Lee:
The tower was old. But Lee Rosaria was older in spirit — ancient, even — a woman carved from ambition and fear.
Her power did not come from gold.
It came from sacrifice.
From blood willingly given. And blood forcibly taken.
When she was only thirteen, Lee's mother slit her palm and offered her blood to the Church of Saintess Yidali. "Bind me," she had whispered, "and I shall bind my daughters."
Lee had done the same.
Every Rosaria woman was sworn, body and magic, to the Church's rule. Their family tree wasn't one of love — it was of obedience. Thorny and tangled, held up with lies and fear. Lee gave her mana, her womb, her daughters. Elena had been the last.
And she had refused.
When the girl turned seventeen, Lee brought her to the Cathedral in white robes, expecting compliance. Elena spat on the altar.
The Inquisition responded in kind.
For nearly a year, Elena was "questioned." Imprisoned. Liturgical correction, they called it. Re-education. Lee called it "tough love."
Elena remembered none of it.
Lee remembered all of it.
And still, the girl remained defiant. No miracles. No submission. She escaped the Cathedral during a riot and vanished.
Until now.
Now she was back where she belonged.
And the Church owed Lee Rosaria everything.
She had blackmailed cardinals. Funded inquisitorial crusades. Sacrificed her own sister for canonization.
What was one more child?
Niegal:
He arrived under nightfall.
The desert had not left him, even in the northern winds. The mana-train hissed into the station like a serpent spitting smoke, but no one noticed the cloaked man who stepped down onto the platform.
He kept his head low.
He was supposed to be dead.
Faked it himself — after the Church tried to poison him and call it "cleansing." His last public act had been declaring Seamus heir and vanishing without a word to his beloved sister, Aurora, who still prayed at his empty grave.
Niegal hadn't wept for himself.
But he wept when he heard Seamus's name again — not in disgrace, but in reckless, romantic defiance.
He didn't go to the Matteo estate.
Not yet.
Instead, he made for a cloaked sanctuary near the northern ridge — a forgotten shrine hidden among salt-thorns and stone. The air smelled of bark, smoke, and dried herbs. It pulsed with old magic.
There, beneath a canopy of knotted prayer flags, he found her:
The Behike.
Her face was painted in black-and-white streaks. A ceremonial bone circlet crowned her silver braids. She was seated on a mat before a shallow pool carved with glyphs older than the Church itself.
Niegal bowed low.
"I need to remember who I am," he said.
The Behike looked at him with her third eye open.
"You are already returning," she whispered.
Then she handed him a small pouch: bones, coals, and blood-soaked cloth. "For her," she said. "You'll know when."
He tucked it into his coat.
The time would come soon.