The sky had sealed itself shut again, veiling the monstrous eye that had blinked open above them. But its impression remained—not just above, but beneath the skin. A pressure. A scar.
Valaerius sat motionless.
The fire had died, smothered not by wind or rain, but by something heavier. His arms still glowed faintly, the symbols pulsing with slow, steady rhythm—like a second heartbeat, deeper and older than his own.
"I saw it," he said, voice flat. Not shaken. Just aware.
Seraphyne didn't answer. She was already moving. Controlled, efficient. Not frantic. Her hands drew protective sigils with precise speed, her steps measured as she placed the relics. The salts were scattered in perfect geometry. Everything she did was exact—ritual born from war.
But Valaerius noticed it anyway. The smallest tremor in her left hand. A hesitation, too brief to be anything but involuntary.
"That thing," he said slowly, still watching the darkened tree line. "It saw me."
Her head snapped toward him, face sharp with command.
"It wasn't a thing. It was many. Woken and drawn together. Entities that should still be blind to your existence."
Her tone cut through the room—clear, certain, weaponized.
"The seal is fracturing," she continued. "Its protections are thinning. And once they recognize you for what you are, they will act."
He turned his gaze to her. Calm. Steady.
"To kill me," he said.
A pause.
"Yes," Seraphyne answered, without softening. "Their orders haven't changed in all these years."
Valaerius stood slowly, the movement deliberate. There was no fear in him—only weight. His expression didn't crack, but something colder had entered his eyes. Not panic. Calculation.
The marks on his arms flared slightly, responding to something invisible in the air. They weren't lights—they were warnings. Anchors straining.
"Why now?" he asked. "Why all at once?"
"Because the world is shifting," Seraphyne said, scanning the treeline again. "Something old stirs beneath the surface. And when it begins to rise, the veil doesn't tear quietly."
She moved to the doorway. Her presence there was like a blade unsheathed—calm, honed, and dangerous.
"No more hiding after tonight," she said.
Outside, the trees leaned inward—not from wind, but attention. Even nature itself bent under the weight of what was awakening.
Valaerius stepped beside her, breathing steady.
"The seal," he said. "How long?"
"Hours," she replied. "Maybe less."
"And when it breaks?"
Her silence was answer enough.
He studied her face, saw the shadow of old knowledge there. Not just fear—but memory. Strategy. Loss.
"Tell me the truth," he said. Not pleading—commanding. "You said I was marked. Hidden. From what?"
His voice was cold. "What am I?"
Her response was not loud—but it struck like thunder beneath armor.
"You are what remains of a choice the world tried to erase."
The wind stilled.
Then the earth trembled.
Not surface-level. Deeper. Like the ground remembered something buried too long.
Seraphyne's grip tightened on the doorframe. She didn't curse. She didn't tremble. She recalculated.
"They're close," she said.
Beyond the treeline, faint lights began to emerge. Cold. Colorless. Floating. Not fireflies—watchers. Harbingers. Echoes of death wearing borrowed light.
Then a sound—soft, metallic. A bell. Distant. Slow.
One note.
Then another.
A rhythm older than time, tolling from beneath the world.
Valaerius didn't flinch. He listened.
Seraphyne turned toward him, her voice quieter now. Focused. Sharp.
"When the seal breaks," Seraphyne said, her voice low, edged with a calm that could make armies flinch, "they'll come."
She stood before him, more shadow than light in the dim chamber, her presence a force that filled the air with tension. "All of them," she continued. "Gods. Demons. Mortals twisted by ambition. Creatures who no longer remember what it is to breathe without hunger for power." Her gaze bore into him. "Some will come to destroy you. They will see you as an abomination. A threat. A prophecy they were told to silence before it ever breathed."
Valaerius didn't flinch. But his jaw tightened. He said nothing—because he didn't need to. His silence was not ignorance, but calculation. Cold, quiet preparation.
"Others," she said, stepping closer, "will come to claim you. They will speak in honeyed words, offer you thrones, kingdoms, bloodlines. They'll dress their chains in gold and call it destiny."
She stopped before him now, close enough that her breath ghosted across his skin. And then, without warning, she placed her hand firmly over his chest.
Not a caress. Not comfort.
It was a declaration.
A forceful reminder of who he was, and what he carried.
"...And a few," she said, voice dropping lower—now almost reverent, "a few will kneel."
The moment hung heavy, her hand still pressed against him, as if feeling for the thrum of something ancient beneath skin and bone. And perhaps she did.
Then, slowly, she pulled her hand away, but not before something flickered in her eyes—something like pride wrapped in steel.
Her eyes sharpened like drawn blades, golden irises glowing faintly in the chamber's low light. "But not one of them will ignore you."
She stepped back. The silence between them wasn't peace. It was war, held in suspension. A thousand futures screaming at the edge of unfolding.
"You are not a choice," she said. "You are the reckoning they prayed would never wake."
Valaerius met her gaze, his own eyes dark and unreadable. No fear. No awe.
Just acceptance.
And something colder beneath.