Rowena met the incoming blade with a sharp upward block, the Norsefire guard's sword crashing against the ebon riser of her bow in a shriek of metal. The jarring force rattled through her forearms, but she held fast, teeth clenched, eyes narrowed. With a swift pivot, she drove her boot into his stomach, sending him stumbling back.
Without hesitation, she stepped into a wide stance, pulling the bowstring taut. A brilliant arrow of sapphire-blue light flared into existence, its form pulsing with raw energy, then flew with a sharp release. It struck the guard in the neck, piercing flesh and sinew. He choked violently, hands scrambling to his throat as blood gushed between his fingers, stumbling backward until his legs gave out beneath him.
For a heartbeat, her sapphire eyes swept across the battlefield laid bare before AEGIS and the castle gates—a brutal theater of resistance. Clan warriors and the people's militia clashed in chaotic symphony, steel meeting steel, cries of pain rising above the din. Swords rang as they collided, bows snapped in rhythmic twangs, and spears arced across the smoke-filled sky to thud into torsos with sickening finality.
Spellfire lit the haze in flashing streaks of every hue, like errant stars crashing to earth, while dust and smoke thickened the air, choking lungs and stinging eyes. The screams, the sobs, the bellows of fury and fear—all of it bounced off stone walls in a deafening, merciless cacophony.
The landing before the castle gates teemed with Norsefire soldiers, more densely packed than anywhere else in the city. Rowena knew they had already breached the castle—yet not a single breath of fear stirred in her chest. Not when the Visionaries stood at the threshold. Not when the Professors fought with unshaken resolve.
She surged forward, feet pounding the stone as her hands worked in fluid rhythm—draw, release, draw, release—each arrow of light piercing through the armored lines of Norsefire like divine judgment. One guard fell, then another, each crumpling beneath the precision of her aim. A blade came for her from the left.
She ducked low, the tip grazing the edge of her long black hair. Rising swiftly, she shifted her grip and swung the bow sideways, its reinforced neck crashing into a guard's shin with a brutal crack. The woman shrieked and collapsed to the ground, her armor clattering against the stone. Rowena didn't hesitate. She stepped back and fired point-blank. An arrow through the eye, silencing her forever.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when the very thought of killing would have shaken her to the core. She had grown up in a family sworn to protect Avalon, defenders of the Tower, champions of law and justice who brought down tyrants and murderers, but always with restraint. Back then, the notion of ending a life had been unthinkable.
But something inside her had changed. That night in the rain, when she held Helga in her arms. Helga, whose laughter had once brightened the darkest corners of their world—shattered, grief-stricken, robbed of her light and joy, it had broken something within Rowena as well. Not just her heart, but something deeper. Something that wouldn't return.
And now, she wasn't afraid of killing. She was afraid of how effortless it had become.
Afraid of how easily she could look into the eyes of another human being and see nothing worth saving.
How simple it was to believe that some people deserved no mercy, no compassion—only oblivion. A voice within her stirred, unbidden, dragging up images from a childhood buried beneath layers of duty and silence: a burning village, the smell of scorched flesh and wood, stone blackened by fire and soaked in blood.
Two figures stood before her, hazy and still, framed by the smoke and the screaming chaos beyond. A group of men moved behind them. Clad in white-draped armor, crimson crosses emblazoned across their chests like bloodstains that refused to wash away. Their lips moved in silent speech, but no sound reached her ears. Not a voice. Not a breath. She couldn't recall the pain, only the fear. The paralyzing, soul-deep terror of helplessness.
As a child, she could never understand it. How someone could look into the eyes of another and decide, without hesitation or mercy, to end them. To erase everything they were: their stories, their memories, their quiet hopes, the fragile architecture of their dreams. All of it snuffed out, as if it meant nothing. As if they meant nothing. Everyone, she had once believed, had reasons for their cruelty. Some buried in grief, some twisted by pain. Some, like Salazar, walked the thin line between necessity and darkness.
But here, now, there was no gray in Rowena's world. No blurred edge between motive and monstrosity.
There was only fire in her chest. A raw, seething, unrelenting need to see them all fall. Every man who raised a blade under that bloodstained Norsefire cross. Every soldier who marched into this city. Every one of them who tore at the lives of those she loved.
This wasn't about strategy or retaliation. It wasn't even about victory.
It was about vengeance. About justice.
She would see them all answer for what they had done. For Helga, left shattered in the rain with her spirit torn asunder; for Pablo, Edda, and Elio, whose laughter and lives had been extinguished beneath the weight of merciless cruelty. For Caerleon, the last stronghold that once stood proud and defiant, now scarred and desecrated, and for her beloved school, whose every stone had once felt sacred, now blackened by war and loss.
And all of it, every wound, every death, every betrayal, had been carried out under the orders of a man she had once loved with a loyalty so fierce it had defined her childhood, a man who had cradled her in his arms and taught her to believe in righteousness.
Her uncle, Lamar Burgess.
This was no calculated response born of duty or necessity; it was the inevitable reckoning of a heart broken beyond repair, a reckoning driven not by politics or power, but by something far deeper, far more dangerous. Grief fused with fury, and a need to see the ones who brought ruin brought low in turn.
This was personal in the way only betrayal could be.
Another arrow. Another guard. This one caught between the eyes, the force knocking him flat, arms flailing briefly before stillness overtook him. He did not rise again. Rowena didn't stop. She couldn't.
Not when the world was watching.
Not when the past refused to stay buried.
Not when she had already crossed the threshold and found no reason to turn back.
****
Laxus threw his head back and chugged the last of his ale, the tankard tipped high until the final drop was gone. He let out a loud, satisfied exhale, smacking his lips. "By the Gods, that hits the spot!" he declared, thumping the empty mug against the busted bar counter before leaning forward and sliding it beneath the tap, refilling it without ceremony.
The tavern around him was a wreck. Tables split in half, chairs reduced to splinters, scorch marks smeared across the stone floor like shadows of violence still lingering in the air. From the far end of the room, the sharp cry of a Norsefire soldier echoed—cut short as Bran drove his boot into the man's chest and loosed a spectral arrow from his drawn bow. The shot struck clean between the eyes; the body gave a final twitch, then dropped into silence. Bran straightened slowly, brushing the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
"Hey," Laxus called from the counter, his grin half-hidden behind his raised tankard, "you sure you don't want a swig? Nothing beats a cold one after smashing in some poor bastard's head."
Bran pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and exhaled with quiet resignation. "You know what? Why not."
"Hah! Knew you'd come around," Laxus said with a wide grin, setting another tankard beside him. His bare back leaned against the counter, muscles taut and flecked with ash as he took a hearty swig. "Man, I'm bushed. I can't remember the last time I went all out like this." He rolled one shoulder, wincing. "By the Gods, growing old sucks."
Bran let out a quiet chuckle as he crossed the ruined room, his bow still in hand as he reached for the offered tankard. "Isn't that the truth," he murmured, raising the mug in a silent toast before drinking.
His gaze drifted across the wreckage. The broken windows, the crumbling archway, and beyond it, the shattered remnants of Caerleon itself. "The last time this city saw devastation on this scale was during the First Conflict War, and that was over three centuries ago."
"Ugh, don't remind me." Laxus grimaced into his tankard. "I've still got Professor Lotho's droning lectures burned into my skull."
His tone softened as he lowered the drink. "Caerleon will come back from this, Bran. You'll see."
"It's not whether it comes back that worries me," Bran replied. "It's how it comes back. Nothing broken ever returns whole. It may wear the same face, echo the same sounds, but beneath it, the fractures remain. And what fills those cracks in the aftermath…" He trailed off, the thought unfinished, heavy.
Laxus turned to glance at him. "You think this city won't heal right?"
"I know it won't," Bran said plainly. "With Lamar gone and the truth of his sins festering like rot at the heart of the Tower, it'll send a tremor across Avalon that no one's ready for. And when the aftershocks come, they'll start right here. Caerleon will be the epicenter. Whatever changes lie ahead, no matter how sweeping or unimaginable, they'll be born from the ruins of this city. And the rest of Avalon will follow."
For a long moment, Laxus said nothing. He stared into the depths of his ale as if searching for an answer hidden in the foam. Then, slowly, he looked up.
"You know… that might not be such a bad thing."
Bran nearly choked on his ale, coughing as he lowered the tankard, his eyes wide as he stared at Laxus. But the man didn't stop. Not even for breath.
"All of this," Laxus began as he gestured broadly with his drink, the liquid inside sloshing against the sides. "Everything we're standing in. The rubble, the ruin, the blood in the streets—it didn't come out of nowhere. It happened because we got comfortable keeping things exactly the way they were."
"We got lazy. We let the Clock Tower do our thinking for us. Telling us who to trust, what's right, what's wrong. Hell, we were damn near trained to believe the system had our best interests in mind. And we bought it."
He turned his eyes toward Bran then, sharp and unflinching, a glimmer of disappointment behind their cool blue depths. "But that's just it, isn't it? That's the problem. We stopped asking questions. We stopped expecting anything better from the people in charge. We stopped pushing back. And before we even noticed, we stopped holding any of them accountable."
There was a brief pause. Bran opened his mouth as if to reply, but no words came. He closed it again, lips tightening into a faint frown.
Laxus didn't miss it. He pressed on.
"That's how a man like Burgess was able to do what he did for as long as he did. And the sick part is, he wasn't alone." His jaw clenched as his eyes narrowed. "Not even close. It's all of them. The Three Bodies, the Council of Kings, even the damned Wizarding Council. They all played a part. They all looked the other way."
Bran's gaze dropped to his drink, fingers tightening slightly on the tankard, but still, he remained silent.
"They didn't care about decency. Or compassion. Or even justice," Laxus continued, his tone roughening. "All they wanted were results. Cold. Efficient. Clean. And Burgess, bastard that he is, he gave them that. Again, and again. They didn't care what kind of monster they had prowling the halls, so long as he was biting who they told him to bite. They only flinched when their sick little puppy turned around and sank his teeth into them."
The grip around his tankard grew tighter, veins standing out on the back of his hand. Small crackles of lightning snapped and hissed around the handle, casting flickers of light across his scarred knuckles.
"And when you let a dog rule the yard long enough without ever smacking it on the nose," he muttered. "It stops thinking it's a dog. Starts thinking it owns the place. Starts thinking it can piss on every wall, shit where it sleeps, and no one will stop it."
He raised the tankard to his lips again, his eyes never leaving Bran, the fire behind them burning hotter than the ale going down his throat.
"In a way," Laxus said, wiping the back of his mouth as he slammed down the empty tankard, "I'm glad everything's gone to Hell."
Bran glanced up, brows knitting faintly, but Laxus pressed on.
"I'm glad that damn Tower Burgess built is finally crumbling around him. I'm glad the Council's scrambling like rats, shitting bricks trying to figure out how the hell they're goanna explain this disaster to the people. And most of all…"
He jabbed a finger into the air as if carving the thought into the smoke. "I'm glad Avalon's being forced to wake the hell up from this fake-ass dream they've been clinging to for decades. Because this world?" His jaw tensed. "It can burn for all I care. It needs to."
Bran cut through the stillness that followed, calm but weighted. "That's an awfully grim way of putting it, Laxus."
"Don't start with me, Bran," Laxus shot back, his gaze steady. "Because I know you've thought it too. This world, they call it just, call it righteous, call it civilized, but it made you tear two people apart. Two people who loved each other. And it had the gall to call that justice."
He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough to drive the blade in deeper. "You wouldn't be standing here, covered in blood and ash, if you still believed in what it used to be. So don't pretend."
Bran flinched, just barely but it was enough. His eyes dropped to the surface of his ale, watching the ripples shimmer under the torchlight.
"You're right. I used to believe I was doing the right thing," he said quietly, the words escaping like a confession. "My duty to the Tower. To the law. I followed it without question because I thought the law was sacred, incorruptible."
His grip on the tankard tightened. "But every night, when I close my eyes, I see Godric's face staring back at me. I hear Raine screaming for him, pleading through tears, and I remember the sound of her heartbreak as I raised my wand and uttered that dreadful spell."
His voice cracked, not from weakness, but from the sheer weight of what he carried.
"And now… knowing that the law I followed was poisoned from the start. That I enforced their version of justice, not truth, it makes it unbearable."
Laxus said nothing, just stepped forward and placed a hand on Bran's shoulder. Not as a fellow Visionary, not even as a friend—just a man who understood the price of regret.
Bran drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "If I could go back… if I had even a sliver of a chance to undo what I did, I would. For Godric. For Raine. For what they lost because of me."
He shook his head, not in denial, but in resolution.
"But I can't undo the past. I can't return what was stolen or mend what I broke. All I can do now is make certain that no one else suffers the same fate. That no one else is torn apart by a lie dressed as justice."
His eyes, once distant, settled on Laxus. "I swear it."
"Come in."
The voice was raspy, grating, as if dragged across gravel, and it echoed from the communicator orb lying in a pool of blood beside one of the bodies. The silence shattered like glass as both Bran and Laxus turned toward the sound.
Bran set his tankard down with care, the faint clink against wood jarring in the heavy quiet, then crossed the ruined tavern floor. He crouched beside the corpse, wiped the grime off the surface of the orb with his sleeve, and tapped the activation rune.
"All remaining forces, head to the castle. Director's orders."
Another voice cut in, more casual, almost irritated. "Where's the old timer, anyway?"
"Somewhere inside, leading the charge. So, get your ass there, now."
Bran straightened slowly, the light of the orb flickering in his glasses as he cast a sharp look toward Laxus. The two men locked eyes. No words needed to name the man in question.
"So," Laxus muttered, his jaw tight, fingers flexing at his side, "the bastard finally crawled out from whatever hole he was hiding in." He moved to Bran's side, his boots crunching broken glass beneath them as he laid a firm hand on his friend's shoulder. "Go. I'll finish up here. Clear out the rest of the damned stragglers, maybe even bag myself a warcaster or two if they're dumb enough to show."
Bran met his gaze with a quiet intensity, pushing his glasses up with two fingers. "Don't you dare die on me, Laxus."
Laxus barked a laugh, low and dry. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to?" He shook his head with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You'll be six feet under long before me, and when that day comes, I swear to the Gods, I'm showing up to your wake in a tutu just to piss you off."
A brief laugh slipped from Bran's lips, weary but genuine. "I'll hold you to that."
Laxus gave him a half-salute as he turned away, his silhouette framed by smoke and shattered wood. "Be seeing you, brother."
Bran watched him for a moment, then nodded once. "Be seeing you."
Without looking back, he turned and strode toward the castle, the weight of fate pressing heavier with each step. The final reckoning had begun.
****
Rowena let out a sharp cry, her movements fueled by fury and survival as she slammed her bow into the guard's thigh with a sickening crack, then into his chest, and finally across his face. Blood sprayed in a harsh arc, spattering across the stone. Without missing a breath, she drew back the string, and an arrow of sapphire light materialized, its tip glowing fiercely before she released it. The shot tore into another soldier's shoulder, spinning him to the ground where he crumpled with a grunt of pain.
Another attacker charged with a blade raised high. Rowena pivoted sharply, slipping past the strike, her bow twisting upward to catch his arm. With a swift, brutal torque, she snapped the joint at the elbow. The man's scream tore through the clamor of battle. Before he could collapse, she looped the bowstring around his neck, pivoted her weight, and hurled him over her shoulder, the man hitting the stone floor hard. She pulled the string taut again, the luminous arrow humming as it formed—then released it point-blank into his skull. His body went still.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, each one scraping her throat raw, sweat soaking her black hair until strands clung to her face and neck. Even her coat, reinforced with protective weave, felt heavier than iron, damp and scorched from the relentless clash. The armor had saved her countless times; blades glanced off, arrows shattered, and lesser spells fizzled upon contact—but every strike left its mark, wearing at her strength. And yet she stood, bow in hand, unbroken.
Her gaze snapped to the advancing line of guards, their armor glinting through the haze. She raised her weapon once more, her arm trembling from exertion, but her eyes burned with defiance.
"Pallas!" she cried.
The arrow that left her string blazed like a shard of blue flame, splitting mid-flight into a storm of arrows that rained down on the oncoming guards. Screams echoed as they fell, bodies collapsing in a clatter of steel and bone. She lowered her bow, her chest heaving, and glanced over her shoulder at the dwindling numbers of AEGIS fighters and militia still holding the line. No matter how many she struck down, Norsefire surged forward in relentless waves, as if nothing could break their charge toward the castle.
Her eyes widened, the realization striking like a blade to the gut. There was only one reason they would be so focused, so unyielding. Orders. Which could only mean… Burgess was already inside.
Her pulse quickened. She turned her gaze back to the landing just as another guard lunged into view, spear raised, leaping toward her with murderous intent. The spearhead caught the sunlight, a glint of steel rushing straight for her. Rowena tensed, knowing she had no time to draw, no chance to dodge.
Then came the sound—an unnatural tearing of the air, a chorus of rattling links. Chains, black as pitch, erupted from jagged portals that split open along the walls and ground. Hooks tore into the soldier's flesh mid-flight. His scream was high and raw, cut with agony, as the chains snapped taut. Flesh stretched, bones cracked, and with a final wrenching pull, his body was torn apart in a wet explosion, the fragments raining down onto the blood-slick stone.
A blackened arrow whistled past Rowena's cheek, striking another guard who had tried to flank her. She turned, her bow still raised, only to see a familiar figure emerging from the smoke. The elven girl moved with predatory grace, dressed head-to-toe in shadow-black attire, though her steps faltered slightly, one hand pressed to her side where blood stained the fabric.
"You let your guard down for even a second, and you die," Isha said. There was a faint limp in her gait, but her amber eyes were sharp as ever. "You'd think that'd be common sense by now."
"Isha… what are you doing here? Where's Asriel?" Rowena's words caught, her breath still uneven from the fight. Her eyes dropped to the dark stain blooming across Isha's side, blackened blood seeping between her fingers. "By Hecate… are you—are you alright?"
Isha gave a strained chuckle, the sound brittle beneath her pain. "Asriel's gone after Burgess," she managed, her breath hitching as she clutched her side more tightly. "And me? I've been better."
The bow in her hand trembled ever so slightly, her fingers refusing to keep entirely still. A shadow passed across her face, not from the smoke or falling debris, but from memory.
"I almost forgot what this felt like," she said, almost wistful. "That sick little girl in the wheelchair… the one who couldn't take ten steps without collapsing, who spent her days choking on blood and her nights wondering if she'd live to see the sun."
She coughed then. Blood spilled across her lips. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and laughed softly, the sound more hollow than mirthful. "My time's almost up, princess."
Rowena shook her head, already stepping closer, hands lifting instinctively. "No. I can heal you. I know a few healing incantations. Basic ones, but they might—"
"I appreciate the thought," Isha said gently, straightening her posture with a wince. "But if magic could've saved me, I wouldn't be standing here right now." Her legs gave a slight tremble beneath her, but she didn't fall. Not yet. "The truth is… I've maybe got a couple hours left before I'm back to dragging myself across the floor."
Her words weren't bitter. They were matter-of-fact, spoken with the calm of someone who'd made peace with the inevitable long ago.
From beyond the ruined walls, the war cries of a fresh Norsefire battalion echoed up the slope. The sound of steel and footfall thundered like a coming storm. Isha turned her head, the smirk on her bloodied face carved in defiance.
"But until then," she muttered, dark fire lighting behind her eyes, "I'm going to drag as many of these bastards down to Tartarus with me as I can." She turned slightly, her gaze settling on Rowena. "What say you?"
Rowena stared past her at the charging soldiers, at the tide of hatred and flame surging toward them. Her grip tightened around her bow, and her sapphire eyes narrowed.
"It'd be my pleasure."
Isha smirked as the veins of fire grew brighter along the dark surface of her bow. "Then, let's go!" she then charged forward with Rowena behind her.
They moved as one, stringing their bows with practiced precision as their boots pounded across the blood-slick stone. Twin arrows ignited with magical energy, loosed in perfect synchrony. Each shot struck true—piercing throats, splitting through helms, burying deep in chests with brutal finality. The guards collapsed mid-charge, crumpling like puppets with their strings cut.
A volley of spells surged toward them in retaliation, streaks of light and flame that crackled through the air. The two women split instantly. Isha veering left, Rowena right. Dodging in opposite directions without a word, their movements seamless, instinctual.
Isha ducked beneath a swinging blade. The steel hissing inches above her head. She twisted, lifting her bow to deflect a second strike before driving an arrow into her attacker's gut at close range. Another soldier rushed her. She spun and loosed two arrows in rapid succession. One struck through the throat; the other buried itself clean through the eye socket. He gurgled once, then dropped. Isha didn't stop.
She leapt into the air, vaulting over a trio of guards with the grace of a shadow, and while mid-air, she fired again—three arrows in swift succession, each one slicing through armor and flesh as easily as parchment.
Rowena, on the other side, was no less relentless. Her ethereal sapphire arrows shimmered like starlight, each one glowing brighter than the last. With each draw and release, another Norsefire soldier fell—throats torn open, chests punctured, limbs seized in agony. One reached her, sword raised; she spun and cracked her boot across his jaw, sending him crashing into the stone. Before he could rise, she fired an arrow straight into his skull, the point bursting through the socket in a spray of red.
Still, they came.
No matter how many fell, more surged forward like an endless tide. The two women rounded the corner of a wide cobbled avenue, boots skidding slightly against the blood-stained stones. Ahead, an entire platoon of Norsefire troops thundered toward them—shields up, blades drawn, spells ready to fire.
"They just don't stop, do they?" Isha hissed, her breath catching as she raised her bow once more.
And then, a sharp crack of blue light split the sky above them.
"Quoth the Raven," a voice called out behind them.
Rowena turned her head, eyes lighting up.
"Nevermore."
Bran stood atop a ruined archway, his bow drawn. The energy crackling along the limbs of his weapon glowed with brilliant azure. "Grand… Pallas," he whispered.
The bolt of energy he fired arced high into the air before bursting apart in a flash of blue light. A heartbeat later, it fractured. Scattering into hundreds of gleaming arrows that rained from the heavens like divine judgment. The sky itself wept vengeance.
The Norsefire soldiers below had only a moment to scream before the arrows tore through them—piercing steel, flesh, and stone alike. They collapsed en masse, their formation broken, their cries smothered beneath the storm of magic and death.
Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of burning air and the distant crash of collapsing rubble.
Rowena turned back to Isha, her chest rising and falling with exhaustion and adrenaline. Isha gave a weak grin.
"Why does he look so bloody familiar?" Isha then muttered, brows drawn.
Rowena offered a faint smile, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. "Well… he is my brother. Bran."
Isha's eyes widened, snapping toward her as she leaned in slightly, disbelief etched across her expression. "That's your brother?"
Rowena blinked, caught off guard. "Yes?"
Isha tilted her head, eyes sweeping over Bran as she gave a low, appreciative whistle. "Well, that explains it. He does look like a younger, more dashing version of your father. Same intensity, less wrinkles." Her grin widened. "You know, if I weren't… cursed and dying, I might've taken him for myself."
Rowena's cheeks flushed a deep crimson, the color rising fast, her words tangling into an incoherent fluster. "I—You—That's—!"
Isha laughed, wincing slightly as the motion tugged at her wounds, but the sound was genuine, full of mischief and defiance.
Bran, having heard every word, simply shook his head with a soft, amused smile as he neared. But then—he froze.
The faint metallic screech of steel threads against stone cut through the air.
His smile vanished.
He looked up just as a warcaster came rolling violently into view, its heavy, rune-marked threads carving jagged lines into the cobblestone as it skidded to a halt. The barrel mounted on its rotating chassis glowed hot with magical energy, already locking onto them, its humming pitch rising like a scream held in the throat.
Everything slowed.
Bran's voice tore from his lungs as he broke into a sprint. "Get down!"
Isha's amber eyes went wide, her body already twisting instinctively but she was injured, her movements too slow. Rowena caught the glint of the warcaster's charge, saw Bran's face twisted in urgency, and then looked beyond, to the militia and the AEGIS guardians holding their ground behind them. If the shot missed its mark, it would still strike them. They wouldn't survive it.
They wouldn't have time to dodge.
And in that breathless instant, Rowena understood what had to be done.
She drew in a sharp breath and shut her eyes. She would have to break the promise she made to her grandfather so many years ago. A promise sworn in innocence. One she'd vowed never to betray.
But promises meant nothing if everyone she loved died keeping them.
Rowena turned to face the warcaster, her breath steadying as the thrum of its charged core reached a deafening pitch. Energy crackled in the air, thick and sharp, as though the world itself held its breath.
Bran's steps faltere. "What is she…?"
Then it hit him.
His eyes widened in sudden clarity, and the blood drained from his face. "No… she wouldn't—Rowena, don't!" he shouted, but the wind had already begun to howl with gathering force.
The warcaster fired.
The blast tore through the air with scorching fury, a blinding column of raw, arcane power ripping along the cobbled street. The sheer force of it scorched the earth, splintering stone, peeling away layers of the path in its wake. Bran and Isha froze, helpless in its path, their eyes wide with the knowledge that this—this was death.
Then Rowena opened her eyes.
Magic burst outward from her, a pulse of radiant, crystalline force that swept through the square like a tidal wave. Her irises blazed with a prismatic glow, colors shifting like fractured light across a cut gem. The air warped. Space trembled. The approaching blast struck something unseen. An invisible wall woven from arcane energy, and recoiled. Blue lightning crackled across the ground in veins, spreading like the roots of a great tree across the cobbles, through the walls, up the towers.
Then, all at once, the warcaster's attack vanished—devoured by the void, unmade before it could touch them.
Rowena inhaled sharply, her vision laced with a deeper truth. From her eyes, the world unraveled into threads—crimson lines stretching across every object, every soul, every breath of space. A web of existence. Intricate. Eternal. And at the heart of the warcaster, she saw it—a knot, dark and pulsing, the core thread binding its entire structure together.
Her bow rose slowly. The ethereal arrow shimmered into form, its tip whirring, reshaping into a spiraled point like a drill of starlight.
"Dirge," she whispered.
The arrow tore through the air, its shimmering form elongating as it flew, the magical energy screaming like a chorus of wailing spirits. Mid-flight, it began to shift. Warping and twisting, reshaping into the likeness of a great raven. Its wings unfurled in a burst of crackling light, feathers forged of arcane flame, talons outstretched like the claws of fate itself. A sharp, haunting caw echoed through the battlefield as it descended, spectral eyes locked on its mark.
Then, with precise fury, it struck.
The knot at the warcaster's core ignited in a brilliant flash, light surging outward in jagged pulses before the central thread snapped with a soundless rupture. Unraveling in an instant, as if the very essence of the construct had been ripped from existence.
The warcaster stuttered, then collapsed in on itself, folding like wet parchment before exploding in a violent burst of fire and metal. The blast shook the street, shattered the windows, and sent chunks of stone raining down like thunder. The roar echoed across the hills before fading into a low hum.
The glow in Rowena's eyes flickered. Her limbs trembled. Her knees gave out, but Bran was already moving. He caught her just before she could fall, wrapping an arm around her as her head slumped against his chest.
"You absolute fool," Bran breathed. "You promised grandfather you would never use it."
Rowena gave a weak laugh, eyes fluttering half-shut. "I know… he's going to be so mad," she whispered, lifting a trembling hand to his cheek. "But you're safe. That's what matters."
Nearby, Isha stood frozen, her breath catching, the color draining from her already pale face. Sweat beaded across her brow as she stared at Rowena. Not in confusion, but recognition. She had heard of this once… long ago. Whispers passed down from her late mother. From the elves of old. A legend. A warning.
A power born not of modern spellcraft or ritual, but of something far older.
A gift of the divine.
Her voice was barely audible as the truth escaped her lips.
"...The Mystic Eyes."