Strax remained kneeling, pressing down on the bloody stump of his lost arm. The pain was excruciating, but it wasn't what kept him stunned.
It was her.
The figure of Scathach still echoed in his mind—not as an enemy, but as a screaming void. Something inside him—something older than his memories, deeper than his very essence—cried out for her.
His mother.
Even though he had never known her face, even though he had been born into another reality, he loved her. As if that love had been tattooed on the soul of every version of Strax throughout time. He couldn't explain it, but he felt it. He felt it like a heat that now burned more than physical pain. And it was being torn away — along with his arm — by the desecrated presence of the one who was once Scathach Antares.
The woman who was supposed to protect him.
The air in front of him rippled, breaking the suffocating silence of the chamber.
Scarlet.
