The morning sun filtered softly through the thick canopy of trees, casting broken beams of light upon the earth. Dew still clung to the forest floor like tears that the world itself couldn't stop shedding.
Outside the mountain-sized rock that housed the hidden cave, the remaining Daemirans stood in silence beneath the towering trees. They had survived the battle in District 1, but not without cost. Their faces were heavy, grief etched into the lines around their eyes, rage burning quietly behind clenched jaws. Others trembled in pain, their bodies whole but their spirits fractured.
But they had not gathered to mourn in silence alone.
They came to lay to rest the fallen. Those who had died with honor, with fury, with love. Among the many, one body lay on a neatly stacked pyre of wood at the center.
Beatrix.
She lay as if in sleep, her red hair brushed carefully back, her face calm and untouched by the violence of her death. Helga stood beside her mother, unmoving, her young face awash in tears. Her eyes held no innocence now—only sorrow and seething rage. Memories flickered in her mind like dying embers: her mother's laughter, her teachings, her warmth. All gone. All stolen.
Behind her, Sade approached quietly, her presence gentle but heavy. She laid a hand on Helga's shoulder. Her fingers trembled.
Sade had always been strong. The one everyone turned to. The warrior, the protector. But now, with Beatrix gone, she felt like a pillar cracked down the middle. Her throat burned from holding back sobs she refused to let fall. Until finally, one tear slipped past her resolve and rolled down her cheek.
In her other hand, she held a burning torch.
"You should do it," Sade said softly, her voice breaking.
Helga took the torch. Her fingers closed around the handle like it was the last thing tethering her to sanity. With trembling steps, she moved forward and lowered the flame onto the wood.
The fire caught quickly, crackling, hissing, roaring to life.
She stepped back, watching the flames consume her mother's body and with it, a piece of herself. All around them, the Daemirans remained still, bound in the gravity of death. No words were spoken. No songs were sung.
Only silence.
Eventually, they began to leave, one by one, swallowed back into the cave or the forest beyond.
Helga remained. She didn't blink. Didn't breathe.
Then, a warm hand rested on her shoulder.
"It's okay," Sade whispered.
The child turned and buried herself in Sade's arms. Sade held her tightly, whispering nothing, just letting her feel that she wasn't alone.
When Helga finally pulled away and walked back toward the cave, Sade remained where she stood, watching the fire. The flames reflected in her eyes like ghosts.
She heard someone behind her.
"I'm surprised… you're still alive," Sade said without turning.
A woman's voice answered, calm and laced with subtle amusement. "If I had died there, the outcome would've been far worse. Looks like Jonathan was right… I wonder what lies ahead."
Sade didn't respond.
"I don't know," the woman continued, stepping forward, "but I have a bad feeling about her. For someone so young to possess such power—"
"I don't care what you feel, Greta," Sade snapped, turning sharply.
Greta stopped. Sade's eyes were fierce, wet with restrained emotion, the pain of loss blazing behind them.
Of course, Greta thought. Beatrix and her daughter were the only family Sade truly had.
"Teacher!"
The sound broke through the tension like sunlight through storm clouds. A child's voice, clear and innocent.
A small girl, no more than five years old, ran up to Greta and hugged her leg.
Sade's eyes fell on the child, and for a moment, she froze. The girl's wide brown eyes reminded her too much of Beatrix so much so that it felt like a knife had been pushed into her chest.
She looked away.
Greta looked at Sade. The two women exchanged a long, quiet glance, saying things that words could never carry.
"Teacher," the little girl repeated, tugging at Greta's sleeve.
Without another word, Greta turned from Sade and placed a hand on the child's head.
"Let's go."
Together, they walked back toward the cave. Sade watched them go, her eyes fixed on the little girl.
Then she turned back to the fire, standing alone with the ashes of memory.
——————————
Somewhere Unknown
The room was vast and ancient, carved into the hollow of a mountain, yet its ceiling was lost in darkness. The air hung thick with incense and the scent of dried blood. Obsidian pillars lined the walls like sentinels, and at the center stretched a long black table, polished until it reflected the flicker of the crimson torches that burned without smoke.
Sigrid sat at one end, legs crossed, arms resting on the armrest of a high-backed stone throne. Her eyes scanned the room with cold disinterest, though she remained alert. At the opposite end sat Ivor, his hulking frame bent slightly forward, fingers laced together in thought. Between them, the space was vast, more symbolic than practica, like a chasm between ideologies.
Seated quietly beside Ivor was a man in a red priesthood cloak. The fabric shimmered subtly with arcane sigils woven into the threads, a silent declaration of his rank. His hood was pulled low, concealing his face entirely. He hadn't moved since they arrived, sitting still as death.
Then a voice spoke from the shadows, low, guttural, and reverberating with unnatural depth.
"IT WAS JUST AS I EXPECTED."
The walls vibrated. The torches flared, casting warped shadows like dancing spirits. It wasn't a voice meant to be heard. It was meant to be obeyed.
Ivor barely blinked, though his jaw tensed. "We took Beatrix lightly… it seems she figured it out just before the end."
Sigrid gave a short, bitter laugh. "The Beatrix I killed wasn't the Beatrix I knew. Something about her felt... hollow. When I struck her, it was like her soul had already begun to unravel. She wasn't whole. She was dying before I touched her."
"Fragmented," the man in the red hood echoed, speaking for the first time. His voice, distorted and breathy, seemed to come from beneath the earth itself. "A clever trick. She must have split her essence… a spiritual decoy."
Ivor cursed quietly, then leaned back in his chair. "And the Book?"
"The Book of History is gone," the red priest said. "Taken by the Messenger. Mark of Xec."
Sigrid stiffened. "He was there?"
The man nodded slowly. "He was working with Absalom. That much is clear now."
A pause. Then Ivor whispered, "That clever bastard."
"But it doesn't matter," the red priest continued. "Jonathan's seeds are still in place. The Church will ensure they do not awaken prematurely."
The silence stretched again. It was tense, heavy, filled with unspoken things.
And then the voice in the dark returned, louder, filled with command:
"WE WILL PROCEED AS PLANNED… THE TIME DRAWS NEAR. SOON, WE SHALL CREATE A NEW WORLD."
The torches flared violently, casting the room in bright crimson for a moment before dimming again. Something unseen shifted in the shadows. The very stone beneath their feet trembled subtly.
Ivor exhaled and murmured, "Let's just hope the next soul we underestimate doesn't rise from the grave too."
Sigrid leaned forward slightly, her face half-lit in firelight. "They're getting bolder. And desperate. That's when people become dangerous."
The red priest stood. "Desperation is the seed of revolution. But revolutions are easy to crush... when you're the one writing the prophecy."
He turned, the hem of his cloak whispering across the floor like dried leaves.
Sigrid's gaze followed him briefly, then returned to the shadows at the far end of the room.
"Tell me something," she said into the silence, not sure if the voice still listened. "If Beatrix split her soul… where's the other half now?"
No answer came.
Only silence, and the sense that something far older than any of them was watching from the dark.