not to hear, and instead leaned in, her voice low and cool.
"Focus. Stay sharp," she murmured with a faint smile, throwing her arm around his shoulder like an old friend hiding a knife in her sleeve. "I know this is all fucked up. But…"
Cainan didn't need her to finish.
"—They helped the witches when Espen was taken," he muttered. "They deserve to bleed. But… I didn't want it like this. A way without risking the lives of everyone back at the capital."
"And they won't win," Selvaria said, jaw tightening, eyes burning. "Not if we can stop it. No one else dies. Not again."
'..I didn't mean to say that.'
She blinked hard, controlling the swell in her voice. For a moment, her old squad's faces flashed in her mind. Gone. Screaming. Burnt to nothing. The phrase haunted her, clung to her like ash.
She nudged him. "We got you now, don't we? That alone gives us better odds."
Cainan snorted faintly. "Thanks."
Selvaria gave him a sideways glance. "Do you remember the first thing I told you when you became a Bloodhunter?"
Cainan didn't hesitate. "To eat shit and die, brat? Those were your exact words."
She laughed once, bitter and amused. "Yes. But also: Kill who needs killing. Save who needs saving."
Cainan blinked. The phrase hit him differently now. He thought of Idrathar. Of Brax. Of the future. Kill who needs to be killed. He heard Brax's deep voice again, memory bleeding through the wind: He needs to die, kid.
The monastery rose before them like a fang from the earth. Crimson light shone from its roof, as if the stone itself pulsed with a heartbeat. The griffon let out a cry that shook the trees below. Cainan and Selvaria crouched.
"Now!" Selvaria shouted.
In one perfect moment, they leapt.
The inside of the monastery was a cathedral of carnage masquerading as sanctity. Pale red light filtered through bloodstained glass windows, casting shifting crimson mosaics across the stone floor. The air reeked of copper and incense, thick with the chanting hum of devotion. Rows of red and white columns lined the main hall, sculpted with writhing reliefs of saints offering veins to monstrous gods. Blood trickled down from grooves in the ceiling like slow, sacred rain, pooling into intricate drainage channels carved into the floor. Along the flanks of the great chamber, men and women stood in lines, bare-armed and reverent, as blood-robed saints calmly guided them in ritual. The saints bore chalk-pale skin etched with red-inked runes, their hollow eyes glowing faintly as they slid curved knives across the flesh of the faithful. Blood ran down into channels that led to a colossal altar at the end of the chamber—a bulbous, beating monument of flesh carved with spiraling veins and twisted tendrils. Before it, children stood in silent rows, eyes wide and vacant, awaiting their turn.
And behind the altar stood the Chaplain of the monastery, Unaga.
Tall as a nightmare and still as death, his head was a hollow blood-stained skull, twisted into a long grin, with horns made of blood that pierced out through his eye sockets, curving like antlers of ruptured bone. His robes were wet red silk, embroidered with symbols that seemed to move with a heartbeat of their own. One hand clutched a floating jewel—a pulsing orb of blood-crystal wrapped in strips of living flesh, suspended in the air by invisible veins that twitched with life. In his other hand, a vast, sinew-bound grimoire hovered near him, pages sealed with dried gore, whispering dark syllables through a magic not meant to be spoken.
Then, without warning—impact.
The roof shattered like glass as Cainan, Selvaria, and Idrathar exploded downward from the sky, trailing streaks of flame, starlight, and raw violence. Chains whipped around Cainan like living serpents, blades humming and ready. Selvaria descended like a meteor, her twin astral blades glowing with feral brilliance. Idrathar dropped last, his golden sword stretched out like a divine brand, the flames around it searing a path through the falling dust.
Saints screamed in disarray—then quickly rallied. "Heretics!" one bellowed, and then dozens surged forward.
The blood saints were nightmares in human skin—bare-chested and veined like marble statues, their robes hanging in ceremonial layers soaked in crimson. Their faces were pale masks carved with blood-calligraphy, and their limbs were taut with a grotesque strength. Some wielded jagged crescent blades crusted in coagulated gore, others extended their arms as veins unspooled and danced like lashes. Some raised chalices and muttered prayers, their blood launching forth as barbed spears or swirling shields.
Cainan launched first—his body instantly coiled in glowing red chains that ignited like cursed fire. He dropped to all fours like a beast, his back erupting with five massive chains ending in colossal, cleaver-like greatswords, each one twitching and swaying with murderous intent. In a heartbeat, he charged, punching forward as the chains whiplashed around him, cleaving three saints into halves mid-lunge.
One swung a serrated glaive toward him—Cainan ducked low, then vaulted forward, his heel bursting with red aura as it crushed the saint's face into a crater, and at the same time, his back-blade slammed downward, bisecting another man's chest open from clavicle to pelvis. Explosions of gore marked every blow. He spun midair, kicked off a wall, landed on a blood saint's shoulders, and caved in their spine with a downward punch so brutal it snapped ribs outward like jagged wings, then flipped off the collapsing corpse and had his chains simultaneously skewer two more in the eye.
Selvaria danced beside him, a starfire tempest, her twin blades screaming through the air.
She somersaulted into a trio of saints, parried their simultaneous strikes with an upward twirl of her left blade, then twisted low, her right blade carving through shins with a gleam of celestial force. As they stumbled, she spun again, blades slashing their necks open in rapid succession. Another tried to catch her with a blood whip—she vaulted forward off one saint's head, spun midair, and brought both blades down in an X-slash that tore through ribcage and spine, starry embers burning holes into the stone beneath. Another lunged at her, mouth open wide to spit boiling blood. She stabbed forward, and the twin blades drilled into the face, splitting skull and brain like a gory fruit, the man's body collapsing in twitching convulsions.
Idrathar walked forward like judgment incarnate, his golden sword wreathed in divine flame that he willed into serpentine coils, lashing through the air. He hurled a coil of flame like a net, which wrapped around six saints, and then tightened with a snap, the heat incinerating flesh and armor, leaving only blackened ash. A saint charged him with a spear of blood-glass—Idrathar caught it mid-thrust, and his flame traveled up the weapon, reaching the man's arms and face, which ignited in screams. He carved through the next with a sweeping cleave, the sword's flames burning a golden wound so hot it melted through spine and pelvis, leaving a hole too clean for any god to have mercy on. Then he called his flame to hover above, and with a snap of his fingers, the fire dropped like a hammer, flattening three saints beneath molten judgment.
Cainan was now a whirlwind of brute destruction, his chain swords lifting saints into the air and slamming them into walls, then into each other. He dropped low, spun in a sweeping kick that snapped kneecaps in a semi-circle, then rose with an uppercut so explosive, the saint he hit detonated midair, spraying bone and viscera. He turned, used one of his chain-blades as a vaulting point, flipping high before crashing both feet into a blood priest's skull, crushing it flat. The halo of red chains over his head glowed ever brighter as he entered a rhythm of murder, his fists and feet tearing through torsos, chain swords working autonomously, twisting like predators.
Selvaria was unrelenting, disarming one saint with a side-swipe and using the dismembered arm as a makeshift bludgeon, smashing another's jaw loose before she twisted her body and drove both blades into two stomachs simultaneously, then wrenched outward, splitting both corpses open like meatbags. Her movements were celestial and surgical, feet barely touching the ground as she launched herself from wall to pillar to corpse, slashing and spinning, drenched in blood yet untouched.
Idrathar advanced steadily, his face stoic, flames shaping into crescents, discs, whips, and spears at his will. He impaled, burned, ripped, and sundered, his golden blade cleaving in perfect, graceful arcs that sliced saints into halves before they even registered pain. Blood exploded into the air like mist under pressure. He grabbed one by the throat mid-prayer and thrust his sword through the man's stomach, igniting him from the inside as the holy flames crawled out of his eyes and mouth, then tossed the body aside like it was ash-covered driftwood.
Within minutes, the chamber was a massacre. Bodies torn open, limbs scattered, stone floors swimming in pools of blood that rippled from the sheer ferocity of battle. The columns cracked, the altar now splashed with the blood of its own. Screams still echoed through the high ceilings, but they were dying down. All that remained now were the children, frozen in terror at the edges of the room, clutching each other as the red light flickered on their pale faces.
And then—Unaga stepped forward.
The air shifted. The altar pulsed, the blood jewel in Unaga's hand beginning to throb violently. He began to chant—not in speech, but in a guttural, wet-sounding tongue, a blood runic dialect that crawled into the ears like leeches. Four spectral crimson swords shimmered into existence above his head, each one rotating slowly, glowing like they were forged from living blood. His grimoire opened of its own accord, pages flipping as cards of wet flesh-bound parchment flew out and hovered above him, each bearing strange bleeding sigils.
He stared at them all—at the invaders—and simply whispered,
"Quill."
The moment Unaga thrust his finger downward, the ground itself recoiled. The arena tore through the earth like veins ripping open flesh, constructing itself with cruel precision. Obsidian-ivory tiles bled up from the soil, locking into a perfect 13x13 grid. A circular sigil pulsed in the dead center—the Heart Glyph—beating once, then again, syncing to the blood of all those present.
Their feet locked. Chains of unseen rules gripped ankles. Cainan, Idrathar, and Selvaria froze. Their magic—their real magic—was gone. And above each of their heads hovered a translucent spectral blade, shimmering faintly red. "You each begin with three," Unaga crooned from the edge of the grid, his crimson priest-robes fluttering like torn pages. "When they're gone, so are you." His smile stretched thin. "My ancestors forged this game. Your blood now feeds it." No rules were offered, no guidance. Just cold silence… and then the dice rolled.
Turn One began. A clang echoed as two rune-carved dice struck a pedestal of bone at the board's edge. Curse. Formation. Unaga raised a card—Blood Haruspex. A seven-foot-tall creature formed from exposed nerves, its spine curled outward like a scythe. Its feet stabbed into tiles as it manifested. Selvaria's card was revealed: Drained Supplicant. A thin, hunched figure, arms bound by fate-thread, constantly weeping black ichor.
She recoiled, taking one cautious step forward, but even that effort was punished—the Curse reduced her movement to one tile per turn. "It weeps for your weakness," Unaga mocked. Selvaria gritted her teeth. "One blade, one step," she murmured. Every movement's a cost. She couldn't attack. Not yet.
Idrathar's card: Glassbound Beast. A crystal lion covered in reflective shards, but it would shatter if it moved before being blessed. "Useless." He remained still, analyzing.
Unaga's summon advanced with twitching jerks, blood trailing behind it.
"We need to outplay him, not overpower him," Idrathar whispered. "Count every tile. Count every sacrifice."
Cainan's card finally turned: Ember-Forged Wretch. Head aflame, limbs made of cracked soot-flesh. Weak. Barely mobile. Two steps max. "This is bullshit," he muttered. "We're not playing soldiers—we're the cards."
The rune stones shifted. Fire, Ice, and Decay aligned. "Fire on his side," Cainan thought, watching the Haruspex glow red. "Shit. Elemental alignment buffs him." The Haruspex lunged—one tile only—and lashed its tongue at Selvaria. Her Supplicant shrieked, staggering back, the spectral blade above her cracking. One down. Blood mist sprayed. She fell to one knee.
"I can't tank another," she hissed.
Cainan stepped, body low. His Wretch had a passive: Explodes on death. Useless unless dead. He thought fast. "Maybe not."
Next turn: Blessing. Curse. The dice mocked them.
Cainan drew from the Fate Deck. Card: Wailing Censer. An object, not a warrior. It summoned a censer spirit that inflicted confusion in a 3-tile radius but only if a player sacrifices mobility.
"I sit still and lose movement… and the spirit might stall the enemy." He planted it. His body locked. He wouldn't move this round. "Bait me, you bastard."
The Haruspex swayed toward him—drawn to flame. Selvaria played her card's ability: Lament Offering. The Supplicant loses a blade to empower the next ally.
"Do it…" Cainan said without hesitation.
Selvaria's blade shattered.
Cainan's Wretch surged—buffed now with temporary heat-rage. He took two brutal steps forward—one left, one diagonal—and headbutted the Haruspex with a self-detonating strike. The explosion triggered. Blood splashed the grid. The creature staggered. It didn't die—but Cainan's Wretch was gone. Another blade lost. Two remaining. He coughed up blood, hunched on his knees. "Worth it," he grunted.
Unaga clapped. "You're learning. Good. But not fast enough."
His next summon: Blood Rite Choir. A trio of skinless children that sang anti-magic hymns.
"Area lockdown," Idrathar muttered, eyes narrowing. "They disable abilities in a three-tile cone." His Glassbound Beast still hadn't moved—too fragile. But he had a plan. "Move me one tile forward. Just one."
Selvaria obeyed—her turn sacrificed to support. "Draw Fate."
Idrathar pulled: Mirror Splice. "Shatter one unit to create two reflections—each with half strength, and unable to act for a turn." He shattered his Beast. The glass rained down like diamond blood. "The kids will focus on the reflections. Buy us time." A cruel trade. He now had zero offensive pieces.
Selvaria's new card: Astral Echo-Twin. It needed three turns of "harmony" with rune stones to unlock its power. The curse? If she failed to attune, she'd lose all remaining blades. "Then we win in three turns," she said coldly, placing it.
The grid shimmered. Her twin emerged, translucent, flickering like a starved star.
"I'll align the stones!" Cainan said. He stepped forward, bleeding hard. One step. Placed a rune. Heartstone aligned with Ice. "One." The choir children shrieked. One note hit him like a bell, blood splattering everywhere. A second blade gone. "One left," he growled, coughing up crimson liquid. "Next."
Turn six: Curse. Curse.
No formation buff. No support. Unaga drew a card. Crimson Cantor. It could sacrifice any summon to buff himself. He smiled and devoured his own choir. Their screams were fuel. The Cantor rose—now a ten-foot-tall preacher of vein-thread and mouthless hymns.
"Next turn," he said, "I kill one of you."
Selvaria finished alignment two. Idrathar took a brutal blow—his last reflection shattered. He grunted, left with a single blade. "We hold. Just two more moves." Cainan moved again. The rune clicked into place. The grid howled. A storm of light spiraled inward. Selvaria and her Echo-Twin pulsed in sync. "It's ready."
Final turn. Blessing. Blessing.
"We make this count," Idrathar barked.
"Push Cainan forward." Selvaria nodded. "I give up my last action." She froze. Her twin shimmered—and pointed. Blink. Cainan teleported three tiles—right to the Heart Glyph. Touching it.
Unaga said, "Even with impossible and weak cards…they still—!"
"—Here," Cainan hissed. "Now!"
Selvaria raised her hand. "Echo-Twin: Astral Severance." Her blade split into six fractal shards. The sky above the arena shattered. Cainan's chains reformed from the edges of his burned wrists, surging out like spiked judgment. Together, they struck. Astral and iron. Heaven and ruin. Unaga gasped. A final blade cracked above his own head. Cainan threw a devastating punch, and Selvaria slashed hard.
And then Unaga's body exploded through the middle, torn into ribbons as the Heart Glyph turned black.
Blood painted every tile. Selvaria collapsed, coughing. Idrathar knelt, clutching his ribs. Cainan swayed, dripping red from every joint. The board disintegrated beneath them. No cheers. No triumph. Just the sound of breathing—and the terrible silence of survival.
"We did it…" Cainan huffed.
The chamber reeked of death and ash, the aftermath of Unaga's fall still heavy in the blood-soaked air. Every step squelched beneath their boots, the remains of cloaks and shattered altars strewn like butchered offerings across the temple floor. The golden flame's residue flickered on the walls, faint and sullen, as if mourning what had just transpired. Blood was smeared across every surface, pooled in sigils that no longer pulsed, and soaked into the broken bones and flesh of those robed zealots who had once called themselves saints. The silence was sickly. A wrong silence. Because it was broken by the trembling whimpers of children.
They stood in the far corner—small, pale, their cheeks streaked with tears and filth, faces void of understanding, trembling in their threadbare garments. They had seen gods die. And they had seen men do worse. Idrathar, his golden blade low and dripping blood in steady rhythm, turned toward them. He was breathing heavily, each exhale like the sigh of a furnace, his golden armor marred with cuts and splashes of red.
He walked forward, slow and deliberate, like a butcher ready to finish the final cut. The children whimpered louder, huddling against the stone wall like mice in a cage.
Cainan, still kneeling in a patch of blood that refused to dry, exhaled slowly, staring at the floor before glancing at Selvaria, who stood nearby, her twin blades now dim, coated in crimson. "You know," he said with a dry chuckle, "Camelot taught me how to play Quill before this raid." His voice was tired, rough with wear, but there was a faint smirk buried in it.
Selvaria glanced down at him with a raised brow. "Camelot?" she asked. "He was Idrathar's scout for this whole damn thing. He knew one of these guys had that Quill skill or whatever. He helped you."
Cainan's smirk widened, even as his eyes dimmed. "Figures," he muttered. "He did this on purpose. Said he wanted me to remember him. Hah… Guess even in his smug bastard way, he helped." He paused. "Even though we both hate each other. He ironically saved me. I didn't really know how to play Quil, but once he taught the rules, it was simple. It allowed me to make decisions and risks I wouldn't have taken if I just learned how to play now."
'Camelot..I still hate your guts. But thank you.'
But then the realization bloomed, and his gaze shifted. "But… Idrathar didn't say 'his friend.' He called Camelot his scout. Just a tool." Cainan's voice dropped. "Camelot was right. Idrathar's already forgotten him. Camelot was with him since the start."
At that moment, Idrathar stopped before the children. He raised his blade, his eyes hollow, unreadable behind that mask of blood and fire. "The kingdom of Sorneth," he said quietly, "took my child from me. So I will take theirs."
"No—!" one of the children screamed, eyes shut as the blade descended.
The sword flashed, gold and blood erupting in tandem—a violent, horrible burst. Cainan's breath caught. He spun around, Selvaria's eyes wide beside him. The flames crackled behind Idrathar, licking the ceiling with trails of ash. The children were gone. Nothing left but scorched blood, bone-dust, and the scent of charred innocence. Idrathar stared into the air above the flames, voice eerily calm.
"It's for the best," he whispered. "They know what loss truly is."
Cainan's soul twisted. Rage didn't just rise—it surged, volcanic and wild. He trembled. The chains on his arms jittered with tension. His teeth clenched, and then he roared—an animalistic, guttural, soul-shaking bellow of fury. He lunged, arm cocking back with a clenched, coiled fist wrapped in glowing, bloody chains, and hurled it forward like a cannon.
Idrathar didn't move.
But Selvaria did. She caught him mid-thrust, her arms wrapped around his torso. "Stop—!"
"HE KILLED CHILDREN!" Cainan snarled, struggling violently, dragging Selvaria with him step by step, his chains rattling like war drums. "INNOCENT CHILDREN!"
"Cainan!" Selvaria growled, gripping tighter, though her voice trembled under the weight of his fury.
Cainan snarled, eyes wild, the whites stained red. "Why are you holding me back?!"
"Because it's not the right time, damn it!" Selvaria snapped, teeth bared, voice cracking through the blood haze. "No matter what..he cannot die here..he's the anchor holding this entire operation and war together. If he dies now…"
But Cainan was walking forward still, dragging her like a chain of regret, each footstep louder than thunder, soaked in blood and judgment. "The beauty of a child's life," he said bitterly. "So much possibility. So much innocence. And they were forced into this… this war, this madness." His voice cracked as he stared at Idrathar. "They didn't deserve to die. They didn't get a choice."
Then his eyes turned to Selvaria. "You told me, remember? 'Kill those who need to be killed, save those who need to be saved.'" He pointed, violently. "Those royal monsters of Sorneth… they need to die. And now?" His voice dropped, venomous. "So does he."
Idrathar's eyes twitched. For a moment, the golden flame dimmed. "So be it," he muttered.
But when those words fell, they hit like hammers to the chest. Idrathar's voice cracked. "But what about the lies you've been keeping, Cainan?" His gaze narrowed. "About your false marriage to Lynzelle."
Cainan stiffened.
"I sent scouts across the continent," Idrathar continued. "We looked through every registry, every ritual rite of union. Nothing. No record." He stepped forward. "And then… my scholars returned. With carvings from tombs far older than any kingdom. Carvings of demons. And the form Lynzelle took—at that banquet—matched those."
"I…lied," Cainan admitted, voice low, lips trembling. "I knew you'd come after her. Try to kill her. That's what Kalazeth does, right? Hunt the strange. Hunt the unknown. So we faked the marriage. I wanted her power. She wanted to see the world. It was a deal." He exhaled. "A pact between monsters."
Idrathar stared in disbelief. "And you used my daughter. You claimed Lynzelle bore the same curse as Espen—just so no one would question it."
"I didn't want to," Cainan roared. "But I got desperate! I care about Espen! She thinks I'm a damn hero!" He gritted his teeth. "But I needed to change my fate. I was born cursed. Born to die. And I'm sick of it. I'm carving my own path. That's why I make the choices I do. Even if they're reckless. Even if they damn me. I just wanted to be happy. And sometimes I fuck up, sometimes I wonder if my own selfish desperation is the reason fate hates me. I don't exclude myself from it." His eyes burned as he pointed at Idrathar again. "But nothing justifies this. Killing those children? That wasn't fate. That was you."
"Your ideology means nothing," Idrathar said quietly. His face was hard. But a tear slid down his cheek. "You speak of fate like it owes you something. I was born with nothing. No crown. No sword. I built this empire with ash and rage and vision. And fate—" his voice trembled "—blessed me. That's what makes you and I different. You fight fate. I honor it."
He wiped the tear roughly. "But every second I breathe without Espen… I feel that honor breaking. I feel myself… slipping. I see her smile when I close my eyes. And when I open them, I see nothing. So yes. Those children paid. Just like mine did. But I'll stop here. For now."
Cainan's breath hitched, he was getting angrier. But then..a warm embrace. Gentle arms around him. Selvaria embraced him like a mother, her chin resting on his shoulder. She didn't say anything cruel. No mockery like always, no smirk. Just the quiet comfort of someone who understood. For the first time in years, Selvaria was soft. Calm. Warm.
Cainan's fury broke. Tears didn't come—but the rage ebbed. He leaned into her, like a boy cradled by a mother that wasn't there. And when he spoke, it was hoarse. "After I save Espen…" he looked up at Idrathar. "Lynzelle and I… we're leaving. For good. I'm done."
He stepped past Idrathar, not sparing another glance.
Selvaria followed, but paused beside the broken lord. Her shoulder slammed into his. And she whispered coldly.
"You're going to get what's coming to you."