The main gate of Stormveil Castle remained shut.
Not with locks, but with contempt.
Old wood, barred with rails and chains that no one would bother to remove. It wasn't a barrier—it was a sentence. And Hestia understood that at once.
"They want us dead before we even step inside," she murmured.
Rogier nodded without even glancing at the door. He was already studying the side towers, the ledges. Stormveil was no fortress; it was a predator carved from stone.
Their entry came through a lesser tower to the east. A shattered window let in the damp sea air… and the steps of the intruders. They climbed rickety stairs until they reached a corridor flanked by broken suits of armor. At the far end, someone awaited them.
"Welcome, champions," said a shrill, servile voice. "To this house of trials… and recomposition."
Gostoc.
He looked like a deranged servant: cloudy eyes, a tight mouth, hands clasped as if hiding knives in his sleeves. He smiled like one who had already watched far better people die.
"Who are you?" Hestia asked, her sword still sheathed.
"A servant, of course. My feet have walked these stones since Godrick could still stand tall… And I can show you the way. One safer than the main road, naturally…"
"In exchange for what?" Rogier asked.
"Oh, nothing. I simply admire courage. And… its consequences."
The words made Hestia step forward. The tone, the gesture—everything about Gostoc reeked of deceit.
"Are you the one leading Tarnished to their deaths?" she asked.
"Me? Please! I only point out the paths. What happens upon them… is beyond me."
The air thickened. Hestia summoned a halo of bluish magic; her Carian knight's sword gleamed at the tip.
"Then you won't mind this."
She lunged with a Piercing Thrust, the blade grazing Gostoc's face before burying itself in the wall behind him. The lowborn didn't even blink, but the smirk vanished.
"Next time, I won't miss," Hestia warned, voice low and dangerous.
Gostoc raised his hands.
"All right, all right… no need for dramatics. I'll guide you. Of course I will."
They crossed inner corridors, halls with shattered columns, and courtyards overrun by dry roots. Stormveil seemed to twist upon itself like a cornered beast. The air smelled of damp gunpowder and old blood.
Upon reaching a passage that opened onto a broken wall, Rogier stopped.
To the right, between rotted planks, a vertical gap gaped open—a void between rooftops and crumbling structures.
"And that?" Rogier asked, unable to hide his interest.
"A pit," Gostoc replied too quickly. "Nothing useful. Only bats… rats…"
The sorcerer seized him by the collar and slammed him against a wall.
"What's at the bottom? Don't play with me."
Gostoc tried to smile, but his face was now pure tremor.
"There's… something. A shapeless serpent. Remnants of… what was once a blessing. But I'll say no more."
Rogier released him and turned to Hestia.
"You stay with him."
"Where are you going?"
The sorcerer adjusted his rapier and looked into the hole.
"Down. To where no one wants to look. East of the great courtyard, you'll find a friend. Well… not my friend. But one of the Roundtable Hold."
"Who?"
"Nepheli Loux."
Hestia frowned.
"And what awaits me there?"
"Someone strong. Honest. Exactly what you need right now."
Without another word, Rogier stepped forward, then again, and leapt into the void.
Gostoc exhaled.
"Now there's a man who knows what he's after."
Hestia didn't answer. She had already started walking. Eastward. Toward the unknown.
The eastern side of the castle offered no respite. The wall opened onto a sunken courtyard strewn with rubble and dry roots climbing split walls. The stench of iron and damp mingled with something sourer: old flesh, hidden beneath planks and rotting tarps.
Hestia advanced with her shield high, her steps firm over the slick stone. She heard them before she saw them.
A group of exiled soldiers, clad in mismatched armor patched with leather scraps. Their twisted, misshapen helms hid faces long bereft of compassion. Their weapons were improvised, but their movements precise: they knew every crack and gap in the terrain.
"Intruder!" one roared, raising a nicked axe.
Hestia gave no answer. The first to rush her received a shield bash to the jaw, followed by an upward slash that drove him back bleeding through his armor. Another tried to flank her; she spun on one foot, drove her knee into his gut, and finished him with a swift cut.
No time to count bodies. A heavier sound approached.
From the shadows of a broken arch emerged a banished knight. His armor, though dented, bore the bearing of a warrior of lineage. His tattered cape billowed like a forgotten banner. He wielded a longsword in both hands.
Hestia's eyes narrowed. This was no common exile. He was one who had served Godrick before his degeneration, a soldier who had sworn to follow him even into madness.
The clash was brutal. The knight's blade came down with a force that nearly split her shield. She held, letting the shock travel down her arm, and replied with a Piercing Thrust aimed at the gap between breastplate and pauldron. The knight staggered back, growling.
They traded blows in a short but fierce exchange. At last, Hestia slipped past a lateral swing and, using his momentum, shoved him into a broken pillar, knocking him down.
The courtyard fell silent, save for her ragged breathing and the wind tapping against the battlements.
She knew she couldn't linger. Nepheli Loux awaited further in, and with every minute, the castle seemed to twist more against her.
She adjusted her shield, wiped her blade with a quick cloth, and pressed on.
The leap into darkness was short, yet it echoed eternal for Rogier. He landed with the crunch of rock on rock, a sense of emptiness and memory beneath his feet.
He looked up. He stood in a grotto, a hidden chamber beneath Stormveil. The air smelled of moss, ancient dust… and something deeper, harder to name, as if dreams had long since stagnated here.
There lay the body of Godwyn.
It rested on a bed of withered roots, embraced by shadows both golden and putrid. He was not the radiant prince of song, but a perpetual fragment of suffering: a body without a soul, turned into the emblem of a broken order.
Rogier looked upon him and whispered:
"So this is the face of martyrdom… the one who refused to die."
He did not touch. He only watched and understood that what lay before him was the spark of an ancient cataclysm—a body that had begun the fall of the golden sky and the shattering of the known world.
With that truth lodged in his chest, Rogier raised his gaze toward the light filtering from above, toward the castle's exterior. As his shadow stretched across the grotto, he knew that this tomb without epitaph was the key to something greater—something soon to be unleashed.