Azura's shadow tore across the sky, her feathers shimmering with mana, eyes trained like knives on the ground below.
She circled once, twice, then dove like a meteor toward the front line of their makeshift war caravan. Alejandro stood with his wounded arm strapped against his chest, half-healed, but his presence still sharp.
He held out his good arm, gloved in raw leather. Azura slowed just enough to crash into his grasp, talons curling into his forearm.
Their foreheads touched.
There was a pulse of light.
Then stillness.
When Alejandro turned, his face was carved from stone. His lips pale. Eyes rimmed in red. He met Niegal's burning gaze across the campfire lines.
"They have her," he said softly.
"We don't have much time."
Niegal didn't speak. His fangs lengthened, lips curling back to reveal canines like a beast betrayed. His entire body trembled, the lion within pressing against his ribs, frothing for blood. His claws dug into the hilts of his blades until they cried beneath the pressure.
He didn't speak.
He simply raised a clenched fist-
and the order to move out rippled across the fields.
Toward Port Clairy.
Toward the Church.
Toward her.
Below the city, beneath the stone-
The cell stank of mildew, dried blood, and rot. It was too dark to see the ceiling.
Chains pulled Elena upright, wrists bruised, her knees trembling from hours of weight bearing stillness.
She had stopped counting time. The light was never allowed to touch this place.
She simply focused on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Elena had no idea how much time had passed when the guards came, their mana torches nearly blinding her as the cell door swung open.
Four of them. One held a spear, a dripping cloth wrapped around its blade.
They pushed the spear foward, the cloth burning, peeling her lips. The snake hissed- holy water.
They wanted to make her consume holy water.
Elena turned her head, refusing. They're trying to kill the baby, she thought with fear gripping her heart.
When she denied it, the guards forced their way into the cell, one gripping her shoulders, the other forcing her mouth open with a painful crack.
The serpent hissed, coiling tight, and Elena realized not even the goddess could help her now.
When they forced a funnel into her throat and squeezed the holy water out of the cloth, the blistering liquid burned her as it went down.
Tears streamed down her face, her prayers to the gods unanswered.
When they decided she had enough, they pulled out the funnel and left her there, sputtering, blood pouring from her mouth.
As they marched away, leaving her in the dark once again, that's when she felt something shift.
A shuddering, sickening pop in her hips. A ripple of fire from spine to pelvis.
It hit her like a whip- a contraction.
Her head snapped back. Her breath caught in her lungs. She braced against it, teeth grinding together. A red mist formed at the edge of her vision. Her belly shifted under the strain, impossibly large and still glowing faintly and spread across it like roots.
Another wave struck.
Too soon.
Too strong.
Her knees nearly buckled. Her back bowed in agony.
And finally, the serpent let her scream.
"IT IS ALMOST TIME," it hissed from within her chest.
The scream that tore from Elena's throat was inhuman. It echoed off the stone like a death knell. The air in the cell grew thick. The mana suppression seals crackled, threatened. The chains groaned.
Another contraction.
Then another.
The rhythm of blood and ancient power overtaking her.
High above her, in Parliament's private cathedral chamber, Siobhan smiled from behind her mask, incense smoke coiling behind her like whispers.
"Ready the public altar and the pyre," she said calmly.
"The demon is nearly born."
Back below, Elena's body convulsed.
Her water broke with a hot gush, splattering the cold floor beneath her. It soaked her legs, her tattered gown. She panted through her teeth, eyes locked on the wall opposite her, unfocused. Her arms ached from the strain, the chains tearing deeper into raw, split flesh.
But she didn't beg.
She didn't cry.
She whispered only one thing:
"Please… spare the child…"
The serpent said nothing.
Another contraction answered instead.
Elena's mouth parted, her throat raw, her voice barely a rasp.
"Please… please, not like this…"
The serpent uncoiled around her spine, a great weight inside her body. But it gave no mercy. Only its will. It would see this birth through. Through fire, through pain, through anything.
Elena's breath hitched as her knees collapsed fully. Her body now suspended entirely by her chained wrists.
Blood dripped from her fingertips. From between her thighs.
Tears of effort and fear, clung to her lashes.
The child within glowed like a star.
And somewhere, far from that chamber of stone-
Niegal felt it.
Like a bolt through his spine.
Like a scream caught in his throat.
He knew.
She is in labor.
And she was alone.
He roared into the wind.
The lion howled.
And the ground itself shook with rage.