Moonlight filtered through the shattered rose window, casting fractured light across the chapel floor. It was no longer warm. No longer a sanctuary. The air had changed—thick, humming with unseen threads that tugged at Caelum's skin like whispered promises.
Serapha stood still beneath the flickering candelabra, her gaze locked on the statue of the Lucent Saint—now cracked at the base, its face gouged by centuries of weather and war. But something else lingered there too. A presence. Not just the hollow echo of gods abandoned, but something closer. Watching.
Caelum could barely breathe.
"It's waking up," Serapha whispered, her voice thin. "We have to move."
But it was already too late.
A high, keening noise began to rise from the very stone beneath them. The air shivered. Caelum spun just in time to see the altar split open like a cracked shell, ancient runes bleeding dim violet light through seams long hidden. From the dark beneath emerged something not alive—but not dead either.
A Nullform.
It had no face. No eyes. Just a crown of bone and trailing ribbons of ephemeral black mist, as though shadow itself had learned to weep. Its body was vaguely human, but wrong in all the ways that made Caelum's chest seize: too tall, too thin, and moving with a weightless grace that didn't match its grotesque frame.
It screamed—not with a mouth, but through the Weave.
The sound pierced Caelum's thoughts like needles.
Serapha reacted first. With a sweep of her hand, light coalesced around her—the air itself bending to her command. Aetherthreads, luminous and silver, danced around her limbs like obedient serpents. Her voice rang out, firm.
"Don't let it mark you!"
Caelum ducked as the Nullform struck—its limb nothing more than a whip of unraveling mana. It cut through a pew like parchment, sending shards of ancient wood flying. One grazed his shoulder. Blood. Pain.
But he was moving.
He didn't have power like hers. Not yet. Not in the way the rest of the world measured. But he had Endura—and that was something.
He threw himself forward, drawing the short, rusted training blade he still carried on instinct more than reason. Serapha's voice echoed again.
"Behind the ribs! If it has any spine left, that's where the anchor is!"
Anchor. Right. Whatever held the thing in place. Kept it tethered to this world through the Weave.
Caelum dashed beneath a low arc of swirling darkness, rolling across broken tiles, and sprang upward. The Nullform turned—too slow.
His blade struck.
Not deeply. Not nearly enough.
But it did something. The creature shuddered, its shadow-flesh rippling with pale light. It hissed—not in pain, but recognition.
"You don't belong here," it said. But the words weren't sound—they were felt, like thought against bone.
Caelum staggered back. His vision blurred.
Serapha surged forward then, her arms weaving arcs of pure mana. She whispered a name—not hers, not his, but someone else's. A name that made the Weave sing.
The air exploded with radiance.
The Nullform reeled as silver lines spiderwebbed across its body, burning through its mist-flesh. Serapha moved like flame—fluid, controlled, deadly. Her steps were almost a dance, each motion a blend of will and legacy.
And still, it fought.
Still, it screamed.
Caelum couldn't stand still. He knew his part in this—however small.
Gritting his teeth, he darted behind the creature again, this time aiming higher. As he drove his blade between the plates of shimmering bone along its spine, he felt it: resistance. Real. Solid.
The Nullform convulsed.
With a wordless cry, Serapha brought down both palms—and from the Weave, chains erupted. Not physical, not visible to those untrained—but binding, nonetheless. The creature writhed as the threads tightened around it, yanking it downward, forcing it to its knees.
"Now!" she shouted. "Strike true!"
Caelum's hand trembled.
This was it. The part where a hero struck down the monster. The part where something inside him changed. But he wasn't a hero.
He was just a boy who refused to quit.
With both hands, he plunged the blade deeper—channeling everything he had, everything he was, into the final blow.
And the creature screamed one last time as it unraveled. Not like a defeated enemy—but like a knot slowly coming undone. As though the Weave itself sighed in relief.
Then silence.
Nothing but the flicker of dying candles, the taste of old ash, and the soft rustle of Serapha's robes as she stumbled forward and caught him before he fell.
"You did it," she murmured, her forehead against his.
He couldn't speak. His vision swam. But somewhere, through the haze, he managed a smile.
And then he collapsed.
Some Time Later
The fire crackled softly in the small chapel antechamber, where the broken stained glass cast muted colors onto the walls. Outside, wind howled through the abandoned spires of Elberin's ruin.
Caelum stirred.
"Easy," Serapha said. She knelt beside him, offering a damp cloth and a whisper of warmth. "You're not ready for that kind of fight again."
"I wasn't ready for the first one," he muttered, groaning as he sat up. "What was that thing?"
Her face darkened.
"A fragment. A leftover whisper of the Nameless. They infect broken places, root into forgotten aether. That one must've been dormant for centuries."
"You knew it would be here."
She didn't answer right away.
"I hoped it wouldn't."
Caelum studied her. The fatigue around her eyes. The distant pain she tried to hide behind every gesture. She was older than him—not just in years, but in weight.
"What are you not telling me?" he asked.
Serapha turned to the fire, watching the embers shift. "You're not supposed to be able to touch the Weave. Not without training. Not with… your kind of mana."
"My kind?"
She hesitated, then nodded. "Boundless, they call it. Wild. Undefined. Unchosen by any Dominion. People with it burn out early. Or go mad."
"Well, that's reassuring," he muttered.
"But you didn't." She turned back to him. "You channeled it. Even without the rites. You found its rhythm."
"So?"
"So someone will come looking."
Caelum's stomach turned.
And then he asked the question that had been growing like a stone in his chest since the first time she looked at him like she already knew him:
"Who are you, really?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she stood and looked out through the shattered window at the starlit ruin beyond.
"I'm someone who once wore a crown I didn't want," she said. "Someone who ran. And now I think the past is catching up to both of us."