Elena no longer knew how many hours had passed.
Two days? Three?
She'd walked the length of the high cliffs above Port Clairy, passed the twisted roads toward the interior, and now the sanctuary was days behind her—and the capital just ahead. She knew the path. She knew what waited.
The serpent inside her no longer hissed.
It pulled.
With each step, her body deteriorated. Her feet bled freely, the soles torn open on stone and glass. Her calves cramped. Her hips throbbed with every uneven stride. Her belly had swollen with impossible weight, tight as a drum beneath her hands, the god-child within tossing like a tide.
And yet… she kept walking.
Barefoot and haloed in fog, her serpent tattoo flickered like coals. Never steady, never fading.
She no longer slept.
She no longer ate.
Only the serpent sustained her now.
To pause would be to question.
To question would be to betray.
And betrayal of the divine within… would be fatal.
She passed through villages reduced to ash- skeletons of once-bright lives.
Wind chimes clinked from the skeletons of porches. Roofs had collapsed under fire and rot. Crows picked at forgotten fields. Crucified farmers lined the roadside, their limbs broken at the joints, their tongues nailed along with their wrists.
The mark of the Inquisition.
A warning.
A promise.
Elena did not cry.
She did not stop.
She simply stepped over the bones and whispered lullabies she did not remember learning, her hands folded over the god-child who shifted uneasily in her womb.
She found one ruin at dusk- a chapel, hollowed by fire. The altar cracked down the middle. Pews were overturned, burned nearly black. Somehow, the sacred font still burbled with spring water, glowing faintly from the moon above.
Elena knelt to drink.
Her hands trembled. Her throat burned. It was the first water she'd tasted in days.
And then… she heard it.
A sound like a dying bird. A breath caught in the throat of a woman refusing to die.
Behind a crumbled column, a figure lay. Her dress torn, her hair tangled with blood and soot. Her stomach was flat, but her arms were curled around it, as if holding something long gone.
Elena crawled forward, hands bloodied. She knelt beside her and took her hand, pressing it to her own burning forehead.
She whispered blessings, spells, promises she wasn't sure would work. She felt her mana falter, her voice quake.
The woman smiled, barely. Her mouth full of ash.
And then she died.
A rattle. A breath.
Gone.
Elena's eyes filled with tears she had not cried in days.
She kissed the woman's hand.
"I'm sorry," she murmured.
Behind her eyes, the serpent hissed. Not in anger, but with a slow, reverent satisfaction.
"This is what it means to be divine."
"To walk among graves."
"To choose whose suffering matters, and whose becomes ash."
Elena stared at the dead woman, her own belly heaving with divine weight. The serpent shifted. The baby kicked, as if in protest.
She didn't scream.
She didn't curse.
She built a pyre out of broken pews and lit it with her fingers, conjuring a single flicker of violet fire.
She stayed until the flames turned bone to dust.
"No more graves," she whispered. "Only smoke and memory."
Then she walked on.
Meanwhile: The Storm Hunts
The army was no longer marching.
It was consuming.
They'd passed the port towns and villages in just under two days. The armies of the United Territories and the Children of the Storm and Lion were less than a day behind Elena, Port Clairy no more than a day ahead.
Niegal did not sleep.
He did not eat.
He burned.
What food was pressed into his hands, he tossed aside. What words were offered, he ignored. He didn't speak unless it was a command. He didn't pray, because gods, now, did not pray to themselves.
His eyes glowed constantly now, the silver leaking from his irises down his cheekbones like molten moonlight. His skin burned hot to the touch. His breath came in pants.
Marohu pulsed in his grip, its lightning blade humming.
The lion inside him growled constantly, never ceasing, never resting. It drove his legs forward even when he should have collapsed. His boots bled. His claws cracked. His mouth was raw from biting down on rage he could no longer hold.
But still, he marched.
And behind him, an army of faithful and furious stormed the continent.
Every enemy patrol was swept away. Not by sword or mana rifle alone, but by weather.
Lightning cracked from clear skies. Fog spilled from bleeding fields. Some swore they heard thunder whisper her name.
"La Doña Guabancex."
"La Diosa de Guerra."
" La Serpiente."
They no longer whispered.
They chanted.
Alejandro watched Niegal deteriorate.
Watched him sway like a fevered saint during waking hours, and collapse at night beside the crumpled note she left behind. Sometimes he whispered to it. Sometimes he just stared.
He was too far gone for comfort.
Too god-touched for mortal hands to reach.
But Alejandro had seen this before.
He'd seen Niegal lose himself in Arenavida, when Elena was thought the living dead, burned beyond recognition after sacrificing herself to save their daughter and the people she protected. He had sobbed when nothing was left but ash and ruin.
And now, as the Lion roared louder than ever, he made a vow.
"We find her," Alejandro said. "Or we burn the Church to salt."
No one dared argue.
The banners were already soaked with blood.
The warriors prayed with blade and fire.
And the storm had no intention of stopping.
Because Elena had vanished into divine fog, and the Lion had risen to find her.
And when he did, when he laid eyes on her again-
no god, no serpent, and no priest alive would stop what came next.