The grass outside the breach was wet with mist.
Auren kept walking. Not quickly. Not triumphantly. Just forward. His boots pressed into the dirt like it might vanish underfoot, like if he stopped, the thread would snap and reel him backward.
He could still feel it in his hand—that pull. That trembling line he'd used on the guard.
It hadn't been elegant.
It had been easy.
Too easy.
Auren flexed his fingers, trying to shake the residue. But it wasn't just in his hand anymore. It was in his chest. His spine. Like someone else's heartbeat had been stitched into his own.
He tried to will it quiet. To center himself. To close the gate.
But the Echo wouldn't leave.
Not yet.
Behind him, Serai was silent. She hadn't said a word since the fight.
The Wazir moved like wind.
And ahead, past the treeline—
Something waited.
They emerged into the open field leading to the outer path—a stretch of grass and frost-lit stone, where the northern road split into the deep woods.
They weren't more than ten steps from the manor when Serai stopped.
She didn't speak.
She didn't move.
She just... froze.
Auren turned to her.
"What is it?"
She didn't answer. Her eyes were locked on something ahead.
And then he felt it.
Not a sound. Not movement.
A pressure, with an overwhelming Killing Intent.
Like a memory trying to enter a body that hadn't lived it.
The Wazir sighed.
"Don't run," he said softly.
A figure stepped out from behind a row of broken statues.
Not armored. Not armed in full plate.
But every line of his body moved like it had been carved for violence.
White-blond hair. Black coat open to the waist. A single sash, crimson, at the throat—meaningless, unless you knew what it was.
Blood Oath.
Elven Varn.
The Marquis's shadow.
Auren's chest tightened.
He knew the name.
Everyone knew the name.
But the stories always sounded too clean. Too rehearsed. Too convenient.
Now, faced with him—he saw it. Not a man. Not even rage.
Just raw power.
Elven didn't look at Serai.
He didn't acknowledge the Wazir.
He looked straight at Auren.
"Give her back," he said. His voice was flat. Devoid of malice. Like a sentence delivered in a cold room.
"Even if i do give her back, You don't intend to leave us unscathed, Do you?," Auren replied.
Elven took a step forward.
The grass bent around his foot.
Auren reached, instinctively, for the tether between him and Elven.
He found it.
But it was wrong.
The thread was there—but it was twisted. Already braided. Already burning.
A lifetime of loyalty, guilt, and grief, coiled like barbed wire around a single emotion:
Obedience.
Auren tried to pull.
Nothing gave.
Auren was snaped back.
Elven didn't even blink.
"You can't move me," Elven laughed. "I don't know what you used before but it won't work on me, I am nothing, but a shell."
Auren drew in a breath.
He got into a fighting stance and took two steps back.
"Then let's get right into it, Shall we?"