“Erik, be ready. This is it. This is what we were fighting for, st—”

  His words were cut short.

  The Mother moved.

  ation. No sound. Just pure speed.

  A blur of gray flesh and bck cws sliced through the air, her elongated form lunging toward us with terrifying precision.

  I barely saw it—but Rikard did.

  Steel met cw.

  Sparks erupted as Rikard’s sword caught her strike mid-air, the force of the impact sending a violent shockwave through the cavern. My ears rang, my breath caught—but Rikard barely flinched. His body moved on instinct, bde shifting to deflect her strike, then the —eae too fast for my eyes to follow.

  He wasn’t just strong. He was faster.

  His reflexes, his movements—unnatural. It was as if his body could react before his mind eveered the attack.

  And me?

  I stood there, watg.

  I wasn’t even able to see the attai alo in time.

  Was this… was this the differeween us?

  Was this why, no matter how hard I trained, I would never reach him?

  Rikard twisted his bde, f her back—for a sed, just a sed, there ening.

  An opening he made for me.

  My ce.

  I didn’t take it.

  I stood frozen, caught in my own thoughts, in my own inferiority.

  And The Mother?

  She saw it.

  She ughed.

  A horrid, rasping sound, like broken bones grinding together, like a whisper that slithered beh my skin and coiled around my throat.

  She jumped back, tilting her head as if studying us. Not us. Me.

  Her milky-white eyes bored into mine.

  Then, she smiled.

  It was an unnatural thing—a predatrin, stretg far too wide, revealing rows of jagged, needle-like teeth.

  “Oh, how cruel, warrior.” Her voice was smooth now, sickly sweet, crawling into my skull like a parasite burrowing deep. “You fight alone, don’t you?”

  She raised a cwed hand aured toward me.

  “And you…” She let out a small, mog tsk. “Standing there like a child, watg, waiting. Hoping. For what?”

  My jaw ched, my grip on my sword tightening.

  “He carries such a burden, doesn’t he?” Her gaze flicked back to Rikard. “Fighting alone. Proteg the weak.”

  My breath hitched.

  She ughed again.

  “Tell me, warrior, how long will you carry him before you finally break?”

  My chest tightened.

  She didn’t know us. She didn’t know our names.

  A, somehow, she saw right through me.

  Her voice dropped lower, almost a whisper.

  “Or… perhaps, it’s already too te?”

  Her words were knives, stabbing into my ribs, cutting into thoughts I refused to say out loud.

  Because she wasn’t lying.

  Rikard let out a slow breath, steadying his stance. Calm. Unshaken. Not eveher’s words had rattled him.

  He g me, eyes sharp yet filled with something else—something steady. Something sure.

  “You think I care about that?” he scoffed, rolling his shoulders, loosening his grip on his sword. “Proteg him isn’t a burden.” His voice was firm, unwavering. “We’ve been brothers since we were kids. We’ve fought together, bled together. If I have to keep fighting to keep him alive, then that’s what I’ll do. Every damn time.”

  His words hit me harder than any wound ever could.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Rikard took a step forward, his bde gleaming in the dim firelight. “We’re not just surviving. We’re going to kill you.”

  Then he moved.

  And this time—he was winning.

  Rikard danced betweerikes, his sword a blur of steel and blood. His movements were effortless, dodging her cws by inches, slipping past her attacks like he knew where she would strike before she did.

  Eveher was struggling now.

  She couldn’t keep up.

  Her cws shed out, but Rikard was already oher side, his bde carving a deep gash across her torso.

  She shrieked, stumbling bad that was my moment.

  I jumped in.

  I wasn’t as fast as him, but I didn’t o be. Rikard made the openings, and I took them.

  My bde sank deep into her side, cutting through that stretched, sinewy flesh. Bck blood spttered ay hands, hot and thick.

  The Mother reeled back, her twisted face torted in surprise.

  She hadn’t expected that.

  Rikard saw it too.

  He turoward me—and grinned.

  It happened in an instant.

  Rikard’s eyes were still ohat grin still on his face—

  And theher moved.

  Faster than before. Faster than even he could react.

  I saw the blur of her cws. The sharp, siing ch of flesh being pierced.

  Rikard’s body jolted.

  His breath hitched.

  The tip of her cwed hand had driven straight through his chest.

  I couldn’t move.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  It was like my mind refused tister what just happened.

  Rikard—my best friend, my brother—

  He—

  No. No. No. No.

  My body moved before my mind caught up.

  I swung.

  My sword cleaved through her arm, severing it from her body in a single, wild strike.

  The Mother let out a horrid, ear-pierg shriek, stumbling backward, her severed limb hitting the ground with a wet thud.

  She hissed, her milky-white eyes sing the battlefield, assessing the situation.

  But I wasn’t looking at her.

  I was looking at Rikard.

  He was swaying on his feet, one hand pressed to the gaping wound in his chest, blood p between his fingers. Too much blood.

  He was dying.

  He was dying.

  No. I had to do something.

  He did everything to keep me alive.

  I would do the same.

  I gritted my teeth, my grip tightening around my sword. I would not let him die here.

  I wouldn’t—

  Pain.

  A sharp, horrific pain tore ay throat.

  My vision blurred. My body stiffened.

  I tasted iron.

  I was on the ground. When did I fall?

  Something warm illing down my chest.

  Blood.

  My blood.

  The Mother stood over me, her cws dripping red.

  I couldn’t move.

  My fiwitched, weakly clutg my sword. But I couldn’t lift it. I couldn’t lift anything.

  No.

  I—

  I didn’t want to die.

  Not like this.

  Not weak. Not helpless.

  I wao live.

  I wao be strong.

  I wanted power. Enough power to never let this happen again.

  To never lose the ones I cared about.

  At all costs.

  Everythi bck.

  The pain, the fear, the world itself—gone.

  Just emptiness.

  I wasn’t falling. I wasn’t floating.

  No breath. No sound.

  No life.

  And then—

  A voice.

  Distant, yet everywhere.

  Low. Smooth. Otherworldly.

  “You sound desperate, my child.”

  I floated in nothingness.

  No grouh my feet. No air in my lungs. , no warmth—just emptiness stretg endlessly in every dire.

  Was this death?

  It felt like something worse.

  Then—a shift.

  The void trembled, like reality itself was folding in on itself.

  And suddenly, I was not alone.

  A throne rose from the darkness, t and impossible, made of something that wasn’t metal, wasn’t stone—wasn’t anything I had ever seen. It looked like it had been carved from the fabric of the void itself.

  And sitting upon it—

  A woman.

  Or at least, something that wore the shape of a woman.

  She was tall, draped in bck, her form moving like flowing ink, shifting ever so slightly, as if her body wasn’t fully anchored to reality.

  Her arms were too long, her fiapering into elegant, cw-like points. Not grotesque—almost beautiful in their wrongness.

  Her skin was fwless, eerily smooth, but unnatural—like something trying to be human, but failing iails.

  And her eyes.

  Bottomless. Eternal. Not bot hollow, but something deeper—something that devoured all light, all existence.

  She wasn’t from here.

  Not from Valkthara.

  Not from this realm.

  I k in my bones.

  She did not belong.

  A—here she was.

  “I am Eindva, and I help you.”