The trees thinned around the clearing, and the light of it changed. Not just brighter or dimmer, but entirely different. As if the world had blinked and opened its eyes to something new.

  And there she was.

  A girl with bright eyes and sunlit hair. Pretty, even. Harmless, if you didn’t know better.

  Her dress fluttered around her legs, caught in the rising breeze. Strands of her hair slipped free and whipped across her cheek. She didn’t blink. She stood perfectly still, watching the man with absolute patience as he emerged from the shadows.

  His sword was still in hand. Blood clung to the blade – thick and dark, trailing all the way to the hilt. The weight of it didn’t seem to slow him down. With each step, his boots crunched softly over moss and fallen twigs.

  There, at the midpoint between them, he stopped.

  The face that greeted him was calm. Pleasant. Her smile was small, playful.

  Vael looked at her for a moment longer.

  Then without a word, he slid the sword back into its sheath.

  “Burk?” he asked.

  Her smile sharpened, just a little.

  “Your friend is in a quiet place,” she said. “Burk chose silence… for now.”

  Vael nodded once.

  Then he started walking — not toward her, but around. His boots pressed into the soaked earth, slow and careful, as if he were measuring a circle around something that might explode.

  “You said he was afraid,” he muttered as he moved. “Not of what he saw… but of what saw him back. I wonder if it had anything to do with a little girl. One with too many teeth… and no shadow.”

  He kept walking, slow and steady. His eyes never left hers.

  The girl watched him in return — then lifted her hands, half-covering a smile. A giggle slipped out, light and almost shy.

  “You remember,” she said softly. “That makes me happy.”

  She took a step closer.

  “You were watching me, weren’t you?” she added. “Back at the temple. When the others were still pretending. So let’s keep on pretending… just a little longer. You and me. No one else.”

  She turned with him, walking now too, matching his pace like a second hand on a clock.

  You watched them both from where you stood — unsure whether to move or speak. The way they circled each other, the calm in their voices — it felt like watching a dream unfold in slow motion.

  The wind came and stirred the tall grass. Neither of them looked your way.

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  “Have they found the poor priest yet?” she asked, quieter this time.

  Vael didn’t break stride. “Not yet,” he said. “But we’re close. Got the best men on it.”

  She hummed — something tuneless and old — then turned her head toward the trees. The sun was lowering behind them, bleeding amber through the sky.

  “You know you only have until sundown, don’t you, Vael?”

  Her eyes met his. There was something cold in them now. Quiet, too.

  Vael gave the smallest shrug. “Think I’ll make it?”

  The girl looked at him for a moment, then slowly shook her head.

  “I think you already passed the point where it mattered,” she said, her voice still. “I think you know that.”

  Vael stopped his walk.

  He reached back toward the hilt.

  The mark on his forearm gave a faint pulse of light.

  “Then why wait?” he said, his voice low and edged. “You’re here. I’m here. We can end this right now. Settle it the old-fashioned way.”

  She blinked slowly.

  “End it?” she repeated, as if tasting the words.

  Then she laughed — low at first, then rising like a whisper through glass.

  “Oh, Vael,” she said, almost fondly. “Sweet, broken Vael. You really think this is the end?”

  She stepped closer, her smile stretching just a little too wide.

  “I’ve only just started.”

  She began to circle him, slow and graceful, her feet barely making a sound in the grass.

  Vael didn’t move. His grip on the hilt eased slightly, the blade still pointed down — but not idle.

  His eyes tracked her calmly, warily.

  “This is where it begins,” she said as she moved behind him. “I’ll use this place. All of it. The bodies, the roots, the blood still warm in the dirt. I’ll raise thousands from it.”

  She came around to his side again, smile still faint, still wrong.

  “And when it rises, Vael... you’ll see what I really am.”

  Vael didn’t turn. He stayed where he was, grounded, sword still low but ready.

  “If you didn’t come to fight,” he said quietly, eyes forward, “then why come at all?”

  He waited a beat.

  “Why leave us the clues? The trail? Why help?”

  Her steps didn’t falter. She circled behind him again.

  “They call you a godslayer,” she said. “And now I see why. That mark… I’ve seen others like it before. Watched mortal men wear them like crowns. But never like this. You carry it like fire under your skin. Always burning. Always… beautiful.”

  She moved into view again, just ahead of him now.

  “I saw it in you that night. At the tavern. The way you moved. The way your blade cut through my faithful. All of it, and you didn’t so much as blink. That’s when I knew. I had to have you.”

  “That’s very flattering,” he said. “But I doubt all of this is for me. Marked or not, I’m still just one man.”

  “You could be more,” she whispered. “The gods are crumbling. The old ones… already dust. But you? Your kind were made for this.”

  Her gaze lifted, distant now, as if she could already see it.

  “One day, Vael… I’ll have an army. And through the sea, I’ll carry it. City after city, I’ll hurl them like waves on stone. And when they fall… my name will rise over the heat of battle.”

  She stood there, poised and still, like something answering a call only she could hear.

  Then, slowly, she turned back to him.

  “You can tell Eryth he can keep the rest of his Hollow. The scraps. I won’t need it.”

  Vael’s gaze drifted past her — toward the bodies still sprawled across the field. Some torn open, some frozen in expressions of terror and awe.

  He let out a dry snort. “Doesn’t much look like an army now. Might’ve used them if you hadn’t rushed to kill every last one.”

  She followed his gaze, then scoffed. “These worthless sacks of meat? Please. They were nothing. Heretics. They’d follow anything if it promised them mercy.”

  Vael stood still for a long beat. His jaw moved slightly.

  Then he gave a quiet nod.

  “Alright,” he said. “I get it. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  He looked like he might say more, but she stepped in before the words could leave his mouth.

  “You asked why I came,” she said, her tone light but cutting. “So I’ll tell you.”

  She took a slow step forward.

  “I came here to give you a choice. One that could tip the edge of the world. You spoke of endings. But you should know by now, Vael... those never go well. Not for either of us.”

  She took another step.

  “Especially not for that one.”

  Something in her features changed — refined into something patient and hungry. A mask, almost… but not one meant to comfort.

  Her eyes stayed on you a second too long.

  And then you felt it.

  The disconnect.

  Everything went dark.

  No warning. No sound.

  Only her eyes, and then nothing at all.