——The Gates draw Near——
The trees began to laugh.
Not with rustle nor with bird-song, but with a sound older than either—like the breath of roots remembering a joke told before the first dawn.
The camp stirred uneasily in that strange chorus. Packs were lifted, armor cinched, tents dismantled. The march to Fort Dawnrise would resume, each Crusader moving as if wary to touch the soil too firmly, for fear of awakening whatever listened below.
Arkeia stood apart, silver hair dull with sleeplessness, eyes fixed upon Balfazar. He spoke quietly with Aethon, gestures light, words too soft for the others to catch. Yet to her ears—her ears alone—his voice breathed directly upon her shoulder.
"…Closer, little priestess…"
She shivered, blushing in spite of herself, and turned sharply. He had not moved. He was still across the glade with his brother, speaking idly as if nothing had been said.
A hand upon her arm startled her.
"My lady—" Edmun's voice broke through her thoughts.
Arkeia jerked, her blade-hand twitching.
Edmun recoiled a half-step. "Forgive me. But we must press on. I feel we tempt disaster with every moment wasted in this cursed wood. Another night… with that vile abominat—"
Her glare sliced him to silence. She spoke no word, but her eyes carried steel sharper than any oath.
Edmun swallowed his protest, though he understood more than he wished. He knew why she defended silence with a soldier's cruelty. He did not name it. He dared not.
Instead, after a pause too long, he muttered: "We should be off. The fort lies near, my lady."
She turned away, stooping to pack the last of her things with deliberate slowness.
Edmun lingered, troubled. He had watched her too closely these past days. Her prayers shortened. Her gaze wandered. Her silence tasted less like devotion, more like longing. And though his tongue warred with loyalty, suspicion won.
He found Thalos by the tree line, fastening his greaves.
"Thalos," he said carefully, "do you have a moment?"
The elder captain gave him a cold look. "Moments are precious as of late. Speak quick."
"It's the general," Edmun whispered. "I scarcely recognize her. Something is—off."
Thalos's eyes flashed. "The general is fine." He adjusted his axe, glaring. "She is more devout than any of us. She would never stray. She's better than us all."
"I know that. I do. But the days drag like wounds, the prayers fall hollow, and Arkeia…" He hesitated. "…she doesn't—"
"Not another word," Thalos snapped, voice edged with fatigue. "Our prayers were heard through the night. Arkeia stands firm. Enough of your doubts, lest they poison the others."
Edmun clenched his jaw, fury and faith gnawing one another to shreds.
Their silence broke when Balfazar and Aethon passed nearby. The two brothers walked side by side, sunlight shattering oddly on their hair—as if refusing to agree which man it should grace more warmly.
Aethon slowed, casting them both a sidelong glance that burned like a smirk etched in shadow. "Rough night, aye, brother?"
He jabbed Balfazar's ribs with a playful elbow.
Balfazar rolled his eyes with languid amusement, lips tilting into that half-smile that looked borrowed from a dream.
"It wasn't much fun for me either, gentlemen," he said smoothly, then added with a flicker of irony, "last night's curtain fell rather abruptly."
Aethon's laugh rang out, not loud—but vast. It clung to the trees, making them shudder. The very air quivered as if sharing in the jest.
Edmun and Thalos stiffened, unsettled. They forced their composure back into place, returning to their duties with silence as their truce. Yet silence had teeth now, and it gnawed.
The march pressed onward. Armor rattled where it shouldn't, prayers caught in throats, and the rhythm of boots against the soil no longer matched the breath of those who bore them. Even discipline—their last shield—felt thin.
The sun no longer followed its ordained course. It staggered, drooped, then leapt without warning. Shadows twitched against their masters, sometimes lingering long after the flesh had moved—as if savoring their brief rebellion. Sound itself betrayed expectation, arriving before lips parted or trailing behind like an afterthought.
Even her own stride faltered. Arkeia felt her boots strike the ground, and only a heartbeat later heard the echo—as though her body marched ahead of her soul, dragging it unwillingly forward.
The path itself was twisted. The soil sagged like old parchment beneath their feet, remembering too many footsteps—those already taken, and those not yet come. Light filtered down uncertainly, trembling in fits and stammers, as if it doubted its own duty. Each step drew them nearer—not merely to the fortress, but to a revelation buried in its core.
And for Arkeia—since last night—nothing had aligned.
Now, even in the span of a single march, her men were changing.
Not in flesh, but in certainty.
At first, it was a missed verse—one Crusader stumbling over a prayer he had spoken since boyhood. He faltered halfway through the holy line, lips stammering, before whispering to himself, "…no, that isn't it." His companion hissed, "Stay steady, brother," though his own hand shook against the hilt of his blade.
Another blinked at the shadow Balfazar cast and stood staring too long. His lips parted, mouthing something inaudible, until Arkeia caught the faintest syllable: beautiful. She barked his name—"Corren!"—and he startled like a child woken from sleep, stammering apologies that convinced no one.
Before they had crossed a mile more, a younger zealot walked half-muttering beneath his breath. At first, Arkeia assumed it a litany to Mar'aya, but when she listened closer, the words soured.
"…the One… the One keeps me safe… the One keeps us all safe…"
By the next bend in the path, another soldier broke into sudden tears. His shoulders heaved as if mourning—but when Edmun rushed to him, he smiled through the weeping. "It isn't grief," he said, voice bright and trembling, "it's joy. Can you not feel it? She's closer. She's—" He stopped, realizing too late he did not mean Mar'aya.
Then—worse than all the rest—one Crusader faltered mid-step. He turned to her, face pale beneath his helm, eyes wide and desperate. His voice was small, almost childlike.
"My lady… tell me what's true."
The other men turned their heads, waiting, hungry for her answer.
Arkeia's jaw tightened. She met his gaze, and in his eyes she saw the last ember of certainty, pleading for her to strike the match and save it.
But when she opened her mouth, no flame came.
She felt… nothing.
The soldier's lips trembled. He searched her face, waiting for correction, for clarity, for the judgment of the goddess made flesh through her commander's voice.
Arkeia only stared.
After a long moment, she turned away.
Behind her, she heard him whisper brokenly to himself—first Mar'aya's name, then another. This time, he did not whisper it backwards. He whispered it like a prayer he had always known.
Balfazar's.
And Balfazar's shadow—long and thin beneath the trees—shifted. Not with the light, but with intent. It curled at the edges, and for a breath too long it seemed to smile.
Aethon, walking lazily at his brother's side, noticed. He always noticed. His grin widened as he glanced back at Arkeia, words curling from his lips like smoke from a smoldering brand.
"Careful, my lady. You let their faith slip, and still you do not weep. That indifference of yours…" his eyes gleamed like knives in candlelight, "…it looks very much like worship."
His laughter followed, low and silken, spreading through the line like rot through grain. The Crusaders stiffened beneath it, each unsettled, each quieter than before.
It was happening all at once, like infection carried on the breath of the world.
These were her men—her soldiers, her brothers-in-arms. Their vows had been hers to guard, their faith hers to anchor.
And she saw the unraveling. She recognized it for what it was—corruption, possession, devotion twisted into a name that was not their goddess's. She knew she should rage, strike, cry out to Mar'aya and demand the flame return.
Instead, she only watched.
As though her concern lagged, dragging behind her like an afterthought, just as her heartbeat had the day before. As though their vows—to Mar'aya, to her—grew lighter with every step taken beside him.
And somewhere in that silence, she realized the unspoken truth: she did not mourn their slipping. Not truly.
She let it happen.
Perhaps, she thought grimly, she had already changed. The thought slid through her like a splinter of ice, and she did not decide if it frightened her… or comforted her.
She had seen men broken before—seen minds unspool beneath years of blood and smoke, prayers unanswered, dawn after dawn without victory. Those were wounds she could name: despair, exhaustion, the hollow-eyed silence of soldiers who had buried too many brothers.
This was not that.
This was something sharper, stranger. Their eyes were not dull, but shining—bright with the kind of certainty that did not belong to them. Their faltering was not weakness but alignment, as if some greater script had reached into their marrow and begun rewriting the verses.
And Arkeia, for all her discipline, for all her training, felt it in herself as well. Not madness. Not grief. But a quiet bending, subtle as breath—her will drawn toward a gravity she dared not name.
This was not war-broken faith.
This was reality buckling inward from a presence it could no longer contain.
The company pressed on, but every step felt like trespass into something unwritten. They walked slowly, as though the air itself had grown thick, heavy with meanings it did not wish to reveal. The hours bled shapelessly together; no one could tell if it was morning or dusk. The sun lurched in the heavens, sometimes crouching low, sometimes vaulting too high, never holding steady.
The forest strained against them. Branches arched down as if to graze their shoulders, their bark creaking like voices trying to speak through splinters. Dew wept from leaves, but instead of falling, droplets drifted upward—drawn back toward the sky as though gravity had grown weary of its duty. Shadows, too, betrayed their masters: vanishing outright, or breaking free to slither across the path ahead, dancing mockingly along the trail.
No one spoke of it. They simply endured.
Elissa broke the silence first.
Her gait was weak, her body leaning into Galeel's arm for balance, yet her voice was disturbingly steady. Clearer than it had any right to be. Her eyelids fluttered half-shut, then wide, though they did not see. They remembered.
"Do you hear it?" she murmured, words trembling like the edge of prophecy. "The One who comes… who hums through the sea of stars…"
The Crusaders shifted uneasily. Edmun muttered a prayer, though he did not finish it. Thalos tightened his grip on his axe, knuckles pale.
Galeel alone said nothing. His storm-gray eyes remained fixed ahead, his silence heavier than steel.
But the trees bowed as he passed. Boughs creaked and dipped—reaching, not in fear, but in mourning. Leaves rustled without wind, and the bark of a nearby tree split open—not violently, but slowly, as though exhaling a name it had not spoken in an age.
"He remembers nothing. But the forest remembers him," Elissa whispered.
And in that moment, Galeel felt the Void again. Not as horror, but as origin. A low ache bloomed at the base of his skull—old, sacred, raw. He could feel the memory not in mind, but in bone.
Overhead, Voidstor glided through the air like a lazy omen. He trailed behind Balfazar like a celestial thread—melting in and out of mist, reappearing in languid loops. Once, he hovered briefly above Arkeia's head, tail brushing her temple like a question.
When addressed, he spoke only to Balfazar and Aethon. His words were not spoken aloud, but felt—like thoughts that did not belong to the thinker:
"Balfy… walking among kindling again…
always a game of chess, why not sleep…
Why not food?"
He yawned, and the air rippled outward like a drop disturbing still water.
Below, Vharn drifted. His boots no longer touched the earth; he floated just above the trail as though he had forgotten the concept of weight. His lute hung loosely in his arms, yet the strings stirred on their own. A tune emerged—fractured, haunting, more dirge than song. It was not a melody but a warning that had lost its words.
He turned toward Arkeia, lips parting in a crooked smile that suggested both welcome and mockery. Then he began to hum—not to the air, but to her. Each note bent itself to match the rhythm of her breath, the tremor of her tension, the slow unraveling of her composure.
"Your heart beats wrong, commander," he said suddenly, his voice lilting and off-key, as though he were reciting someone else's thought. "Late by a half."
Voidstor meowed once, perfectly in harmony with the lute's dirge—a lullaby in a language no one had taught, a hymn to something no Crusader wished to name.
Caelinda moved nearby, her steps never quite touching the earth. She seemed to glide, as though borne along by the fog itself. The mist coiled thickly about her form, yet it did not cling. It circled her in reverence, slow as incense smoke, as though afraid to profane her skin. Her hood was drawn low, the fabric shimmering faintly like a veil stretched between waking and dream.
Around Balfazar, the mist behaved differently—wrongly. It gathered in sudden swells, then dispersed as though ashamed of its boldness. Shapes half-formed and vanished at his side: a hand brushing through his hair before thinning into vapor, fingers pressing briefly against his chest as though to feel the runes beneath his skin. Once, it reared up like a faceless figure, poised to embrace him, but collapsed the moment his gaze shifted toward it.
The fog adored him, but feared him all the same—like worshippers kneeling too close to the pyre of their own god.
And when the tendrils slipped away, they did not fade harmlessly. They fled into the trees as if carrying fragments of memory with them, whispering sounds that might have been names.
Edmun fixed his gaze on Balfazar, willing himself to see only the man and not the god-shaped terror beneath. But sight betrayed him.
A film of shadow slid over his vision, thin as a blink yet heavy as stone. For that fraction of a second, Balfazar was both where he stood and elsewhere—walking upside down upon the air as though it were solid glass.
Each step sent ripples through the unseen firmament, trembling rings of distortion that shimmered and vanished. His hair hung straight to his shoulders, untouched by gravity, as though the world itself bowed to his stillness.
Edmun's chest locked. He blinked once. Twice. A third time—frantic. The veil lifted. Reality snapped back.
Balfazar strode calmly upon the earth, as if he always had.
And then—without turning, without so much as a glance—he smiled.
Edmun did not see it. He felt it: a smile pressed into his marrow, etched along his nerves, slow and merciless. It was not directed at his eyes, but at his soul.
A sickness rolled through him, cold and weightless, and he could not decide if it was dread clawing for escape… or reverence dragging him deeper.
"You've been marching long, haven't you?" he murmured, voice curling like smoke. "Doesn't your back ache… carrying all that righteousness alone? The eyes grow tired. The mind begins to… misplace things. A trick of sight, a trick of faith." He snickered, low and sharp, the sound threading under Edmun's skin like a splinter.
Edmun's jaw tightened, a twitch betraying him. He forced his gaze forward, but his thoughts betrayed him instead.
He glanced toward Arkeia. Toward the way she lingered a pace behind the men, her eyes drawn too often—too long—toward Balfazar. Toward the soft slackness in her face when she forgot herself, as though her mind were being pulled elsewhere, leaving only the husk of command.
This is not what she was.
He did not dare speak it. The thought alone was treason enough. Yet even unspoken, the silence after it pressed in thick, heavy, smothering.
As if something had heard.
As if it always heard.
"I do not speak with vipers," Edmun snapped, voice sharp enough to mask the tremor beneath.
Aethon's grin stretched, serpentine. "No, no. You don't speak with them. You fight them. You kill them." His shoulder brushed Edmun's as though they were old friends. "And yet—here you are, walking beside me. Breathing the same air. Listening."
Edmun jerked his gaze away, fury prickling his skin. He tried to smother it beneath ritual, beneath prayer. His lips moved, whispering the name that should have been anchor and shield.
"Mar… Mar—"
The word snagged in his throat. His mouth dried to sand. Each syllable scraped like thorns drawn across the tongue, refusing passage. No sound emerged but a choked gasp, raw and pitiful.
Aethon chuckled low, tilting his head as though savoring the sight. "Having trouble speaking, soldier? Don't strain yourself." His tone was playful, but the weight beneath it pressed like a blade against the spine. "Your goddess will understand. Silence is the first step to belonging."
He leaned closer, voice a whisper of mockery in Edmun's ear. "And you do belong… don't you?"
Edmun's hands tightened against his weapon, knuckles pale, but the name of Mar'aya still would not come.
And in that unholy quiet, Balfazar's shadow seemed to shiver—pleased.
From the end, Arkeia quickened her pace, her shoulder brushing Edmun's as she passed. The contact jolted him, as though she had cast off some of his weight onto herself.
"My lady—" he called, voice tight with concern. But she did not slow. Did not turn.
She didn't—couldn't—hear.
Her stride was steady, measured, as though she still commanded every step. But her mind slipped, snagged, looped like thread through a fraying loom.
She thought she had already heard Elissa's voice whisper her name.
She thought she had already passed beneath this twisted oak, its bark curled into the shape of a face.
She thought she had already spoken the very words that now trembled on her lips.
But not in this life.
"…we march again," she muttered under her breath, though none had spoken to her. "Again, and again…"
One of the younger Crusaders glanced at her uneasily. "General?" he asked, voice trembling. "Did you—did you say something?"
Her eyes flicked toward him, sharp and hollow all at once. "No," she said flatly. Then softer, as though confessing to the forest rather than to him: "Not in this life."
The soldier paled, looking quickly to Edmun for guidance. But Edmun could only stare, his throat too tight to shape Mar'aya's name, his silence damning them both.
And overhead, the branches groaned, shifting as though the trees themselves had heard her words—and remembered them. Their limbs bent inward, creaking like ancient priests leaning closer to hear confession.
Arkeia's gaze fixed itself upon Balfazar's back. She told herself it was vigilance, but the truth clawed deeper: the memory of their last exchange gnawed at her sanity like a parasite burrowed too far to extract.
She had tried—by oath, by prayer, by sheer will—to stay distant. To treat him as adversary, as blasphemy.
But every hour spent near him unspooled another thread of her resolve, drawing her nearer, as though proximity itself were worship.
He walked just ahead, his form wrapped in shadows that swayed like mourners at a grave—veined with runes that pulsed with a rhythm no world had ever known. They beat like a heart that did not belong to creation.
The trees felt it. They bowed as he passed, their leaves dripping with dew that resembled tears, their trunks bending as though compelled to grief. Even the wind sighed hollow through the branches, as if mourning.
She told herself she could ignore it. That she was strong enough. That her stride was her own.
But she could not.
When she fell behind—unintentionally, she swore—he noticed.
He always did.
And though he did not turn, she knew. The air thickened. The runes pulsed faster. The shadow at his heel quivered with the faintest suggestion of a smile.
"You're straying," he said.
The words slid into her before she realized he had spoken. Soft, almost kind—but her breath arrived a second late, as though the sound had been spoken before her thought could catch it.
Arkeia stiffened. "Off the path—or do you refer to something else?"
"Both." His smirk curved like a secret note only he could read. "Or perhaps…" His glance lingered, too casual to be innocent. "…you stray into my embrace?"
Her jaw tightened, heat rising against her better sense. "You left," she said, the edge in her tone cutting through her confusion.
"Pardon," he replied smoothly, "but I do recall being taken."
"You didn't say a word," she pressed, voice low, heavy with that controlled fury only commanders master. "Not even a glance back."
"Of course not." His tone lightened, a cruel mirth beneath the velvet. "Out of concern, naturally. My darling Caelinda can be… 'protective'. If I had lingered, she might have done something unrefined to you."
His smile remained fixed forward, but she felt it hook against her ribs.
Behind them, hidden beneath her hood, Caelinda's eyes narrowed. The mist gathered closer around her ankles, coiling like a serpent restraining its strike.
She scoffed, her laughter brittle, meant to cut.
"What, and what would she have done? Mutter hymns? Stare daggers from beneath her veil?"
"She's possessive," he replied, smooth as still water. "Jealous."
"Jealous?" Arkeia echoed, lips curving in something like a smirk, though her voice betrayed the faintest crack.
He inclined his head, unbothered. The light of the forest fractured faintly in his gaze—radiant gold, rayed through with violet, like suns refracted through broken glass.
"She has already cast her judgment once before," he said, "upon Elissa… for what you nearly did."
Arkeia's composure faltered. Her breath hitched, and though she forced her expression into cool disdain, her pulse betrayed her. "What I nearly did?" she demanded, feigning ignorance. "And that would be…?"
His eyes held hers, gleaming brighter, as though they drank the protest from her lips. A soft laugh unfurled from him—warm, amused, cruel.
"Elissa sipped from the undivine," he said. "She drank what was not hers. She dared to taste my essence." His voice curled close, intimate, like silk drawn across a blade.
"And my—" he coughed into his hand, quiet, almost cautious, like a man caught easing a lover's temper. His eyes flicked briefly toward the hooded figure trailing behind, then back to Arkeia with a smile. "Precious Caelinda—jealous, spiteful—punished her. By giving her far more than she could endure."
Behind them, unseen, Caelinda's lips curved. The mist at her feet tightened, winding closer up her legs in slow, affectionate coils, as though her very jealousy drew the world nearer in devotion.
The words settled heavy between them, honeyed and damning, lingering like smoke that refused to disperse.
Arkeia's lips parted, but no sound emerged. Breath faltered at the threshold of speech.
"You were close last night," Balfazar murmured, his voice velvet over a knife's edge. "Quite close—intentionally close, I hope…"
Her throat caught. "I wasn't—"
"Oh, but you were." His laughter rose soft, low, like the first rumble before a storm. "Every breath, every glance—you meant it. And I did not mind. Truly. But she"—his eyes slid faintly toward Caelinda without turning his head—"would have."
Arkeia stepped back, but the earth betrayed her. The ground tilted beneath her feet, as though the soil itself had forgotten its duty to remain solid. Her pulse hammered against her ribs.
"You call this a warning?" Her voice rang sharper than she intended, but it wavered at the edges.
"Consider it a kindness." His smile cut across his face, gentle and merciless. "Rare, precious—treasure it."
Then—without flourish, without hesitation—he spoke, softly, like it was the most natural word in all of existence:
"—My rose."
She froze.
The name sank into her like a blade through water—no resistance, no sound, only ripples echoing into the mind.
Her breath stammered, her thoughts fragmented. That title had no right to her, yet it landed as though it had always been hers.
Behind them, Caelinda's shadow thickened in the mist.
Her mouth opened—but before she could summon words, the air shifted. Petals. They were not real. Not fully. But she saw them: pale blossoms, white as bone, drifting on an unseen breeze. They circled her head, brushing her cheek with phantom softness. One alighted on her shoulder, delicate, trembling—then vanished, dissolving like breath upon cold glass.
"What did you call me?" she asked, her voice breaking the hush like a child's question in a cathedral.
"What I always call you," he answered, smiling as though it were the simplest truth. His gaze never wavered.
"Don't you remember?"
Her whole body trembled. For a heartbeat, she did. Memories that were not memories ignited and dissolved: battles fought with him at her side, prayers whispered in a temple that had never existed, a kiss pressed to her brow beneath a sky that was not this sky. An alternate life tore through her mind like lightning, gone as soon as it struck.
"Stop…" The word escaped her as a bashful whisper, shame laced with longing.
Unseen, Caelinda's smile died. The mist drew tighter about her ankles, trembling like a leash pulled taut.
Far behind, Edmun called out—something urgent, his voice raw with worry—but she could not hear. Her heartbeat thundered too loudly, drowning the world.
The path bent toward the swamp. Brackish salt thickened in the air, clinging to her tongue. Her legs moved forward, but her mind lagged a pace behind, dragging through the mire of thought.
Then—
A breath.
A hiss.
A fracture.
"Oh," came Caelinda's voice, sharp as bone splintering beneath weight.
"So she's your rose now?"
It was not spoken through air. It did not pass through ears. It pierced directly into bone, vibrating through her bones like a struck chord.
And with it, the nature reacted.
Somewhere in the woods, a tree collapsed, yet made no sound.
One Crusader halted, staring blankly as his memory emptied; he could no longer recall what year it was, or who had given him his name.
Caelinda stared at Arkeia.
No words. No movement. Just the steady, unblinking pressure of her gaze beneath the shadow of her hood.
And Arkeia felt it. Felt it like a needle pressed to the skin—cold, precise, threatening to break through. Her breath caught, but she dared not meet that gaze. To look would have been to acknowledge the claim within it. To challenge. To surrender. She kept her eyes forward, though her neck burned with the weight of Caelinda's attention.
Balfazar, walking between them, grinned. His lips curved with the delight of a spectator at a play where every actor had forgotten their lines. He watched their silence bloom into a violence more exquisite than any spoken threat.
And then, quiet enough that none could claim to have heard, he whispered.
The mist stirred. It recoiled from his words, parting as if some unseen gate had been opened. Above, the sky quivered. Clouds staggered like drunks, then wheeled into sudden symmetry, stars winking into places they had not been a heartbeat before. Nature followed suit: the wind reversed its sigh, the branches realigned, and shadows straightened as though ashamed of their rebellion.
And then—without warning—day collapsed. The horizon bled black, light pouring away as if tipped from the edge of the world. Night surged in like ink spilt across parchment, staining everything it touched.
At last, beyond the veil of settling darkness, Fort Dawnrise emerged.
Its towers rose jagged and solemn against the new-forged night, like judgment carved in stone. Lantern-fires guttered along its ramparts, their flames bending inward as though bowing to the figure who approached.
The air thickened, and the company knew—without needing to speak—that the threshold of revelation had been reached.
Its towers shimmered silver beneath the cold, impartial moon, each spire glinting like the edge of a blade honed by centuries. Banners of holy flame unfurled in the night wind, their embroidered fire flickering with stubborn pride. The gates stood tall and sealed, carved from iron-dark stone, their weight less a barrier than a verdict. The whole silhouette of Fort Dawnrise rose in sacred defiance, a citadel that had endured when kingdoms fell and faiths fractured.
Arkeia stared, her breath trembling in her throat.
"…I was saved here," she whispered, almost to herself, as though the fortress might remember her words.
Her eyes drank the spires, the battlements, the scarred but unbroken walls. "I was trained beneath those towers. It was a safe haven far from your family's poison." She swallowed hard, the weight of the name pressing like ash on her tongue. "…My home. My sanctuary… away from the curse of the Rex name."
Balfazar chuckled. His silence was deliberate, sharp as a knife pressed flat against the pulse of her throat.
His smirk shattered the silence like glass dropped in a cathedral.
"…Sadly," he murmured, voice smooth as venom, "they're less a family and more a sickness—pathogenic, contagious."
The mist seemed to catch the jest. It curled upward, quivering with mirth, grinning alongside him—its shifting folds bending into mouths that were not mouths, smiling wider than any human lips could dare.
Then it sank low again, thick and unwilling, coiling about their feet like a reluctant tide. It rose in slow drapes, a curtain before a stage that dreaded its own performance. Here, it did not welcome. It resisted. The fog remembered too much—battles waged against these walls, sacrifices burned in the name of pillars, blood spilt and soaked into the fort's shadow. It remembered triumph and ruin both, and could not decide which weighed heavier.
And Arkeia felt it, deep in her bones. The closer they came, the more her knees dragged, as though stone weights were fastened to her legs.
"I don't know if this is memory or prophecy," she thought, her chest tightening. "But the nearer I step, the heavier I feel. As if the fortress itself remembers me, and waits for me to kneel again."
Above, the spires loomed like watching eyes. Below, the ground whispered like a prayer choked halfway through.