The smoke had begun to settle.
It hung in the sanctuary air like a whispered eulogy, soft and choking, curling around the fractured stone walls and the bodies that didn't rise.
Liora stood motionless in the center of it all.
The blood on her hands wasn't hers this time.
It was Dareth's.
Eliane was barely breathing. The wound on her thigh had festered faster than it should have. Soul-poison. Nasty. Almost impossible to purge once it latched.
Liora sat beside her now, both hands glowing faintly as she whispered healing spells into Eliane's skin.
The girl's breathing hitched, then steadied—barely.
"You saved me," Eliane mumbled, eyelids fluttering.
"No," Liora replied. "I failed to protect you in the first place."
The truth tasted bitter.
Behind them, Dareth groaned, propped against the broken altar with a makeshift bandage around his ribs. It was soaked through, crimson turning black at the edges.
Still, he grinned.
"So… remind me never to piss off a Choir assassin again."
Liora didn't smile.
She couldn't.
Because she knew what none of them had the strength to say aloud.
The Pale Choir never attacked unless the Circle gave the order.
Which meant this wasn't just a warning.
This was war.
Later that night, Liora stepped outside the sanctuary ruins.
The sky above was a violent blue, torn between stars and the last hints of flame from the chaos hours ago.
She knelt in the blackened grass.
The Hollow Flame inside her pulsed, quieter now. Exhausted. Like a wolf after a kill.
She closed her eyes.
And saw him.
Callux.
In the dream-memory realm the Echo opened, he appeared just as he had the night he died—eyes full of regret, skin laced with Veil scars.
"You're bleeding from the wrong wounds, Liora."
"I'm tired of bleeding at all."
"Then stop caring."
"I can't."
Callux's image flickered.
"Then you're not ready."
She reached for him, but he vanished.
Only the flames remained.
Inside, Eliane had fallen asleep against the wall, hand twitching as if clutching something from a dream.
Dareth didn't sleep.
Liora found him standing, half-collapsed, at the far edge of the ruins.
"You should be resting."
He looked at her—eyes sunken, body pale, but something fierce still flickering behind the fatigue.
"They're not going to stop. You know that, right?"
"I know."
"Then why aren't we running?"
Liora stepped close, brushing ash from his cheek.
"Because I'm done running."
She turned and walked away—but his voice stopped her.
"Why didn't you tell me about the soul fusion? About what you really saw in the Echo?"
She hesitated.
"Because once I say it out loud… I can't take it back."
He waited.
"I saw… fire. Death. Everyone I love. Gone."
"And?"
"And me. Alone. Always alone."
Dareth stepped forward, ignoring the pain. He wrapped his arms around her, forehead pressed to hers.
"Then fight harder. Because I won't let that vision come true."
"You might not get a choice."
"Then at least let me die fighting."
She flinched at the word "die."
"Don't say that."
"Why not? We both know it's coming. One of us isn't getting out of this."
She didn't reply.
Because deep down, she knew he was right.
That night, Liora climbed to the sanctuary's highest remaining spire. The stars above were indifferent. Cold. Unblinking.
She held the old amulet Alric had left behind—carved obsidian with a fragment of soulsteel at its core. It pulsed now, faintly.
Not just magical.
Awake.
A voice—familiar, low—whispered through her mind.
"You've awakened the first Gate. The soul fusion has triggered the ancestral Veil."
"Who are you?" she asked into the wind.
"I am what your father tried to bury."
The relic shimmered, revealing brief flashes of memory—images of Alric standing in the snow, covered in blood, surrounded by White Circle bodies. Holding something… someone.
A child?
Then the vision cracked, and the amulet fell silent.
"What the hell were you running from, Father?"
"And why did you leave me behind to clean it up?"
No answers came.
Just silence. And the growing hum of the Pale Choir closing in again.
At dawn, Eliane sat with her knees pulled to her chest.
"Do you think the Circle ever cared about what we were trying to build?"
Liora shook her head.
"The Circle only cares about control. Not people. Not change."
"Then let's burn it all down."
Liora smiled faintly, for the first time in days.
"We will."
But the smile faded as the wind shifted—and in it, a new scent.
Rot. Blood. Burned ash.
Liora stiffened.
"Get Dareth. Now."
Eliane limped toward the altar.
Liora drew her blade.
The woods were too quiet.
And then—
A single Pale Choir agent walked from the treeline, dragging a body behind him.
Someone familiar.
Someone small.
"MILA!"
Eliane screamed.
Liora's stomach dropped.
The child from the village who'd followed them two chapters ago. The girl who kept sneaking sweets to Dareth, who braided Eliane's hair while she meditated.
Her body was broken.
Used.
Displayed.
A warning.
The Choir agent smiled through his veil.
"She died begging. Your name on her lips."
Liora's magic exploded.
Fire roared from her skin.
She didn't speak. She didn't scream.
She just killed him.
Ripped the soul from his body and burned it so thoroughly that even the Hollow Flame wept.
When it was over, Mila's body lay in Liora's arms.
And she wept.
Truly.
No fire. No fury.
Just loss.
And a promise forged in blood.
"I'll end them all. Every last one."
Dareth said nothing.
Eliane wept with her.
And the Pale Choir, hidden beyond the hills, watched and smiled.
Because grief was the easiest path to ruin.