Alinda was already grabbing her gear, fast, controlled, mechanical. Belt, blade, cloak, vial. Her mind was elsewhere, locked onto a path that hadn't been walked yet.
Neo stood awkwardly at the edge of the room, breath still uneven. "Wait, what are you..."
She grabbed his arm. Hard. "We're going."
Neo stumbled forward. "What?"
"To find Thal," she snapped. "Before Fall does."
Tor stood, chest still rising fast, her hands cutting through the air in sharp, urgent signs. You leave?
Alinda turned briefly, eyes narrowing, but not at her. Never at her. "I need you here. If something comes, if Fall returns, you're the only one left who can hold this village together."
Tor hesitated, her fingers curling inward. Then slowly she nodded, even though they both knew it wouldn't be enough.
Alinda didn't wait. She yanked the door open, snow spiraling in around them. Neo stood frozen in the threshold. He glanced at Tor, who looked almost small now despite her size. The fire had returned to her eyes, but behind it, fear still lingered.
Alinda's grip tightened on his wrist. "Move."
And Neo moved.
The cold bit immediately. The path ahead was thick with fresh snow and churned frost, but Alinda didn't slow. They had barely cleared the outer houses when Neo finally found his voice.
"Why are you so afraid?" he asked, teeth clenching. "You're not scared of anything."
"I'm not afraid of Fall," she said, still not looking at him.
"But you're afraid of what he'll do to Thal."
"No."
That stopped Neo cold. Alinda paused, just for a breath, then looked out toward the horizon south, where the wind pulled the clouds thin and long, like claws scratching the sky.
"I'm afraid of what happens if Thal fights back."
Neo stared. She turned her eyes to him, shining crimson against the snow.
"You don't understand what it means when two Nephilim fight."
He didn't respond. Alinda faced forward again, jaw set. "They don't battle, Neo. They don't have duels or skirmishes. They unmake. They erase. The last time two of them fought..."
Her voice faltered.
"...the mountains still haven't healed."
She pointed south, toward the pale outline of two jagged peaks that tore across the horizon like broken teeth. "You see those? The split peaks?"
Neo nodded slowly.
"That wasn't erosion. That wasn't time. That was the last time two Nephilim fought."
Alinda didn't wait. "Open a portal," she ordered, her voice sharp and cutting through the snow like a blade. "South. As far as you can take us."
Neo hesitated, still winded. "I... I can't."
She turned to him like he'd just spoken in a foreign tongue. "What do you mean, can't?"
"I can open them, sure, but I don't choose where they go. Not exactly. It's not like aiming an arrow. It's more like falling toward a place that's calling me." He winced, bracing for a shout.
Alinda stared at him for one long, unblinking moment. Then she rolled her eyes, muttered something inaudible, and without ceremony, grabbed him.
"Wait, what are you..."
She picked him up like he weighed nothing. One arm under his knees, the other bracing his back, and before he could utter another protest, she was moving.
She didn't run. She tore through the world.
It wasn't just speed. Speed could be measured. Timed. Chased. What Alinda did wasn't that. She moved like wind given flesh, like momentum forgotten by stone. Her strides were impossibly long, smooth, powerful. She cleared frozen streams and twisted pines with barely a twitch of her shoulders, her body carving through the cold with the elegance of a storm.
Snowdrift vanished behind them in a heartbeat. Then the mountains rose, the two jagged peaks, part of the greater Spine that split the northern sky like a scar, remnants of a divine battle long past. She didn't slow. She moved through the gap between them, down their ancient path, a blur of silver hair and black cloak.
The wind screamed past Neo's ears. His face was raw from the cold, eyes wet and stinging. He didn't dare look back. The world behind them was gone. The world ahead rushed toward him like it was being rewritten.
Then came the tundra. A place of silence, death, and forgotten wreckage where sound was swallowed and even monsters feared to tread. Yet Alinda crossed it like it was a summer plain. Her feet barely touched the frost. Ice cracked, snow erupted, and still she moved forward.
The tundra gave way to green. Rolling hills, wildflowers, untamed earth that drank sunlight like it was healing from winter's wound. Neo caught glimpses of deer with antlers like trees, birds with wings of firelight, and then they were gone, behind them, forgotten.
Hours passed. Or maybe it was minutes. Time folded in on itself, lost in the rhythm of her movement.
Then the land changed again.
Rising before them was a wall of jagged silver, the Empyrean Spine, its peaks clawing at the sky. Nestled at its roots, tucked into the curve of two sloping ridges, was a town built on myth and memory: Oakvale.
Alinda's boots hit soft earth and ground to a halt with the thunderous weight of momentum snapping still. Neo tumbled from her arms, landing on his back in the grass, chest heaving, hair stuck to his face. His whole body buzzed like it had been carrying lightning.
Alinda stood over him, still as a statue. She wasn't even breathing hard. Her hair danced in the wind, her cloak rippled, and her eyes, sharp and crimson, watched the horizon, narrowed.
Neo gasped, voice cracking. "Are we...?"
She didn't answer. Her gaze stayed locked on the cliffs.
Neo dragged himself upright, breath still catching. "We're not... we're not going through that, right?"
No answer.
He turned to her. Alinda was completely still, her gaze tracing ledge to outcrop to snow-rimmed edge. Neo could almost hear the mental clockwork turning behind her silence.
"You're not thinking about climbing it, are you?"
She didn't give an answer.
Beyond them, the villagers of Oakvale had begun to stir. Figures moved along stone paths. Most hadn't seen their arrival, no one had time to. One moment there had been wind. The next, they were here.
Then a voice called out: clear, familiar, and sharp with recognition.
"Alinda?"
The name cut through the tension. Neo turned, blinking against the light. Alinda didn't. Not yet.
A slim figure stepped from one of the upper terraces of Oakvale, boots silent on the stone. She moved like the wind had learned to walk, measured, light, precise. Her hair was long and black, her eyes gold and sharp. She wasn't smiling.
"Vivin," Neo croaked, relief flooding his voice. "Vivin, thank the stars."
The elf descended quickly, her gaze flicking between Neo and Alinda. When she reached them, she stopped ten paces away, her arms crossed, her expression settling into something complicated, part recognition, part old resentment, part weary acceptance.
"Alinda," Vivin said, her voice flat. "I wondered when you'd crawl back out of whatever hole you've been hiding in."
Alinda finally turned. Her crimson eyes met Vivin's golden ones. The air between them went cold, still, charged with decades of unspoken words.
"Vivin," Alinda said, nodding once. "You're looking well."
"Don't." Vivin's jaw tightened. "Don't pretend we're old friends catching up. Not after what happened. Not after you left him."
Neo looked between them, confused. "You two know each other?"
"We knew each other," Vivin said, her eyes never leaving Alinda. "Back when Thal was young. Back when we all thought we could save him from what he was becoming." She paused, her tone sharpening. "Before she decided the world was better seen from a distance."
"I didn't come to reminisce," Alinda said, her voice dropping to that dangerous quiet Neo had learned to fear. "Fall is moving. He's hunting Thal."
The effect was immediate. Vivin's face went rigid, her expression shuttering closed like a door slamming shut. She didn't pale or tremble, instead, her eyes darkened with a grim, knowing weight.
"Fall," Vivin repeated, the name heavy on her tongue. "You saw him?"
"He found us in Snowdrift," Alinda said. "He had Neo by the throat. If I'd been a minute later..." She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
Vivin closed her eyes, exhaling slowly through her nose. "Then it's true. He's really hunting his own son." She looked at Neo, really looked at him, noticing the bruises around his throat. "He hurt you."
"I've had worse," Neo said, though his voice was rough.
Vivin's gaze returned to Alinda, sharp and assessing. "If Fall catches Thal, he won't just kill him. He'll break him. He'll remind Thal of every oath he ever broke, every line he ever crossed. Fall doesn't hunt to destroy, he hunts to correct. To make Thal into what he thinks a Nephilim should be."
"That's why we need to reach him first," Alinda said. "Before Fall can corner him. Before Thal has to choose between dying or becoming what Fall wants him to be."
Vivin was quiet for a long moment, her fingers drumming against her arm. When she spoke again, her voice was steady, practical. "Thal took the west passage three days ago. He's through the Spine by now, heading toward Kel. If Fall is hunting him, he'll know that route. He'll expect Thal to take the safe path."
Alinda's eyes were already tracing a line up the mountain face, a route no path could follow. "Then I'll take the direct one."
Vivin followed her gaze to the sheer cliffs, then reached into her pouch and pulled free a small bundle of dark cord strung with etched stone and bone runes. Ancient and reactive, humming faintly with latent power. She held them out.
"You won't need these," Vivin said, looking at Alinda. "But he will." She nodded at Neo. "The air up there is thin. The old magic is sour, it seeps into the mind, makes you see things that aren't there. These won't help you climb, but they might keep his thoughts from shattering."
Neo reached for them, but Vivin pulled back, her eyes locking onto his.
"If you fail," she said, her voice hard, "if Fall catches Thal and they fight... you know what will happen. You've seen the mountains. You know what's left when they finish."
"We won't fail," Alinda said.
Vivin handed her the charms. "For your sake, for Thal's sake... don't let him become what Fall wants him to become. Don't let him forget that he chose to be more than his blood."
Alinda took the charms and tucked them into Neo's coat. "Fair enough."
Vivin stepped back, her arms wrapping around herself. "Thal went west with the heroes. Tar is with him. If you're trying to intercept Fall before he catches Thal..." She looked up at the sky. "You need to be faster than possible."
Alinda was already turning toward the mountain. "I am."
She grabbed Neo by the collar and under the knees with one smooth movement and lifted him off the ground.
"Vivin..." Neo started.
"Stay alive," Vivin said. Then, softer: "Keep him whole. Please."
Alinda stepped onto the path and took her first bounding leap toward the jagged cliffs. Then they were gone.
Neo couldn't scream. He wanted to, but there wasn't enough breath left in his lungs. The first leap sent them soaring a dozen feet into the air, landing on a narrow ledge no wider than a plank. Alinda didn't stop. She pivoted off the edge and launched them again, this time up and to the right, boots striking a jagged rock wall so steep it should have sent them tumbling but she ran along it.
Her boots slammed into the surface in perfect rhythm, feet catching just enough grip to carry them forward. Snow kicked up around them in blinding sprays. The wind battered Neo's face and ears. His hair whipped wildly across his eyes. His limbs were numb, half from wind, half from raw disbelief.
They weren't climbing the Spine. She was dancing along it.
Alinda's breath was calm, collected, her body moving with a confidence that defied the stone. Each jump was precise. Each sprint along a nearly vertical cliff face looked less like travel and more like something divine remembering how it moved.
Neo caught glimpses of frozen ledges, bone-laced crevices, spiralling paths of long-forgotten construction. They passed crumbled towers clinging to the cliffside. At one point, a flock of crows scattered in their path, shrieking, and Alinda didn't flinch.
She stepped onto a cracked slope and kicked off, bounding from a snow-dusted pillar into the air, twisting with inhuman grace as she landed along another sharp ridge. Neo swore they were sideways at one point, her boots planted parallel to the mountainside, her cloak flaring behind her like a second shadow.
There was no time to think, no breath for hesitation. Every stride was a challenge hurled at the ancient stone. The air grew thinner, the wind warming by degrees, and soon the jagged crown of the Empyrean Spine loomed ahead, its serrated ridge dusted with snow, rimmed in clouds that whispered like ghosts.
She landed with a crunch onto a narrow ledge high above the world, her breath steady, her steps unwavering. Neo dangled in her arms, a pale and twitching wreck, his mouth half open in a wheeze that might have once been language.
"You," he gasped, voice cracking between breaths, "are... absolutely... insane."
Alinda tilted her head, silver hair catching the light, and offered a crooked little smile. "You're welcome."
He slumped against her chest, arms limp, head tilting back in stunned surrender. Behind them, the Spine stood tall and defiant. The mountain hadn't granted them passage. It had tried to kill them. But they had reached the summit because she refused to yield.
At the edge, Alinda paused, letting the golden sky stretch wide before her. The clouds curled beneath their boots, thick and warm, veiling the world below.
Neo clutched the hem of her cloak like a man holding the edge of reality. "Alinda," he croaked, "please tell me we're going to rest now."
She turned just slightly, lips twitching. "We're going down."
"Down what?"
She shifted his weight, adjusting her grip. His voice cracked with disbelief. "We're not done?"
Alinda didn't speak. She just smiled wider, then she ran.
The wind tore past them. The summit vanished behind them, buried in blinding motion. The Spine was no gentle slope. It was a vertical blade of shattered earth. Alinda didn't so much run down it as she carved a path through its fury. Her boots struck rock with pinpoint precision, launching from one jagged ledge to another as the world tilted ninety degrees.
Neo shrieked, a full-body scream with no dignity. Alinda, impossibly, laughed. A real, almost giddy sound.
"Oh, come on," she shouted over the storm. "You survived the climb. You can survive the fun part!"
"This is not fun, Alinda!"
She didn't slow. Her strides lengthened, movement flowing like water down stone. She sprinted along walls like a phantom, vaulting across empty air to reach outcroppings no sane being would attempt to land on. Neo could feel the change in air pressure, the way it pressed against his chest, how his vision started to swim.
She launched off a narrow lip of rock, twisted mid-air, and slammed onto a slope that curved like a polished fang. It dropped another half mile in a sickening arc.
"Try not to vomit," she called.
"I will die first!" he snapped, clutching tighter to her shoulder.
"Oh, you poor thing."
A flock of crows exploded into the air ahead of them, startled by the blur ripping through their sky. They scattered in a flurry of wings. Neo realized they had passed them, outpaced birds in flight.
That's when he saw it.
Beyond the cliffs, far below, a forest stretched out like a bruise on the earth. Its edges rippled with unnatural tremors. The trees were black and crooked, twisted limbs reaching up like broken fingers. Even from this distance, Neo could feel how the air around that place darkened, how the sun seemed dimmer.
"Is that...?" His voice caught.
"Shadowfern," Alinda confirmed, her tone casual as she bounded to a higher ridge mid-sprint. "Lovely this time of year."
Neo tried to speak, to protest, but all that came out was a strangled wheeze. She glanced down at him with an almost innocent expression. "You're not enjoying the view?"
"This isn't a view. It's a death march!"
"You wound me."
"Put me down!"
She tilted her head as if considering it. "No."
With one last kick, she hurled them off a crumbling ridge and onto a narrow bridge of stone that sloped downward like the blade of a giant's sword. It was the final stretch. The Shadowfern pulsed in the distance, dark and alive with movement, shadows crawling where no wind stirred.
Neo screamed again, but his voice cracked halfway through. Not because the fear had passed, but because what was the point? His voice had given out. His limbs hung limp, flailing like rags.
With Alinda… Alinda was smiling. Not bracing for impact, not gritting her teeth. She was smiling like someone who had just remembered what joy felt like and had chosen to chase it off the edge of the world.
Her body leaned forward, the angle subtle but precise, her arms shifting like a hawk folding into a dive. The wind screamed past them. Her cloak flared out behind her, a streak of shadow cutting through the frost.
Neo, cradled tightly against her chest, could only stare up at her in stunned silence. This wasn't speed, it was art. She wasn't just outrunning the mountain, she was sculpting it, every motion a chisel stroke against the bones of the world. Her boots found ledges that didn't exist to mortal eyes, her steps threading a path through chaos and Neo couldn't look away.
He wasn't screaming anymore. He was watching her, jaw slack, eyes wide, like he was seeing her for the first time. All he could think, through the howling wind and terrifying descent, was that she was enjoying this. Every leap, every pivot, every impossible landing. Alinda wasn't enduring the drop. She was revelling in it.
This wasn't a mission. This wasn't survival.
This was freedom.
She was flying, and he was just along for the ride, clinging to consciousness as velocity threatened to unmake him.
The earth was rising fast now. Too fast. The base of the Spine stretched into cracked dirt and thawing rivers. Beyond that, the land warped and sickened, the first rot-touched edges of the Shadowfern staining the horizon.
Neo's eyes widened in panic. He braced, arms wrapping across his chest.
Alinda didn't slow.
She didn't flinch.
The ground surged up to meet them, then she landed. Soft. Clean. Effortless. No crater, no tremor. Her boots touched the earth like she was stepping off a porch.
Neo blinked. They were standing. Alive. Breathing. The Spine loomed far above now, like something from a dream they'd escaped.
She set him down gently onto the grass.
Neo stumbled back two steps, then collapsed, arms flung out, staring up at the sky with the thousand-yard stare of someone who had witnessed God, died, and been thrown back down.
"...How," he whispered hoarsely, "how are you real?"
Alinda stretched, rolling her shoulders until a soft pop echoed. "I told you I could move," she replied casually.
"You didn't tell me gravity was just... optional," he muttered.
She grinned.
Neo closed his eyes. "Never again." but deep down, he knew the truth. This was only the beginning.
He lay there, sprawled and motionless, as if his soul was still trying to catch up. Then she stepped into view again, blocking the sky with her silhouette, tall, poised, impossibly calm. She cast a long shadow across his chest.
She loomed. Not as a warrior or monster, but as something larger than either. Something made of movement, forged by refusal.
Neo gazed up at her like he'd forgotten how to speak.
"You don't have a choice," she said quietly, her voice playful but layered with something final and she was right. He hadn't had a choice for a long time now.
Neo groaned and rolled to his side. Alinda chuckled not cruelly, just amused.
Then, without a word, she turned toward the horizon. Toward the forest. Toward the rising stain of the Shadowfern.
She didn't tell him to get up. Didn't pull him forward. She let him rest because soon, rest would become a luxury neither of them could afford.