The fire had burned low, casting flickers of dim orange across the sleeping forms.
Perseus sat with his back to a moss-covered log, his hammer resting beside him and arms crossed tightly over his chest. He blinked slowly, fighting the drag of sleep like it was an enemy trying to overtake his mind.
He couldn't let it.
She needed him.
His eyes flicked to Nyxia, lying curled under his cloak, her breathing finally steady—if shallow. Beside her, Loque'nahak was coiled like a massive sentinel, tail looped protectively around her legs, wings folded close. One glowing eye cracked open every few minutes, checking her. Checking him.
Perseus shifted, trying to stretch out his legs, and the beast's head snapped up, ears flattening with a low, guttural growl.
"Easy," Perseus murmured. "It's just me."
Loque didn't move, didn't blink. Just stared.
Something about it unsettled him. The beast's usual spectral calm was gone. Replaced by a coiled storm of barely restrained tension.
"He's scared," Perseus whispered to himself, more to ground the thought than anything else. "Just like me."
But even his own voice was beginning to slur.
The weight of battle, the sprint through the dark, the terror in that chamber—it all bore down like armor made of stone. His chin dropped. His breathing slowed.
"Just a minute," he mumbled. "Just… a minute…"
Sleep took him.
Morning crept in, slow and gray.
When Perseus stirred, the fire was long dead and his joints ached from the cold. He blinked at the pale light, heart lurching as he sat up quickly.
Nyxia still lay where she had, but her eyes were open now—barely. Watching him. Silent.
Loque stood over her like a wall of fur and spirit-light, tense and watchful. The spectral beast's ears twitched with every sound. When Perseus moved to get closer, Loque bared his fangs with a low hiss.
"Loque," Perseus said quietly, raising his hands. "It's me. I won't hurt her."
The beast didn't yield right away.
It took a long, taut moment before Loque's eyes softened and his body relaxed enough for Perseus to kneel beside Nyxia once again. Even then, his tail remained looped protectively around her form.
"You kept her safe," Perseus murmured. "You always do."
But even now, his limbs felt heavy. Sluggish. The night had offered little rest, and the weight of it dragged behind his eyes. He rubbed his face, then reached for his flask, offering Nyxia water with a gentle hand.
She coughed once, then drank greedily.
"You're… lagging," she rasped, offering him a faint, knowing smile through cracked lips.
Perseus laughed—hoarse, soft, relieved.
"Don't get used to it."
Perseus sat beside her, exhaustion etched deep in the lines of his face, but his touch was gentle as he brushed a curl of hair from her brow.
"I thought we lost you," he murmured.
Nyxia didn't answer at first. She stared up at the cloud-heavy sky through the skeletal branches above them. Her lips parted, but the words trembled before they came.
"I could feel her in my head," she whispered. "Not just her power. Her voice. The vines… they weren't just torturing me. She wanted me to submit."
Perseus's jaw tightened.
Loque let out a low growl, pressing his forehead gently against Nyxia's ribs like he was trying to ground her in reality.
"She knew how to get to me," Nyxia added. "She knew… everything. About you. About Loque. About when we were younger. Even about that first night in the ruins, when we kissed and laughed like we'd never bleed."
Perseus's eyes flicked away, cheeks coloring faintly with the memory. "You mean the night you dragged me into the temple naked and dared me to—"
She laughed, a sound frayed with pain. "You were so awkward."
"I was fifteen! And in love with a storm of a girl who stole relics for fun."
The air between them softened—just for a moment. Loque even let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a huff of amusement.
Later That Day...
Armor donned, injuries wrapped in linen and silence, they followed the old hunter's road east—Perseus in front, Nyxia close behind with Loque shadowing them both like a ghost of vengeance.
Their destination lay buried in the bones of a fallen city: Serath'Kai.
Once a bastion of elven culture, now it stood hunched and hollow, a corpse of crumbling towers and collapsed bridges clinging to the cliffside. Rot slicked every stone. Fungal bloom clung to the walls like tumors. The air was thick with the breath of something that had long since stopped living.
Even Loque's ears flattened as they entered.
"If Ves'Sariel's gone to ground here," Perseus muttered, eyes scanning the ruins, "we'll need to find someone who remembers her."
Nyxia's lips parted into a cold smirk. "And someone still human enough to talk."
But beyond the slums, something else waited.
They passed through a shattered gate crowned in rust and fungal moss, into a tunnel whose walls pulsed faintly with light—old tech, still active, humming like a heart that refused to die.
Perseus led the way, steps steady despite the dried blood flaking from his armor. The tunnel smelled of ozone and machine-oil, alchemy and age. A faint wind stirred, though no breeze should have reached this far underground.
Nyxia followed, ribs aching, still cloaked in the spare wrap Perseus had draped over her back.
She said nothing at first.
Not until the tunnel gave way to light.
And then, they stepped into the lie.
It wasn't the surface.
It only pretended to be.
A vast subterranean chamber opened before them, its domed ceiling hidden in shadows high above. Giant fans whirred slowly overhead, pushing stale air in steady currents that made the fake leaves on metal-frame trees rustle as if touched by a breeze. A painted sunlamp cast lazy golden light across uneven cobblestone streets and artificial garden squares. Neon vines curled along the walls, pulsing like veins beneath murals of a sky that never was.
It was a forest made of steel and illusion.
And people lived here.
Goblins in oil-stained coats, mutated elves with crystal goggles, even the occasional masked figure in a rebreather drifted through the false light, trading in whispers and counterfeit charms.
The hum of generators blended with ambient jazz spilling from cracked speakers. Above them, flickering runes and ads promised "Fresh Air, Premium Grade" and "Sunlight Without the Risk."
Perseus paused beneath the largest of the synthetic trees—its bark spray-painted, its fruit molded plastic.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
Nyxia raised a brow. "Define okay."
He didn't answer. Just opened his satchel and pulled out a bundle—her armor, carefully repaired. And her bow, polished and re-strung, gleaming in the fake light.
Her eyes softened. She reached for the bow first, fingers curling around the grip like an old friend.
"I didn't want to dig through your things," he said quickly. "But you were bleeding, unconscious, and I couldn't just leave you like that."
She arched a brow. "So you stripped me?"
He coughed. "I… turned around. Mostly."
She studied him, silent for a beat.
Then smirked. "Waking me up after you've had your look. Smooth, paladin."
His face reddened. "It wasn't—Light, Nyxia—"
"Relax," she said, voice teasing but tired. "I'm just giving you grief. You saved my life. I know that."
Perseus exhaled in relief.
"Still," she added with a glint, "I reserve the right to mess with you. Especially after this."
She pulled the cloak tight again, then turned her gaze toward the false sun above them.
"So," she murmured, "who here still remembers Ves'Sariel?"
Before Perseus could answer, a piercing shriek cut through the square.
It didn't come from the city.
It came from below.
The cobblestone cracked.
Dark limbs clawed up from underneath—twisted elves, their bodies slick with void rot, eyes weeping ichor, mouths sewn shut with vein-like cords of blackened matter.
Perseus didn't hesitate.
"Nyxia—armor. Now!"
She was already moving—ripping off the cloak, sliding her armor into place. Her bow snapped into her hand like an extension of her will.
"Thanks for the timing," she muttered, stringing an arrow.
"Try not to bleed on the fake forest," Perseus replied grimly.
Loque let out a thunderous snarl—and leapt.
The creatures rushed them in a frenzy, and everything became a blur of violence.
Perseus swung his hammer barehanded, the holy light exploding from its core with every strike. One creature's chest caved inward in a wet crunch, bone shards flying like shrapnel.
Loque lunged, spectral claws raking through flesh and shadow alike. He tore one in half with his fangs, intestines slapping wetly against the cobblestone as he snarled.
Nyxia, still recovering, raised her bow with trembling arms, firing into the eye of a malformed brute—black ichor exploding across her face as it fell.
A clawed limb slashed across Perseus's shoulder, slicing through linen and flesh. He grunted, staggered—but didn't fall. He roared and brought his hammer down on the creature's skull, pulverizing it in one gore-soaked blow.
When the last of them collapsed in twitching ruin, the camp was drenched in blood and steaming entrails. Nyxia leaned on Loque, breathing hard, her hands shaking. Perseus stumbled to one knee, arm clutched to his bleeding side.
None of them spoke for a long moment.
Then, Nyxia rasped, "She's sending them now. Like a message."
Perseus wiped his face with the back of his hand, blood and filth streaking across his cheek. "Then we answer it."