The moon still clung to the sky when Aqua walked through Aurevell's gates. The guards didn't question her. Maybe the queen warned them. Maybe they sensed that stopping the woman in ash-grey robes was pointless. Her face stayed hidden, her steps slow and deliberate.
She hadn't slept. Not because she couldn't—because she refused to. Dreams had become knives. Kazuma laughing beside a fire. Darkness's stubborn courage. Megumin hurling fire into the night sky. Waking from those memories hurt more than exhaustion ever could.
The eastern road welcomed her with winter teeth. Snow scattered like torn parchment, and the wind knifed against her cloak. Her boots carved a lone trail across a land hollowed out by war. Ruined villages. Broken shrines. Roads cracked and abandoned.
Darkness's voice wouldn't leave her.
"If you fail… you will bear it. Not as a goddess. But as a woman."
Aqua brushed her fingers over the sealed documents tucked at her sash. Mortal. Vulnerable. No resurrection. No miracles. A cage disguised as freedom.
By dawn, pale gold bled across the horizon. And ahead—Asterveil.
Her steps slowed.
The maps described ruin. Burned, abandoned, dead.
This place was anything but.
High walls towered clean and unmarred. Windows gleamed with polished glass. Crimson banners—unknown, unclaimed by any noble house—hung proud over fortified battlements. Smoke curled from chimneys. The scent of coal and steel drifted in the air.
Too clean. Too new. Too intentional.
Aqua waited until a merchant caravan approached the gates. She moved with them, hood low. The guards inspected the carts, eyes sharp and polite. Too polite.
Not one of them looked at her.
The gates opened.
Inside, the city thrived. Sunlight scattered across bustling streets. Children ran laughing, merchants hawked wares, fountains spilled water so clear it looked unreal. Stalls overflowed with herbs and polished armor.
A city alive.
Yet hollow.
The laughter died when she passed. Eyes lingered too long before sliding away. A woman pressed a pear into Aqua's hand—claiming it came from eastern groves.
Aqua bit into it, tasted the lie.
Southern-grown. Out of season.
She approached a fountain, dipping her fingers into the water. Ice-cold. Not natural. Not river-fed.
Artificial.
Controlled.
"This city breathes," Aqua muttered, "but it does not live."
She wandered through the bazaar, and the cracks widened. Merchants bowed too deeply. Shoppers argued with rehearsed politeness. Children smiled on cue.
A vendor offered her a charm—runes carved with precision, but completely powerless.
Aqua set it down. His smile remained fixed as she walked away.
Not one shrine. Not one prayer stone. Not even a forgotten statue.
Belzerg always worshiped something. Even atheists left offerings "just in case."
Here? Nothing.
"Faith was erased."
She followed the path Darkness marked. Streets tightened. Lanterns glowed without flickering—unchanged by wind. Windows remained shuttered. Noise thinned to silence.
Then she found it.
Tucked beneath the shadow of a broken aqueduct stood a single restored building. Clean stone. Pale door. No crest. No markings.
A former chapel.
Aqua laid her palm on the door.
Cold surged through her hand, crawling along her arm like a living thing. Not a ward.
An invitation.
A giggle rippled behind her. Light. Familiar. Unnerving.
She spun, staff half-drawn beneath her cloak.
Nothing. The empty street stared back.
Her jaw set. She pushed the door open.
Inside, shadows pooled thick. Broken pews lined the walls. Dust swirled around her boots. Aqua freed her staff; frost-blue light spilled from the gem and pushed back the dark.
"No one here…" she whispered. "Then why does it feel like I'm being watched?"
The altar ahead sat sealed beneath heavy stone. But something nearby caught her eye—an untouched candle stand. Dust disturbed only around its base. Too clean.
She crouched.
The brass shifted beneath her fingers.
Click.
Stone groaned. The altar trembled and slid aside, revealing a spiral staircase descending into black.
"Well… there's my invitation."
She descended.
The door closed behind her without a sound.
The stairwell breathed cold air against her face. Her staff's frostlight painted ancient sigils carved into the stone—Belzerg runes, twisted and rearranged into something wrong.
Not worship. Restraint.
"This isn't a chapel," Aqua murmured. "It's a cage."
The air shifted. She heard a faint drip below.
Water? No. The echo was wrong.
Breathing.
From above, another sound—a soft scrape of a footstep.
Someone followed.
Aqua dimmed her staff, crouching low, eyes fixed on the dark above. Silence pressed against her like a hand on her back.
The watcher stopped moving.
She kept going.
The stairwell opened into a narrow chamber. Frostlight crawled over stone, revealing sconces without flame lining the walls. At the far end stood a massive black iron door. Chains crossed it, carved with those same broken sigils.
Magic radiated from it—old, patient, suffocating.
Aqua placed her palm against the chains. The metal stung with cold.
Words scraped along the surface, carved deep into iron.
She read them aloud.
"She lives… but not as you remember."
Her hand trembled.
Her staff didn't.
Aqua lifted it, fury sharpening every line of her body.
"If Iris is behind that door, I'm taking her back."
Behind her, in the shadows above the stairs, someone giggled again.
A voice dripping with amusement. Familiar. Mocking.
The watcher hadn't followed Aqua down.
It was hunting her.
"The fish has taken the hook."