The temple reeked of blood.

Smoke clung to the rafters, mingling with the stench of iron. Sigils carved into the floor pulsed crimson, veins writhing like they were alive, each one drinking the blood dripping from Reith’s temple. She hung limp in the Rook’s grip, her hair tangled in his fist, lips trembling with broken breaths.

The heart-sigil beneath the altar throbbed like a second pulse. The seals threaded under every home in Merrow’s Rest were tethered here, primed, waiting, but not yet detonated. Only a surge that struck the heart-sigil itself would spill ruin into the village.

Soran saw none of it. He saw only her.

His wife.

A roar ripped out of him, raw and primal. His blade flared with fire, flames racing down steel forged with her ribbon bound inside its heart.

“Reith!”

He lunged. Steel met steel with a shriek, sparks showering the stones. The impact jarred the air, heat licking the rafters. For an instant, her body slipped free. She fell into his arms, her skin cold, her chest barely rising.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, clutching her close. His ember eyes burned wild, desperate. “Stay with me.”

Her lips parted, but only blood came.

The Rook’s shadow fell over them again. The hooked mask tilted, green eyes gleaming through narrow slits. His blade dripped black oil that hissed against stone. His voice was calm, too calm.

“Do you think love will save her, ember-eyes? Love is a leash. And tonight, it breaks.”

Soran laid her against the altar with shaking hands. He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, then rose. His blade burned hotter, flames devouring the air around him.

“I’ll come back,” he murmured. “Breathe for me.”

Power surged beneath the assassin’s cloak. A crystal shard glowed faintly against his ribs, bleeding stolen mana into his veins. Crimson aura doubled, streaked with alien gold.

Reith’s hazy eyes widened. Her voice rasped, cracked: “That power… it’s not his…”

The Rook smiled behind the cracked beak of his mask. “A gift. From one who wishes you erased. Body and soul.”

Blue light split the gloom.

Ciel Valdy stepped forward, his blade drawn, grief blazing in his eyes. Lightning snarled around him, cracking against the temple walls, every spark a mirror of the storm inside his chest. His voice shook, not with doubt but with conviction, when he called her name.

“Reith.”

Her heart lurched. For a moment she thought she had misheard, but the word echoed in the broken chamber, raw and certain. Not Nahida. Not the sister he had once lost. He saw her for who she was, and still he stood for her.

Reith’s throat tightened. She wanted to beg him to run, to live, to survive. The word tangled in her chest, caught between tears and blood. “Ciel…”

His gaze softened for a heartbeat, lightning flickering in his eyes. “You are not her,” he said, voice breaking. “But you are still my little sister. Maybe not the same, maybe not in blood, but I will protect you all the same.”

Her vision blurred with tears. Shock carved through her chest, sharper than any blade. No one had ever spoken to her like that, with such fierce, unconditional love. She reached out as if she could stop him, as if her hand alone could hold him back. “Please, don’t. I cannot lose you.”

He smiled faintly, grief and resolve blending in his expression. “Then don’t lose me. Watch me stand for you.”

Soran stepped forward, his fire burning brighter as he brushed Ciel’s shoulder. His voice was low, steady, and heavy with unspoken trust. “Together”

For a heartbeat, the two men stood side by side. Fire and storm. Brothers not by blood, but bound by the woman behind them.

The Rook raised his blade, disdain dripping from every word. “Then die together.”

The temple shook with their clash.

Soran struck high, fire trailing like molten banners. The assassin parried, sparks blinding. Ciel swept low, lightning arcing from his sword into the stones. The floor cracked and screamed.

The Rook staggered back, his mask catching firelight. For the first time, his boots slipped.

Reith clawed the altar with bleeding nails. “Please. Please stop.”

Her words drowned in the storm.

The Rook countered. The shard pulsed. His hooked blade blurred with speed beyond mortal. He slashed Soran’s side open, fire and blood spraying. Soran snarled through the pain, his return strike carving a burning gash across the assassin’s shoulder.

Ciel lunged, blade piercing through the cloak. Lightning burst, scorching flesh. The stench filled the chamber.

For a heartbeat, hope flickered.

The Rook faltered, black blood streaking his sleeve, mask cracked, eyes seething.

Then the shard pulsed again. The crimson veins on the floor writhed like arteries. His strength doubled. Tripled.

He lashed out, a single blow hurling Soran across the chamber. Ember fire sputtered as he slammed into the wall, bones cracking, blood spraying his lips.

“No!” Reith’s scream cracked the air. She dragged herself upright, knees scraping stone.

Ciel’s roar answered her. “You’ll not touch her again!”

He leapt, blade high. Sparks hissed as steel met steel. The Rook twisted, hooked blade locking his. A cruel flick, a sharp pull—

The blade carved across Ciel’s ribs, blood spraying. He staggered, coughed, then forced himself forward again. “Come on then! I’ll die before I let you—”

“You will,” the assassin said, flat as a hammer on an anvil.

They fought like madmen.

Soran crawled from rubble, ribs screaming, vision red. He forced himself up. Fire roared along his blade, his whole body burning. Ciel’s storm surged beside him, grief crackling.

Together, they drove the Rook back. His cloak smoldered, his arm blackened where lightning bit. His mask cracked wider. For a moment, it seemed enough.

The shard pulsed, crimson veins writhing, strength grotesquely doubling.

The Rook moved faster than shadows. His hooked blade sang. He cut them down piece by piece. Soran’s forearm split to the bone. Ciel’s thigh poured rivers of blood. Still they stood. Still they struck.

Because Reith was behind them.

Because she was watching.

The end came swift.

The assassin’s blade swept for Soran’s throat.

Ciel saw it. He shoved forward, raising his sword to block.

Too slow.

The hook blurred. With a single brutal twist, the blade tore through Ciel’s neck. His body jerked once, lightning bursting from severed flesh in wild, desperate arcs before sputtering into silence.

Reith’s scream split the temple, raw and unending.

Ciel’s head spun across the stones, violet  eyes still wide, lips parted as if he had tried to call her name in that final heartbeat. His body fell twitching, sparks crawling uselessly across the blood pooling beneath him.

Her hands shook against the altar, reaching for him though he was already gone.

Soran’s roar shook the rafters. Fury broke him wide open. Fire exploded from his body, rising higher than it ever had before, curling along the pillars and devouring the air itself. His eyes blazed molten, fixed only on the assassin who had just slaughtered the brother she had regained only to lose again.

He lunged, blade blazing like a falling star. The strike tore through the Rook’s side, carving deep into flesh. Black blood sprayed, sizzling as it struck the fire.

The assassin staggered, his mask cracking wider, his body shaking. For the barest moment, victory glimmered.

Then the shard pulsed.

Crimson veins writhed across the floor, feeding him again. His strength surged, grotesque and unnatural. He twisted, moving faster than Reith’s eyes could follow. His hooked blade flashed silver in the firelight.

It swept not for Soran’s chest this time, but for Reith where she knelt behind the altar.

Soran saw.

With the last of his strength, he stepped between them.

The steel kissed his throat.

The sound was sharp, wet, final. A red line split open beneath his jaw. Blood gushed in a fountain, hot and violent, spraying across Reith’s face and the altar stone. His fire guttered. The blade slipped from his hand, clattering to the floor with a hollow ring.

He sank to his knees, body shuddering, still keeping himself between her and the assassin. His ember eyes dimmed slowly, but not before they found her one last time.

“Reith,” he whispered, his voice wet and broken, lips trembling with the word.

His body fell forward beside Ciel’s corpse, blood pouring across the floor until it mingled with Ciel.

The world collapsed around her.

Reith’s heart cracked open. Her vision blurred, not with tears alone but with the unbearable truth before her eyes. The two men who had shielded her, who had fought until their last breath to protect her, who had been her anchor, her family, her only home, now lay slaughtered at her feet.

Her scream rose again, louder than the storm outside, tearing through the night like something breaking that could never be mended.

The Rook stumbled back, eyes wide. For the first time his voice shook. “No… no, this is impossible.”

Her scream splintered into silence. Then, through her tears, the body moved without her will. The turquoise glow bled from the bones outward, searing the edges of her vision. The grief was no longer hers alone, it was ancient, vaster, merciless. Nahida had awakened.

It was not Reith anymore.

It was Nahida Valdy.

Her hands spread. Sapphire torrents raced along the ground, shattering the blood seals beneath the temple. The shockwave raced outward, tearing through the earth beneath Merrow’s Rest. Hidden sigils under every home cracked apart, burning into dust before they could consume the village.

The Rook screamed and lunged. Nahida caught his blade in her palm. The artifact shrieked as blue fire curled around it like vines. It blackened and cracked.

She whispered a word in Elvish, too sharp for human tongues.

The storm tore through him. Flesh ripped. Bone splintered. His mask exploded into fragments. His green eyes widened before sapphire fire devoured him whole. He fell to ash.

Silence.

Nahida turned. Her turquoise glow faltered at the sight of Ciel’s headless body. Her hand hovered above him, trembling. For a heartbeat she looked like a sister again. Her lips trembled with one word.

“Brother.”

The glow burned brighter, and Reith felt herself being pulled. She stumbled into a realm of broken glass, face to face with Nahida’s soul framed in fire.

Her voice was steady, sharp with intelligence, laced with sarcasm that cut like steel.

“You. You have caused so many to die. Even the one I loved. My brother. Do not think fate bends for your mistakes.”

Reith’s voice cracked. “I did not mean to. I never—”

“Meaning is nothing,” Nahida cut her voice sharp as glass. Her turquoise gaze burned, not only with power but with the grief of a sister who had lost too much. “This is the last time. Time is broken and cannot be remade. Live as me until I return. Do not waste another life. The hourglass is shattered, its sand burned to ash. Time itself is a corpse. Fail again, and you will not only lose, you will drag us all into the grave with you.”

Her tone shifted, mocking and sorrowful in equal measure. “Focus on what I told you. Protect Sinclair. No matter what else tempts you, every other path ends in slaughter. Protect him and you may yet see a future worth living.”

Reith’s lips trembled. “And if I fail?”

Nahida’s eyes narrowed. The shy girl she had once been flickered for an instant, then vanished beneath steel.

“Then you will carry the corpses of thousands. And you will deserve it.”

The sapphire glow dimmed. Only her shadow lingered in the glass. Her final words rang cold as iron.

“Remember. Protect Sinclair. Any other road leads to death.”

The light snapped shut.

Warmth.

It was the first thing she felt.

Her body was heavy, her breath shallow, as though she had been dragged through centuries of darkness only to awaken again. Warmth pressed against her palm. A hand. Human. Trembling faintly, clutching her as though she were the last thread keeping him tethered to life.

Her fingers twitched. Instantly, the grip tightened. Desperate. Protective.

Her lashes fluttered open.

The carved beams of polished wood loomed above her, the pale silk canopy threaded with glimmers of mana. Shadows stretched long across the chamber, flickering with candlelight. The air stung with the bitter tang of herbs, incense heavy as if prayers had been layered into the walls.

And then she saw him.

Ciel.

His black hair hung loose across his pale face, his violet eyes glistening with sleeplessness and grief. The same face she had seen torn apart in the temple, severed and gone. Yet here he sat at her bedside, alive. Whole. His hand wrapped around hers as though letting go would mean death.

Her heart stopped.

It was the same beginning.

A shuddering breath left her lips. In her ears, Nahida’s voice echoed, not soft, not merciful, but cutting, intelligent, edged with sorrow and cruel clarity.

“This is the last time. Time itself is shattered. It cannot be reversed again. Live as me until I return. Protect Sinclair. If you fail, the corpses of thousands will weigh on you, and you will deserve it.”

Reith’s throat clenched. Tears blurred her eyes.

She was back in Nahida’s body. Back where it had all begun.

But this time she knew what waited at the end of this road. Blood. Screams. Ciel’s head falling. Soran’s throat cut open. The village burning. And Nahida’s turquoise gaze staring at her through the glass of a broken soul.

Her lips parted, trembling. She wanted to cry out his name. To warn him. To confess. But the words clung to her tongue like chains.

Ciel leaned closer, his voice breaking with relief as it had before.

“Nahi. You are awake. Thank the stars.”

The name pierced her chest.

And this time, it did not feel like ice.

It felt like a noose.

Reith swallowed hard, fingers curling tight around his hand, as if by holding on she could change everything. As if her grip alone could defy the will of time, of gods, of fate.

But Nahida’s voice lingered still, echoing in the marrow of her bones.

“Protect Sinclair. He is the last spark in the ashes. Choose any other road, and it will end in corpses, yours among them.”

Reith let her gaze soften, warmth threading through the tension in her chest.

She stepped closer, her voice low but steady.

“It’s good to be here with you, brother.”

Ciel’s eyes flickered, startled, aching, as though he had been waiting lifetimes to hear her say those words.