They moved like hunger given legs.
The bandits tightened their circle around Serena as if the forest itself belonged to them, boots crushing damp leaves, voices low with anticipation. Their laughter carried the careless confidence of men who had spent too long in a world where order had broken and no one had been strong enough to force it back into place.
Serena stood in the center of them, still as a carved figure. The white dress Niqael had put on her clung softly to her body, catching pale fragments of light that filtered through the canopy. Her silver hair moved faintly with the wind, heavy and wave-like all the way down her back, and her violet eyes remained open and empty, unfocused in the way a blade might be unfocused before it was swung.
One of the men stepped closer, licking his lips as though he could already taste the profit.
"You've got no one with you, do you?" he murmured, voice sweetened with false comfort. "That's a shame. A girl like you shouldn't be wandering alone."
Serena waited one breath. She did not answer, because Niqael had not permitted speech. The bandit's smile widened.
"Oh, she's quiet," he said to the others, amused. "Even better."
Another moved to her side, reaching for her arm. "We can sell her in the next town. Someone'll pay good coin for that hair alone."
"And before that," a third added, leaning in too close, "we can make sure she remembers us."
Their hands started to reach for her, greedy and careless. Fingers brushed fabric, slid toward skin. The circle narrowed, a living trap with Serena at its center.
Niqael watched from the shadows with the patience of something that did not need to hurry. He had hidden not to protect her, but to observe. If she required his interference, then she was incomplete. If she could not handle human predators, then she would never survive what waited beyond this world.
A weapon did not ask to be saved.It should perform.
A bandit grabbed Serena's wrist. The instant his fingers closed around her skin, something in the air changed. It wasn't visible at first. There was no light, no spark, no dramatic flare of power. It was simply… pressure. The forest seemed to tense, as though every tree had pulled its roots deeper into the earth.
Serena's eyes flickered.
The bandit laughed, mistaking her stillness for submission. "There we go," he said, tightening his grip. "Not so hard, is it—"
He never finished the sentence. Serena moved. It was not a swing, not a struggle, not a messy attempt to break free. Her arm snapped upward with absolute control, and the bandit's wrist shattered like brittle glass. He screamed, more in surprise than pain, and before his lungs could pull in another breath, Serena's other hand closed around his throat.
For a heartbeat, the forest went silent. Then the man exploded into ash. His body pulverizing.
His body collapsed inward as if all solidity had been stripped away, and what remained scattered across the ground in a fine grey dust, drifting like dead snow between moss and roots. His weapon clattered to the soil, suddenly useless and ownerless.
The others froze. Their confidence broke in an instant, snapping into disbelief.
"What the—" one of them choked.
Serena turned her head slowly. Her violet gaze landed on the next closest man, and the way she looked at him wasn't human. He stumbled backward, suddenly remembering that prey could become predator when the world stopped pretending it was safe.
"Get her!" someone barked, voice cracking.
Two bandits lunged at once, blades flashing. Serena stepped aside with smooth, almost graceful precision. The first blade missed entirely. The second grazed the fabric of her dress, slicing linen, but Serena did not react to the damage. She caught the attacker's forearm with one hand.
The man tried to wrench free while Serena's grip tightened. The bones in his arm collapsed with a wet crunch, and before his scream could properly escape, his entire body imploded the same way the first had.
The dust scattered across Serena's dress and hair in faint specks, settling like powder on snow. The remaining bandits backed away, horror spreading across their faces like infection.
"She's not—" one of them gasped. "She's not human."
Serena took one step forward. They ran. They ran like animals, scrambling over roots, tripping through brush, desperate to put distance between themselves and the thing that had turned their friend into nothing.
Serena did not chase them, she simply lifted her hand, feeling the air change once more around her, as though it had turned thick and heavy. The fleeing bandits convulsed mid-stride, bodies locking in place. For an instant they were frozen like dolls. Then they shattered. Exactly as the other two.
Ash rained through the clearing, drifting slowly down to cover the ground in a thin layer of grey. Weapons fell empty. Bags hit the earth with soft thuds. A few coins spilled out and rolled into the moss. Silence returned.
Serena stood in the center of it all.
Her white dress was torn slightly at the hem, dusted with ash. Her hair moved faintly with the wind, silver still gleaming beneath the grey powder. Her violet eyes remained empty.
No awareness of what she had done beyond the fact that it had been done. Niqael stepped out of the shadow of the trees.
The magic hiding him unwound like smoke, revealing his full height and presence as he approached the clearing. He stopped a few paces from Serena, his gaze moving over the ash at her feet, the scattered weapons, the absence of bodies.
A slow, deliberate smile formed at the corner of his mouth with triumph.
"You did not hesitate," he said.
Serena faced him. She waited one breath, then spoke because the silence required it.
"They attempted to restrain me," she said, voice even.
Niqael's smile widened.
"Yes," he murmured, stepping closer. His gold eyes traced the scene again, drinking in the evidence. "And you eliminated them."
Serena's expression did not change.
"Yes."
Niqael circled her once, inspecting the torn fabric, the ash clinging faintly to her skin. His hand lifted, brushing a grey streak from her shoulder with an almost careless motion.
She did not react.
Niqael's satisfaction sharpened into something colder and more profound. This was proof. Proof that his work had succeeded. That the stolen bloodlines, the grimoire, the war, the sacrifices—it had all built toward something real.
A weapon strong enough to survive the path back to where he truly belonged. A weapon to take him home.
He lifted Serena's chin, forcing her to look directly at him.
"You will come with me," he said quietly. "To my world."
Serena waited one breath.
"Yes," she replied.
Niqael released her and turned his gaze toward the trees, already scanning for threats, already planning the next stage of their journey. The Fire Nation's forest had served its purpose. His lair beneath it would not remain hidden forever—not with war raging above, patrols increasing, magic being hunted and blamed. They needed to leave soon.
Niqael began to walk, expecting Serena to follow. She did. Behind them, ash settled into the moss like a grave marker without names. Neither of them noticed the movement deeper in the forest. A shadow shifting behind a thick tree trunk, concealed by bark and fear.A man, not a bandit.
Someone younger, leaner, holding his breath so hard it hurt, eyes wide as he watched the impossible. He had been tracking the bandits from a distance, keeping to the trees like a cautious animal, hoping to see where they hid their stolen goods. He had not expected to see a woman in white. He had not expected to see her turn men into dust.
His hand trembled where it gripped a branch. His throat constricted around a silent gasp. He stared at Serena as if looking at death wearing a human face.
Niqael's back was turned. Serena's was not. Her violet eyes shifted. For the briefest moment, her gaze landed on the shadow behind the tree, on him.
The man froze.
His heart hammered so loudly he was certain they must hear it. For one impossible second, he thought she would lift her hand and make him disappear as well. But Serena only looked.
Then she looked away again, as if he were no more significant than the wind.
The man swallowed, fighting the urge to scream. He turned and ran away.
His footsteps pounded through the undergrowth, branches whipping at his face as he fled blindly toward the nearest road, toward the nearest town, toward anyone who might believe him—or kill him for saying it.
Behind him, Serena continued walking after Niqael in perfect silence. And Niqael, satisfied and focused on the path ahead, never once looked back.