The citadel was silent now.
Not the silence of peace — the silence after blood.
Seraphine stood at the base of the core, her breath ragged. The chamber around her was strewn with the remnants of the siege: broken blades, discarded shields, patches of glowing blood that hadn't yet faded. The air stank of iron and smoke.
Her sword still trembled faintly in her hand, runes etched across the steel glowing with a soft pulse. She stared at it, the weight sinking in.
I claimed it. It's ours.
But the thought didn't bring relief. If anything, it pressed down heavier.
Valeria broke the silence first.
"We should secure the entrances," she said. Her voice was steady, but her eyes never left the shadows at the edges of the chamber. She looked like she was waiting for another guild to appear at any moment.
Noctis chuckled, leaning against a fallen pillar. His daggers spun idly in his hands. "Relax. The vultures won't come crawling just yet. Word won't spread that fast."
Valeria shot him a look sharp enough to cut. "You think they didn't see that light? Half the Realms probably saw it."
Seraphine exhaled slowly. Valeria was right. The eruption of light from the core had torn through the skies, a beacon blazing across the entire battlefield. Every guild hunting power would know by now: a citadel had been claimed.
And worse—who claimed it.
Her hand clenched tighter around the sword hilt.
"We need to fortify," she said, voice low. "Find defensible choke points. Barricade what we can."
Noctis rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue. "Fine, fine. Lead the way, commander."
They set to work.
The citadel was a labyrinth of halls, towers, and crumbling chambers. Some walls still hummed with energy, while others were scarred from battles long forgotten. Dust coated everything, thick enough that every step left tracks.
Valeria focused on securing the entrances: stacking broken masonry, dragging fallen weapons into piles, setting crude barriers where doors had collapsed. Her movements were methodical, efficient.
Noctis, predictably, disappeared into the shadows. He slipped through halls and hidden stairways, reappearing now and then with a grin and a report. "West tower's collapsed. No way in there. East hall has a back passage, though — I can set a few traps if we've got spare wire."
Seraphine took to the upper floors, climbing broken stairs that groaned under her boots. From the tower's peak, she saw the Realms stretched out in every direction — jagged mountains to the north, forests to the south, plains scattered with fire-lit camps in the distance.
And, faintly, smoke.
Other guilds were moving already.
Her chest tightened. They'll come for us soon.
That night, they made a fire in the citadel's great hall. The flames licked at the cracked stone hearth, shadows dancing across the walls. The three of them sat in a loose circle, their gear stacked nearby, weapons within reach.
The silence between them was different now. Not tense like before, but heavy, expectant.
Valeria polished her shield, running cloth over its battered surface. Her brow furrowed, the firelight catching in her eyes. "We're marked now. Every guild out there will see us as prey. They'll want the core."
Noctis stretched out lazily on his back, arms folded behind his head. "Prey? Or bait. Let them come. It'll be fun."
Valeria's glare could have burned him alive. "You treat this like a game."
He smirked. "And you treat it like war."
Seraphine finally spoke, her voice quiet but firm. "It is war."
Both of them looked at her.
She stared into the fire, the glow reflected in her tired eyes. "If we want to hold this place, we can't think like scavengers. We need to act like we belong here. Like we're strong enough to deserve it."
The words came out harsher than she meant, but she didn't take them back. The silence after hung heavy, thick with something unspoken.
Finally, Valeria nodded. "Then we plan."
Noctis let out a low whistle but didn't argue. "Fine. Plan away."
They spoke deep into the night.
Valeria mapped their choke points, listing where defenses could hold and where they were weakest. Noctis shared what he had scouted — hidden passages, potential ambush spots, weak floors that could collapse under enemies if timed right. Seraphine listened, threading their thoughts together, weighing risks against possibilities.
Slowly, something shifted.
The friction between them dulled. The distrust wasn't gone, but for the first time, they felt like more than three strangers forced together.
Like something sharper.
Like the edge of a blade being honed.
Hours later, when Valeria finally drifted to uneasy sleep beside her shield, and Noctis disappeared into the shadows again, Seraphine stayed by the fire.
Her sword rested across her knees, runes glowing faintly in the dark. She traced them with her finger, the hum of the core still alive in the steel.
Why me? she thought.
Of all the warriors, all the guilds, the core had answered her. Chosen her.
The weight of it pressed down harder than any blade.
Her gaze drifted upward. The citadel's high windows framed the night sky, stars faint through the haze. Somewhere out there, other guilds were gathering, planning their own sieges, their own wars.
And every one of them would be looking this way.
She tightened her grip on the sword.
Then let them come.