Alia stepped past a row of solemn, orderly tombstones. Her eyes did not linger on a single name. She moved straight across the graveyard, heading toward the small grove at the back. The moonlight was shrouded beneath layers of leaves, filtering down in scattered patches like droplets of silver dust spilled into the dark. Each step snapped the brittle twigs underfoot with a faint crack, startling several night birds from their perches. They burst upward, wings beating frantically before vanishing into the night sky.
Deeper in the grove, she found what she had expected.
Traces.
Faint knife marks carved into bark. Soil freshly disturbed. A few stones shifted out of place. They were subtle, but enough to prove soldiers had combed through the area with care. Yet Alia knew—if it was truly a fragment of the Grail, no ordinary man could hope to touch it.
She drew in a steadying breath, closed her eyes, and extended both hands.
The air thickened at once, the breeze stilling around her. Her fingertips trembled slightly, as though plucking unseen strings, searching for a pulse that belonged not to this world.
It came to her in whispers: a chill ancient breath, carrying the tang of blood and rusted iron. It lingered deep in the soil and roots, faint but razor-sharp. Her chest seized, as if an invisible hand clutched her heart. Each breath grew heavy, weighted, as though the next might drag her into an unseen abyss.
"…It's near." Her voice was no louder than a murmur, but her eyes sharpened.
She opened them and traced shapes in the air, fingers tugging at threads no one else could see. At her gesture, fallen leaves rose against the wind, whirling around her hand before drifting toward a shadowed corner of the grove.
There, an ancient oak stood with gnarled roots tangled across the earth. Beneath it, the soil was faintly raised, disturbed by something hidden beneath.
Alia advanced, knelt, and pressed her palm to the ground.
A violent chill surged upward through her hand and into her veins. Her vision swam. She glimpsed the illusion of blood trickling along the roots, seeping into the earth.
"…Here." The words escaped as barely more than a whisper.
She brushed aside the leaves, scraping away the damp soil. Bit by bit the earth yielded, revealing a shallow hollow.
Inside lay a shard of metal, half-buried, its edge catching what little light there was.
But the gleam was not of common steel. It glimmered with a cold, uncanny life—watchful, almost sentient, as though it waited.
Alia's gaze fixed upon it. Her hand hovered just above, trembling faintly, unwilling to close the final inch.
Her breath quickened.
Too simple.
Far, far too simple.
How many obstacles had she bled through before, how many layers of danger and deception, only to scrape together the faintest fragments of the Grail? Yet tonight—guided only by Marcellus's memory and her own vague intuition—within half an hour, the shard lay before her. Waiting. Almost as if it had always known she would come.
Is it the Grail itself that longs to be made whole?
The thought burst unbidden into her mind, coiling like ivy, refusing to let go.
If that were true… then was she pursuing her goal of her own will, or merely being drawn, step by step, into a web the Grail had spun long before?
Her chest clenched. A storm of emotions swelled—excitement, unease, and a deeper fear she dared not name.
Can I truly… achieve what I set out to do?
She could not be sure. The Grail was too vast, too unfathomable. Its restoration seemed to pulse with its own will. And she—she was nothing more than a leaf borne helplessly along the current.
Steadying herself, she lowered her eyes once more.
It was not the handle she had expected.
Instead, it was a shard of strange contour—its arc and ridges utterly different. Fine engravings spread across its surface, ancient symbols entwined together, glowing faintly with a dark, elusive radiance.
Alia's brows knit tightly.
"Not the handle? Then… where has the handle gone?"
Curiosity mingled with unease. The two handles had once ensnared Marcellus, their pull irresistible, overwhelming. Yet here, in the family graveyard, what awaited her was something else entirely.
If the Grail truly possessed a will of its own, why lead her here—to this fragment, not the handle?
The question gnawed at her without answer.
Only the faintest vibration came from the shard, a soundless whisper that seemed to seep into her mind.
This was only the beginning.