The first thing Alice Vortex felt was wrongness.
Not the kind that screamed.
Not the kind that announced itself with blood or fire. This wrongness was subtle—woven into the air, stitched into the silence. It pressed against her senses like a hand over the mouth of the world, muting everything it touched.
She stood at the edge of the ruined capital, white robes stirring in the ash-laced wind. Once, this city had been called Halcyon, a sanctuary devoted to learning and healing.
Now it was a corpse that had not yet realized it was dead.
Stones were melted into warped, kneeling shapes. Towers leaned as if exhausted by the effort of standing. The streets were empty—not because people were gone, but because fear had learned how to hide itself.
Alice closed her eyes.
Light answered.
Not blinding. Not holy in the way sermons described it. The light she wielded was soft, aching, almost human. It spread through her chest and outward, touching the ruins gently, like fingers brushing over scars.
And then—
Something pushed back.
Her breath caught.
That was new.
Light was meant to flow. Darkness was meant to retreat. That was the natural order she had been taught since childhood. Since the day priests whispered prophecy over her crib and marked her brow with gold ash.
The Saintess of the Dawn.
The One Who Will Redeem the Black King.
Alice had never liked that title.
Redemption, she had learned, was not something you did to another person. It was something they had to reach for themselves. All she could do was stand where the fall ended—if they chose to stop falling.
She opened her eyes.
At the center of the ruined city, upon a throne carved from broken stone and fused bone, sat Karl Olsan.
No—she corrected herself instinctively.
That was not his first name.
The man before her wore power like a second skin. Black armor traced with crimson runes hugged his frame, not bulky but precise, as if forged specifically to contain what lived inside him.
A tattered cloak spilled behind the throne like a shadow that refused to detach.
His face was young. Too young for the weight he carried.
Silver hair fell loosely around sharp features, framing eyes that glowed faintly red—not with rage, but with exhaustion sharpened into cruelty.
Those eyes lifted the moment Alice stepped fully into the square.
They locked onto her.
The air thickened.
So this was her.
Karl felt her before he truly saw her. The light she carried scraped against his senses like a blade drawn slowly across stone. It was invasive. Curious. Annoyingly gentle.
Saintess.
He hated that word.
Not because it frightened him—but because it reminded him of everything he had once wanted to believe in.
He did not rise from the throne.
"Are you lost," he asked, voice calm, distant, dangerously restrained, "or suicidal?"
Alice did not flinch.
She took another step forward.
"I came to speak with you," she said. Her voice was steady, but not hard. It carried warmth without submission, resolve without arrogance. "Not to fight."
Karl laughed.
It was a soft sound, almost incredulous.
"You walked into a city I erased," he said. "Alone. Wearing white. And you think words will survive where armies didn't?"
"I don't think they'll survive," Alice replied. "I think you might."
That did it.
Something sharp flickered behind Karl's eyes—an echo of a life he buried deep, under blood and divinity and contempt. His fingers tightened on the armrest of the throne, stone cracking under the pressure.
"You saints are all the same," he said. "You see a monster and assume there's a man begging to be saved inside."
"There is," Alice said quietly.
The ground trembled.
Dark energy rolled outward from Karl like a tide, pressing against her light, testing it.
Buildings groaned. Cracks spidered through the square. Alice staggered—but she did not fall.
She held.
"I didn't come to save you," she continued, breath shallow now. "I came to ask you something."
Karl leaned forward slightly, interest threading through his disdain.
"Oh?"
"What do you want?"
The question struck deeper than any spell.
Not what do you plan.
Not what will you conquer.
But what do you want.
For a fraction of a second—so brief even the god watching through Karl's eyes nearly missed it—Alucard surfaced.
A memory of a small room.
A cracked ceiling. A boy staring into imagined skies because the real one offered nothing.
Karl stood abruptly.
The throne shattered behind him.
"You don't get to ask me that," he said, stepping down into the square. With each step, the darkness followed, coiling around his limbs like loyal beasts. "You don't get to psychoanalyze me like I'm some broken pet."
"I know you hate humans," Alice said. "But you're still speaking to one."
That made him stop.
Slowly, he smiled.
A cold, surgical thing.
"No," he said. "I'm speaking to a symbol. A lie wrapped in flesh. You exist to make people feel better about a world that eats them alive."
Alice met his gaze without wavering.
"And you exist to punish it."
Silence.
The god inside Karl stirred, displeased.
End her, it whispered. She weakens you.
Karl ignored it.
"You think I do this because I enjoy it?" he asked suddenly. "Because I like being feared?"
Alice didn't answer immediately.
She took another step closer—close enough now that she could see the scars beneath his armor. Not all of them physical.
"No," she said at last. "I think you do it because ruling is the only way you've found to never be powerless again."
The words landed like a blade wrapped in velvet.
Karl's hand rose, fingers trembling—not with rage, but with something far more dangerous.
Recognition.
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know despair," Alice said. "And I know when someone mistakes it for purpose."
The square darkened. The sky above twisted, clouds spiraling unnaturally as Karl's power surged. This time, Alice fell to one knee, light flickering.
Karl loomed over her.
"Careful," he said softly. "You're standing at the edge of a god's patience."
Alice looked up at him.
Tears welled in her eyes—not from fear, but from grief.
"Then why," she whispered, "do you still look so lonely?"
The god screamed.
Inside Karl's mind, chains rattled. The presence that had fed him hatred recoiled, hissing as Alice's light brushed against something it had claimed.
She sees too much.
Karl staggered back, clutching his head.
"Get out," he growled. "Leave. Now."
Alice rose unsteadily.
"I will," she said. "But I'll come back."
He laughed again—hoarse, broken.
"Why?"
She turned, pausing at the edge of the square.
"Because you don't want to be worshipped," she said without looking back. "You want to be chosen."
Then she was gone.
Karl stood alone amid the ruins, the echo of her presence lingering like an unanswered question.
For the first time since his rebirth, the throne behind him felt unbearably empty.
And somewhere deep within, a voice he thought long dead whispered:
What if she's right?