The adiaher Witch, Defender of the North, Junior Member of the Society of Sentinels, The Great Manitou’s Favoured Daughter, All-Around Hero, Friend. Mistral carried each title with solemn pride. Yet, if she were ho with herself, none resonated as deeply as that st one.

  And still, there were other names, ones she couldn’t shed: Jailer. Target. Victim. Gullible. Ms. Fiving to a Fault. Stubborn Fool. They whispered harsh truths that lingered ihoughts like ghosts, gnawing at her resolve in moments of doubt.

  After all these years of skirmishes—victories stoles endured, long hunts in fruitless pursuit—the woman responsible hovered before her again. This time, it was different. This time, it ersonal. This time, it was final.

  Bgel. Her nemesis. Her antithesis. Her aremy. Her jailer. Her lover. Her enemy.

  Her name carried immense weight. Others might attach titles of reverence or notoriety to her name, even admiration from certain twisted perspectives. But for Mistral, there was only ole that mattered: Vilin.

  The ebony-winged embodiment of despair had returned after their st brutal enter, where Mistral’s sheer endurance had eked out a hard-won victory. This time, Bgel’s attacks had beeatingly precise. Every move had been a message, culminating in Mistral’s capture and cruel torture. Now, their long dance was nearing its end. Both k. It was written in their expressions: anger, derision, hatred, longing, sorrow, determination.

  The viliness’s traps had already left scars across ada. Cities burned, people dispced. Mistral was drawn to these is like a moth to a fme, knowing it was bait a uo let it pass. Bgel’s challenge had been chilling in its simplicity: face her alone, or watch Garou—the wolfman who had fought alongside Mistral for years—bee her first casualty whe her revenge.

  It wasn’t smart. It was reckless, even suicidal. Yet, Mistral khis couldn’t go unanswered. Bgel had beore dangerous, her attacks more methodical, and her desire to pletely break Mistral apparent. To let this go meant ning tless others to the same fate or worse.

  Her enemy moved like chaos inate, striking uably across ada with a precision that belied her fa?ade of disorder. Teleportation through her void singurities granted Bgel a maddening advantage. Mistral’s own ability to open portals couldn’t trace or accurately follow her. The vilin’s darkness cloaked her iions too well. But Mistral knew her too intimately to be deceived by the veneer of randomness. Bgel’s chaos was nothing more than a web.

  The culmination was here. Mistral’s heart pounded as she soared through the jagged peaks of the Rockies, the site of their final frontation. The stage was set, desote and foreboding, far from anyone who could intervehe message was clear: this would be the end.

  The moment their eyes met, the world plunged into darkness.

  Bgel’s void unfolded across the Rocky Mountains like a shroud, obliterating light, swallowing even the fai flicker of hope. It was her signature move, one Mistral had tered tless times. But never like this. Never on such a colossal scale. The suffog void wasn’t merely the absence of light; it was a malevolent force, pressing against her with tangible weight. It was like the darkhat Mistral had faced wheried diving into her nemesis’ mind and soul. It was that potent darkness inate, suffusing the air.

  Mistral responded instantly. Her power surged outward, juring a tempest of snow that swirled invisibly through the darkness. Her ice-bound gusts filled the space, each particle ag as aension of her will, a map in the blind expanse. Bgel didn’t o see the storm to feel its presence, just as Mistral didn’t need light to anticipate her enemy’s moves.

  This time, Mistral was ready.

  Her e gleamed in her mind’s eye, a symbol of her newfound crity aermination. Her sky-blue cloak flowed over a white leotard that hugged her form. The inner lining of the cloak sparkled azure, refleg hope even in memory. Fred gloves in matg blue, and a tribal headdress adorned with sacred fetishes ed her silver-blonde hair. Blue boots hugged her legs, their soles reinforced for bat, while a leather belt tied the ensemble together. This was her decration of defiance, a promise to herself and to the Great Manitou that she would end this.

  The darkness was absolute. The stakes were dire. But Mistral’s resolve was unbreakable.

  This was not a game. This was war. And one of them wouldn’t leave these mountains alive.

  The air shifted.

  Mistral’s sharp intake of breath was barely audible over the howling winds. From her right came the faint whoosh of dispced air—a subtle shift that marked Bgel’s predatory movement. The vilin lurked in the darkness, a silent wraith, preparing to unleash devastating bsts of null energy. A siouch of those void singurities would spell her end, a power potent enough to obliterate her to ash in mere seds.

  Mistral narrowed her eyes, her lips moving with deliberate rhythm. Her t stayed steady, unwavering, as the storm ed arouhe winds whispered truths to her.

  Then it came—a ripple, faint but unmistakable.

  As expected.

  Fttening her palm, she summoned a sudden gust of wind that roared like a living thing, hurling her sideways just as a colossal bst of null energy obliterated the space she’d occupied a heartbeat before. Though her eyes could not see it, Mistral felt it—a searing absence, a ripple of annihition tearing through the air.

  She was right. Bgel was serious this time, relying not on trickery but raw power, ready to erase her with deadly precision. The realizatiht crity, not fear. The razor-thin edge Mistral had once held was gone. And knowing this made what she had to do far easier.

  Her breath steadied, slower, deeper. She sank into herself, into stillness, her focus a razor’s edge.

  The suffog darkness pressed in, Bgel’s chosen battlefield granting her overwhelming trol. But no advantage was absolute. Mistral khe limits of her nemesis well. Even here, in this imperable void, Bgel’s senses weren’t omnipotent. She might perceive outlines, movement, faint echoes, but Mistral made herself nearly uable—her footsteps ent, her movements silent. She forced Bgel to sh out blindly, wasting bst after bst oy air as she herself had in their st enter.

  A ugh cut through the void—sharp, mog, tinged with arroga echoed off unseen walls, a deliberate taunt. Bgel couldn’t resist.

  “Hahaha! Just as I expected! What now, little shaman? A puff of air from your a pythings?” Her voice was a dagger dipped in mockery. “Careful! Use that power too freely, and maybe your pets will chew through their leashes. Wouldn’t that be poetic?”

  The deliberate rhythm of fpping wings followed, a sou to intimidate, to overwhelm. The air filled with its cacophony, as if a thousand crows circled her at once. Mistral ched her fists but kept her focus on her t. Her lips moved almost imperceptibly, maintaining the rhythm that drove her growing storm.

  The vilin’s ego betrayed her.

  Bgel’s mastery over frequencies—light, sound, gravity, the very essence of the darkness—was formidable, but her o domio funt her superiority, always revealed more thaended.

  Unseen, Mistral allowed herself a small, grim smile. Keep talking, Angel. Feed the storm.

  Another ripple passed behind her, a whisper of movement she ignored. Instead, she poured her energy into the growing tempest. The winds roared louder, a frenzied cacophony of power building to a cresistral floated in the eye of the storm, silent and still. Her t shifted, the ce sharpening, as snow and ice burst outward in a biting flurry.

  Above, Bgel’s sneer cut through the howling wind. “Your bluff is as pathetic as you, Shaman!”

  The insult came with a pulse of void energy—a ripple in the air that betrayed Bgel’s position. Mistral’s eyes snapped open, her t quiing.

  Now!

  The tempest imploded. Winds colpsed inward, hurling Mistral skyward like an arrow loosed from a bow. Below her, the storm funneled into a swirling singurity. A trap. As always. Bgel rayed far from her prey.

  Mistral let the divine energy of the Great Manitou surge through her veins. Radiant power spilled forth, saturating the battlefield in blinding light. Fmes of purity erupted from the void, slig through Bgel’s oppressive shadows like divine swords.

  The effort tore at her—her reserves dwindled with every passing moment—but the gamble was worth it. The light was too potent to be ignored. It demanded Bgel’s full attention. Mistral’s gamble left no room for retreat, nin for error. Victory or death awaited her.

  Perhaps this would catch her off guard. Mistral rarely called upon the Great Manitou’s holy fmes in battle—always wary of the cost. The god’s fmes were absolute, their judgment indiscrimihey would burn the i as readily as the wicked, purging all in their path. It was a dangerous, desperate on—one she had always feared might cim her nemesis too utterly, denyihe victory she sought. But in this moment, it was her only py.

  "Great Manitou, please guide my steps," she murmured, feeling the a, steady presence fill her.

  A sharp snarl tore through the shrouded battlefield, Bgel’s voice ced with venom and frustration. “Ah—so you’ve finally resorted to that!” The mog tone was tinged with a rare note of unease. “It’s been, what, once before that you dared use yod’s fmes against me? I still recall how it seared... how it hurt!” The growl that followed was thick with venom. “But don’t think for a sed I’ll let you touch me with it again. The power of yod won’t reach me!”

  The air seemed to vibrate with her defiance, a pulse of darkhat rolled like thuhrough the void. But Mistral stood firm, her body a pilr against the storm. The radiance of the Great Manitou burned on, uerred, promising judgment both indiscriminate and inescapable.

  Mistral barely heard her enemy’s words. The voice of the Manitou rumbled deep within her soul, a and calm.

  Favored daughter, you must loose the Beasts. Alone, you ot prevail. It will be dangerous, but necessary. Their leashes will be restored afterward if you remain strong.

  Her jaw ched. Her hands trembled, the weight of the decisioling over her like a stormcloud. “So be it,” she whispered, her voice steel-strong, a determination that burned hotter than any fme.

  From deep within, she felt the stirring of their primal a forces. The Beasts woke, cruel and gleeful, their primal hunger filling her mind.

  “Did you hear that, brothers?” one hissed, its ughter low and sinister. “A ce to let fly!”

  The others joined in, their mirth rising in a chaotic chorus, a guttural symphony that vibrated in her chest.

  Suddenly, a fluctuation in the air drew Mistral’s attention. Snowfkes, remnants of her earlier storm, shifted. They traced a subtle path to Bgel’s position. Got you.

  But she wasn’t foolish enough to think that alone would win the day. As another wave of darkness hurled toward her, Mistral released the fetters on the Beasts.

  The spell shattered like gss, the sound of it ringing deep within her soul. Power surged through her, aal torrent that exploded from her arms ahe ining bst head-on. The air itself seemed to quake as the Beasts materialized from the shadows, their forms rippling with primal fury.

  Bgel wouldn’t be surprised. She had faced the Three Great Beasts of the North before—and she had survived. She had even stoleoying with them as she wished. They knew her well. Therein y her danger.

  But Mistral didn’t need surprise. She needed raw strength. And this was only the first step in a strategy months in the making. You’re not ready for what’s i, bitch.

  The step.

  The air arouhied with power as she reached deep into her being, pulling from the very heart of the earth and the boundless storm-filled skies. With a whisper to the Great Manitou, her will was made ma, drawing their essences from withiearing them free and the Three Beasts came free with loud a loud booming, the crag of lighting and the breaking of eternally frozen gciers.

  Korakorkomaq, the spirit of the storm, was the first to emerge. A t figure of swirling tempest and thunderclouds, his body was made of roiling winds and jagged lightning strikes that crackled across his form. His massive wings unfurled like bed storm fronts, dark and ominous, capable of sending gusts strong enough to tear the very earth beh him. His eyes glowed with molten gold, a mirror to the violent, uing storms that ed within him. Korakorkomaq’s voice was a deafening roar, the sound of thunder eg from his chest, his power to trol wind, rain, and thunder an unstoppable force of nature.

  was Rosshossho, the spirit of winter’s deepest, most unfivihs. As he materialized, the temperature dropped dramatically, and frost formed on the very air around him. His form was a vast, shifting mass of frozen stone and ice, colossal and a, like a gcier given life. His skin shimmered with an eerie pale glow, cracked and frosted, and his breath was like the arctids, biting and sharp enough to freeze the marrow in one’s bones. His massive limbs were carved from id rock, trailing frost with each step, his voice a deep, guttural rumble that echoed like the shifting of gciers. Rosshossho was the embodiment of winter’s fury—his presence could freeze the air itself, encase enemies in walls of ice, and summon blizzards that could bury eies under a deep b of snow.

  Finally, there was Howeesha, the spirit of lightning. He erupted into being in a crackle of electriergy, a living tempest of psma and raw power. His body was made of pure electrical force, stantly shifting and ging, a storm of white-hot lightning that arced and jumped from his limbs in violent, uable surges. Howeesha’s eyes were like twin bolts of lightning, glowing a molten blue as he hummed with the energy of a thousand thuorms. His form was fluid, more a series of jagged, crag pulses of power than a traditional body, as though the very air around him was being torn apart by his electric presence. He could summon bolts of lightning from the sky at will, el arcs of electricity through his body, and turn the very earth into a field of psma, searing anything it touched with a scorg iy.

  The Three Beasts, the elemental spirits bound to her will, stood before her ierrifying glory, eae a force of nature, eae capable of unimaginable destru. Their power was immeheir fury untamed, but Mistral held their leashes tight. She had done as anded by the Great Manitou—called them forth and bound them to her purpose.

  “I and you, Korakorkomaq, Rosshossho, Howeesha. Fly to the bea and capture my enemy. In the name of the Great Manitou, I bind you to my will.”

  The Beasts hissed aed, their resistance raw, uhey fought against her and, their primal instincts kig against the force that bound them.

  “Recalcitrant as ever, I hear,” Bgel’s voice floated through the darkness, ced with a low chuckle. “Why don’t you three join forces with me again? Your hated jailer stands before me... Together, we may returo the elements. I shall prove a far kinder mistress once more. That is, once she is no more.”

  Bgel’s dark smile alpable thing, even without sight. Mistral could feel it—a cruel satisfa that only a true predator could possess. A, even as the vilin spoke, Mistral smiled fidently, her grip tightening around the thread of the divine power she had invoked.

  The brothers charged.

  A new t echoed in the air, loowerful, vibrating with the authority of the Great Manitou.

  “Go!”

  Mistral’s voice rang with unshakable and, eg through the field of darkness. The Beasts shrieked, their primal cries filled with frustration, as they shed out—only to fiy air. They could not strike true. Like Mistral, Bgel’s bckout field blihem, leaving them vulnerable to the shifting chaos.

  On the surface, the odds seemed impossibly stacked against her—the raw, bestial might of the Beasts and the debilitating trickery of her hated enemy, bined with the overwhelming darkness. But Mistral had never fought a fair battle with her nemesis. And this time, the darkness would betray its master.

  The power of the Great Manitou rippled through the air, a violent tremor that made the very atmosphere hum with energy. Mistral allowed herself to fall, casting out s of energy toward the writhing forms of the Beasts. The s of Fate, bestowed by the Great Manitou to his favored daughter, pulsed with a power as they sought their target.

  She felt the moment her influeook hold. The Three bucked violently, their fury palpable, but their eyes locked on the subtle path traced by the snow. Because of their primal nature, ohey had a target, they ferociously uoward it. Destru and sughter were ingrained in their every fiber, so much so that they didn’t care whether the prey was their choosing.

  Hissing with fury, they tore through the air, drawn toward where the snow had betrayed Bgel’s position. The Beasts were unstoppable, i on rending the vilio pieces with wind, ice, and lightning. But when they arrived, they found nothing.

  Nothing but the whispering void.

  Their senses were primitive, not refined, but surely there should have been something. Something to rend, to destroy.

  Bgel had hoodwihem. They’d fallen right into her trap.

  Korakorkomaq was the first to realize. His roar was thuself, vibrating through the very air. With a screech, he snapped his attention back to the one who had summoned him, his storm-charged form twisting with explosive force. The winds howled as his hulking body ed through the air, crag with lightning. His eyes, glowing like the heart of a storm, fixed on Mistral, and with a roar, he luoward her, his cws swiping through the air in deadly arcs.

  Mistral barely mao twist aside, her heart pounding as the sheer force of the strike whipped past her. The air around her shredded, the temperature rising as the strew even more violent. The backsh from his attack created a shockwave that sent the earth beh her crag and splintering. Mistral staggered, stumbling as her footing faltered, but Korakorkomaq was already reeling back for another devastating strike. She rolled forward, narrowly esg the cw swipe, the sharp edge of his talons missing her by mere ihe wind itself felt like it was g at her, but Mistral had no time to focus on it. She had to keep moving.

  Before she could regain her bance, Rosshossho smmed into the space where she had just been, his massive body crashing like a moving gcier. The cold surged through the air, thid suffog, his eyes glinting with deadly malice as he moved toward her. His body, made of jagged id endless snow, shimmered with a chilling frost that froze the air itself.

  Mistral spun, her senses on high alert as Rosshossho's massive fist, encased in a shell of razor-sharp ice, swung at her. The blow cracked sent a shockwave of freezing energy through the air through and around Mistral. Using the Great Manitou’s fire, she ralized the ice surging towards her, barely dug away in time, feeling the cold grip of his followup strike tear past her, leaving a line of frost across her shoulder. The cold bit at her skin, the freezing air w to paralyze her limbs. The air itself seemed to freeze, each breath a bor as Rosshossho moved in for arike.

  With a twist of her body, Mistral darted to the side, narrowly dodging another crushing blow. She could feel the ice trying to recim her, the frost creeping up her legs, but she pushed it aside. Her focus was unyielding, the s of Fate still thrumming in her mind. She had to stay ahead.

  Howeesha was the final Beast to join the fray, and when he appeared, the very air hummed with the electric charge of his presence. Psma crackled across his form, lightning arg in every dire. The air felt alive with static as he shot forward, too fast for Mistral to fully track. With a vicious cackle, he unleashed a bolt of pure lightning at her. The searing energy shot through the air, a streak of death that she barely evaded, the hair on her neck standing on end as the grouh her smoldered. The bst didn’t stop, another followed immediately, aiming for her chest. Mistral twisted out of the way just in time, the bolt fshing past her, inches from her skin, leaving a scorg trail in the air, leaving behind the st of ozone.

  Howeesha hissed, his form rippling with energy, eyes glowing with an almost insane glee. But Mistral didn’t wait for arike. Her feet carried her, faster now, weaviween the Beasts, the space around her a blur of wind, ice, aricity. The Beasts’ attacks met nothing but empty air, and with them distracted by their own fury, turning on each other temporarily, Mistral saw her opening.

  She knew where Bgel was.

  She couldn’t afford to waste another sed.

  With a final burst of speed, Mistral turned her focus entirely on the dire of her enemy. The s of Fate still flickered around her, but now they pulsed in rhythm with her pursuit. The Beasts were lost in their rage, and Mistral wasn’t about to give them the ce to find her again. She flew through the field, leaving the chaos behind as the Beasts tio tear apart empty spad at each other.

  And when she reached Bgel, Mistral would make sure these breaths would be among the st the viliness ever drew.

  Against those expectations, however, Mistral rocketed in the opposite dire from where she was. A smile curled on her lips as her hand quickly closed around Bgel’s throat.

  The vilin gasped in shock. "H-HOW?!"

  Mistral’s voice was low, almost a whisper, but it carried the weight of a thousand storms. "I know you better than anyone else in this world… A schemer like you would only ever be as far as possible from that bea I 'ected to you.' It ends tonight, one way or another. You’re truly irredeemable."

  Bgel’s ugh was weak, but it came heless. "When did I ever ask to be saved?" she scoffed, the venom in her voice like poison spilling into the air. “Your foolish obsession with saving the day, redeeming others. These traits will be your undoing.”

  Mistral’s gaze darkened, and her grip tightened. "Your crimes will finally e to an end. My dreams of rehabilitating you end with this. The Great Manitou will make sure of it. It’s in her nature to spare no ohat opposes the ba’s thanks to my ‘foolish obsession’ that you’ve lived this long."

  Even as Bgel gripped her wrist, Mistral could feel the Void energy seeping into her arm, trying to eat through her flesh.

  Bgel ughed throatily, the sound a cruel lulby that cwed at the soul. "I could say the same to you, lovely. Hahaha… Why haven’t I pulverized you like I’ve doo thousands before you? Why haven’t I destroyed you with a mere gesture? Why indeed?" Her voice dropped to a mog purr, dripping with venom. "I agree with you, though. One way or ahis will be our st battle. And toug me... that was a mistake. I half-hoped you'd reach me, just so I could watch the look on your face as my power devoured you." Her words bled with overfident malice. "How sweet, how deliciously sweet, to watch you fall... right before my eyes."

  The Beasts, realizing their prey was only a figment, hissed in frustration, swarming the empty space Mistral was like mindless, enraged shadows.

  "Here, Korakorkomaq, Rosshossho, Howeesha. Your hated jailer is here!" Mistral shouted, her voice ced with power.

  Bgel’s ughter grew louder, more manic, eg like a deranged symphony. “Ahahahaha! You’d call your executioners upon yourself? You fool! They’ll be mine soon enough. I was enjoying watg you struggle with your beasts—so predictable. It’ll be child’s py to capture them if you die now. The elements will be mio bend, to toy with as I please.”

  Mistral’s grip never wavered, even as Bgel’s words rang out with arrogant triumph. But Mistral’s pn was already in motion.

  Mistral ehe onsught of Bgel’s dark energy, a surge of cold that burned, gnawing at her bones like a ravenous hunger. Her breath came in ragged gasps as the air around her crackled with the viliness's power. She could feel the Beasts bearing down, their primal fury growing heir immense forms rippling with violence, ready to tear her apart—and perhaps the viliness with her.

  “They’re mine!” Mistral roared, her voice a thunderous and that cracked through the darkness. “You ’t have them, Bgel. Not now, not ever!”

  A torrent of dark energy exploded from Bgel’s form, id blistering. Mistral flihe searing cold biting at her skin, but she held firm. She would not break. This was the moment, the culmination of everything she had endured. All was aligned, just as the Great Manitou had decreed.

  "Now! Great Manitou!" Mistral bellowed.

  The s of Fate saut, pulling the Beasts back with savage force. The storm of wind, ice, and lightning crashed together, surging forward, aiming directly at and through Bgel.

  The s jerked the Beasts toward their target, the shock of their fordeniable. Mistral had expected Bgel to be knocked back, but the Beasts’ pull was strohan anticipated. In their frenzy to return to their prison, they collided with the viliness, tearing through her body in a grotesque dispy. A geyser of blood erupted from her, spraying through the air in a violent arc.

  A moment of absolute chaos.

  The Beasts passed through Bgel directly into Mistral’s grasping hands, their bodies sucked bato their prison. But in that instant, their desperate pull uionally dealt the final blow meant for Bgel. The force of their return tore through her, and she was left gasping, a gurgle of blood spilling from her mouth as her body crumpled. The st remnants of her strength evaporated in the chaos.

  Mistral’s heart ched in that split sed. The strength of the Beasts’ pull had been uimated—a reckless mistake. Ohat may well have taken Bgel’s life.

  Her regret was swift, but fleeting. The Beasts were already slipping bato their cells, the pull of the a bindings drawing them bato the depths withihe Great Manitou cared not for the life of one as wicked as Bgel, and the bance had beeored.

  Mistral cried, the tears falling in hot, desperate streaks as she watched the moment slip away. But her gambit had worked.

  The darkness faded as Bgel’s pan to falter uhe backsh of the mystical forces that had just coursed through her. The viliness hovered for the briefest of moments, before she fell, her power crumbling to dust.

  Blood and bck feathers trailed behind her, marking her fall as the inky darkness receded and the first inklings of dawn began to spread across the sky. Bgel plummeted, her form twisting in the air like a broken, dying star.

  Mistral’s world tilted, the disorientation overwhelming her as the aftershocks of the Beasts' return ed her focus. Her body was too weak to hold her aloft. She colpsed alongside Bgel as the ground rushed up to meet them.

  The crash was earth-shattering. Their bodies smashed into the mountaih a force that left a crater in their wake, stoructures crumbling uhe weight of their fall.

  Mistral could barely move, but she forced herself to rise. The air burned in her lungs as she struggled, her limbs heavy with exhaustion.

  Bgel, haltingly, rose to her feet, coughing up blood and dirt. Blood poured from the gaping hole in her chest, soaking her bck, seemingly living dress, turning it a dark, glistening crimson. She staggered a step, but her body betrayed her, and she colpsed agairength failing her pletely.

  Mistral stumbled forward, her legs shakih her, tears staining her cheeks. Her eyes caught the briefest flicker of movement—Bgel’s head turned, eyes meeting Mistral’s for a fleeting moment.

  Then, the viliness’ gaze shifted upward, her eyes fixing on the sky. The first rays of dawn paihe horizon in pinks and es. A color so deceptively beautiful for a soul as dark as hers.

  With trembling hands, Bgel reached toward the sun, as though pleading for mercy or salvation. For the first time, when Mistral watched her, there was no hatred in Bgel’s eyes, no anger, no defiance. She didn’t recoil from the touch of the sun’s gentle rays—there was no pt, no bitter reje of the light. Only something raw, something that almost resembled… longing.

  Mistral moved in front of her, pg herself between Bgel and the star. For an instant, bathing her in her shadow. She felt an intense, bitter regret, but it was fleeting. The cold bitterness of anger followed quickly.

  “How dare you make me pity you?!”

  Bgel looked away, her gaze distant and hollow as she coughed up another spurt of blood. “T-they were almost mine again… I was just a millised off with my timing… I knew you would—”

  Mistral’s eyes fshed with fury. “They aren’t yours. They’re mine. My wards.” She spat the words with venom, eae ced with the weight of a thousand battles fought and won.

  “Your sves! Hahahaha, you think yourself so much better thahe glorious hero—in faothing but a—sve—owner!” Bgel’s ugh was hollow, her words fading as her strength began to wane. She coughed again, each gasp med tha.

  Mistral turned her face away, her gre sharp enough to cut through the air. “Shut up!” Her voice was low, dangerous, but with a note of finality that left no room fument.

  They had nded in the rural graveyard below. It was an ironic resting pce for the creature that had once cimed the skies. Stone markers y fotten among the wildflowers, their weathered surfaces speaking of lives long past. It was fitting. The end of a wicked story in a pce where no one would remember her name.

  Bgel’s final breath rattled in her chest. “ime... I’ll—don’t think... we’re finished yet—Luv.” Her voice, weak and strained, barely carried, but there was something in the words—an eerie sadness, a quiet plea for something Mistral couldn’t quite pce. Something that twisted i of her stomach. “Lean... down...”

  Frowning, Mistral hesitated. She should ighe demand, dismiss it like any other defiance from her enemy, but something in the desperation, the vulnerability in Bgel’s voice, made her pause. With a snarl she couldn't stifle, Mistral fell to her knees, her eyes burning with uears. It was over. Bgel wouldn’t rise from this, not for a long while.

  With what little strength remained in her, Bgel reached up. Her firembled, brushing softly against Mistral’s face, a delicate touch that, in any other moment, might have been tender. But not now. Not here. As her final breath slipped away, her eyes dimmed, the st flickers of life fading. Her body, already disiing, began to crumble into nothingness, leaving only the fairace of the vilihat she once had once been.

  Mistral stood motionless, her heart heavy, even though her enemy was no more. The ashes of Bgel scattered into the air, like the remnants of a shattered dream, her wings of soot curling as the wind caught them, drifting slowly in a south-westerly dire, vanishing into the horizon.

  The weight of the moment hung in the air.

  It was only when the sun, now fully risen, paihe sky with its warm golden light that realization began to sink in. It was over. At long st, it was finally over.

  Mistral stood alone, her hands trembling as she looked out over the graveyard, the quiet aftermath of battle deafening. Her body still ached from the struggle, the fight, the power c through her veins. But it was done. Bgel had beeed—finally, pletely.

  Mistral took a long, deep breath. She khat much work remained ahead, that there were still forces to be reed with, still much good to be done. But for now, she allowed herself a moment of peace.

  She would take some time—time to sider her feelings, to refle what had been lost and what had been gaiime to heal. She deserved that.

  And for the first time in so long, she let herself believe that the world might be just a little bit safer, if only for a while.