"Merlin…please," she voiced. Or perhaps—begged.
The mighty empress, the woman nations feared, was on her knees in the middle of a burning battlefield, blue fire spiraling around them like the hellfire of forgotten gods. Nothing remained of the command post but smoke and ruin, the air filled with the acidic stench of scorched steel and burnt mana.
There was no Yggdrasil fruit. No mythical beast. No secret relic hidden in her sleeves.
Only her. And the old high mage. And the body of a dying man. No—already dead, if her ears hadn't lied.
"Merlin…" she whispered again. Louder this time, throat tightening.
She didn't recognize her own voice. The rawness of it. The desperation.
Merlin stood beside her, motionless, one palm glowing faintly as it held up the flickering protective dome that still shielded them from the firestorm raining down from the sky. He had seen wars. Plagues. The fall of empires. But nothing in his long, wrinkled memory could prepare him for this:
