St. Swithin's Academy - The Rooftop
The adrenaline of the Water Lock had faded, drained away by the biting, salt-laden wind coming off the bay. It left behind a hollow ache in their bones and a silence that felt louder than the storm.
Eiden and Emily sat on the flat gravel roof of the science wing, huddled against the humming metal casing of a massive industrial ventilation unit. It was the only source of warmth in a world that had turned cold. Below them, the school was dark and silent, a sleeping beast that had swallowed them whole. The police sirens from the harbor were distant, fading echoes, a reminder of the chaos they had just escaped.
Emily was shivering violently. It wasn't just the cold cutting through her damp clothes; it was the aftershocks of the truth that had shattered her world.
"Nazis," she whispered, pulling her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself as if trying to hold her disintegrating pieces together. "He's selling out the world. He's not a patriot building a fortress for his family. He's... he's just evil. Banal, greedy evil."
She looked at Eiden. Her face, usually so composed and perfect, was streaked with grime, engine grease, and dried salt water. Her hair was matted against her cheek. She didn't look like a Princess anymore. She looked like a survivor of a shipwreck, washed up on a hostile shore.
"I feel sick, Eiden," she confessed, her voice cracking with a raw, ugly sob. "I've been protecting a monster. I've been hurting people... hurting you... for him? I don't even know what is right or wrong now. My compass is broken."
Eiden adjusted his heavy grey cloak, wincing as the movement pulled at his own injuries. He took it off and draped it over her shoulders, tucking it around her like a shield. He ignored the biting cold that immediately sank its teeth into his own skin.
"You didn't know," he said softly, his voice a low rumble against the wind.
"I should have known!" Emily snapped, fresh hot tears welling up in her eyes, angry and burning. "I saw the signs. The secrecy. The guards who looked like soldiers. The way he looked at the world like it was a chessboard and people were just pawns to be sacrificed. I just... I didn't want to look. I wanted him to be my dad. I wanted the lie to be true."
She turned to him, her eyes searching his face, desperate for an anchor in the storm.
"Eiden... if you know he's this dangerous... if you know he's a traitor... why are you still here? Why didn't you run when you had the chance?"
She gestured wildly to the dark horizon, to the freedom beyond the walls.
"You could have left. You could have taken your 'Pack' and gone back to the mountains. You hate him. Why stay? Why fight a war you've already lost?"
Eiden looked at her. He looked at the way the moonlight caught the tears on her lashes, turning them into diamonds. He thought about the mission. The vow to Durai in the snow. The years of training, the bruises, the broken bones.
He thought about Evergreen. He still believed she was down there somewhere, locked in a cell he hadn't found yet, waiting for the Wolf to come.
"I haven't lost," Eiden said, his voice steady. "I'm here for a prisoner. I'm here to bring Evergreen home. That was the promise."
Emily froze. She looked at him with infinite pity, a look that hurt worse than the bullet.
"Eiden," she whispered, her hand reaching out to touch his arm. "There is no prisoner."
Eiden frowned, confusion clouding his eyes. "The diary... the spy said—"
"My father told me," Emily cut him off, her voice trembling but gaining strength. "That night in the study. After I... after the ship. He told me the truth about Evergreen. The truth he hid for sixteen years."
Eiden went still. "What truth?"
"She's not missing, Eiden," Emily said, tears spilling over again. "She's dead. My father... he killed her. Sixteen years ago. He told me he buried her himself in the garden."
The words hit Eiden like a physical blow, knocking the wind out of him. "No," he said immediately, shaking his head. "He's lying. He lies about everything. He lied about the gold. He lied about the army."
"He had this dagger," Emily said, her voice hollow. She gave him the dragger of evergreen that she took from the vault. "He kept it as a trophy. He told me... he told me she killed my mother. That she was a monster who murdered her in the nursery. And he killed her in revenge to save me."
Eiden shook his head violently. "Evergreen wasn't a murderer. I grew up on her legends. She could die a thousand times just to save one life. She would never kill an innocent woman."
Emily looked at him, regret etched into every line of her face. "I know," she sobbed. "I know he lied about why he did it. But I believe he did it. I saw his eyes, Eiden. The darkness in them... he killed her. She's gone. You're hunting a ghost."
Eiden stared at the gravel roof. He felt a hollow ache in his chest, a void opening up where his purpose used to be.
If she was dead... then the mission was over. The 16-year wait. The hope of the Den. Durai's grief. It was all for nothing. He had failed his Master. He had failed the Pack. He was just a boy chasing a shadow.
"If she's dead..." Eiden whispered, his voice rough with unshed tears. "Then I have nothing left here. I am just a trespasser."
"Then go," Emily said softly. "Leave, Eiden. Save yourself. Go back to your mountain. Don't let him kill you too."
Eiden looked at her. He saw the girl who was now alone in a house of lies. He saw the girl who had defied a Bear to save him.
He realized that even if the old mission was dead, a new one had taken its place. A mission that wasn't about the past, but the future.
"I failed my mission," Eiden admitted, looking at his scarred hands. "I couldn't bring back Evergreen. I failed the Den."
He looked up, his green eyes locking onto hers, burning with a new intensity.
"But I found something else. Something I didn't expect."
"What?" Emily whispered, her breath hitching.
"A reason to stay," Eiden said. He leaned in, closing the distance between them. "I have one reason. One reason not to burn this whole place down and leave him to the ashes."
He reached out and brushed a strand of dirty, wet hair from her face, his touch gentle.
"The reason is you."
Emily's breath stopped. The walls she had built—the Cold Princess, the Heir, the Sheriff—crumbled into dust. She didn't pull away. She leaned into his touch.
"Eiden..."
He kissed her.
It wasn't a perfect, fairytale kiss. It tasted of sea salt, exhaustion, fear, and desperation. It was the kiss of two people standing on the edge of a cliff, holding onto each other to keep from falling into the abyss. It was a promise and a plea.
For a moment, the war didn't exist. Akuma didn't exist. The Nazis didn't exist. There was just the warmth between them, a spark in the dark.
When they pulled apart, breathless, Emily rested her forehead against his.
"We're going to stop him," she whispered, a new fire igniting in her voice.
"Yes," Eiden promised, holding her tight. "We are."
The Wolf's Den - The Medic Bay
Miles away, in the high, thin air of the mountains where the snow never melted, a heart monitor beeped a steady, monotonous rhythm.
Beep... beep... beep...
Then, the rhythm changed. It spiked. Faster. Harder.
Beep-beep-beep.
On the bed, Oliver's eyes snapped open.
He took a deep, gasping breath, his chest heaving like a man breaking the surface of the water after drowning. The air tasted of sterile herbs and cold stone.
He sat up violently, tangling himself in the sheets, his body screaming in protest after weeks of stillness.
"The spy!" he shouted, his voice cracking from disuse, raw and terrified. "The photo! I have to tell them!"
Sharley, the head medic, dropped a tray of surgical instruments with a clatter. She rushed over, her face pale with shock. "Oliver! You're awake! Lie down, you've been in a coma! You need to stabilize!"
Oliver blinked, his vision swimming. He looked around the room. He saw the empty beds. He saw the window, expecting the quiet peace of the mountain. Instead, he saw the distant lights of a mobilized army in the valley below, campfires stretching as far as the eye could see.
He rubbed his head, trying to make sense of the world. "How long?"
"Months," Sharley said, checking his pulse, her fingers trembling. "The world has gone mad, boy. Eiden is... well, Eiden is a King now. The Bears are our allies. Durai was about to burn a city down to ashes before Jiro stopped him."
Oliver stared at her. His jaw dropped. He looked at the window, then back at Sharley.
"I leave you people alone for five minutes," Oliver muttered, rubbing his temples, "and Eiden becomes a king? And Durai starts a world war? Seriously? Can't anyone sit still?"
Sharley laughed, a tear running down her cheek. "It's good to have you back, Oliver. We needed a voice of reason."
"I need to talk to Durai," Oliver said, trying to swing his legs out of bed. His muscles were weak, shaking under his own weight. "Now."
"He's gone. He's at the Owl's Den. They are working on a statue of Evergreen. A monument."
"Radio him," Oliver commanded, his voice urgent, cutting through his weakness. "It's about Evergreen."
"We know she's alive," Sharley soothed, trying to push him back down. "Eiden found the dagger. He found the clues. We have hope."
"No," Oliver said, grabbing her arm with surprising strength, his eyes burning with a terrifying intensity. "You don't understand. The spy... before he died... he showed me a photograph. It fell into the river when I ran, but I saw it. I saw her face clearly."
Sharley froze. "You saw Evergreen?"
"I saw a girl with a soldier," Oliver said, closing his eyes, remembering the grainy image in the spy's trembling hand as the bullets flew. "It was dated recently. She didn't look like the warrior in the paintings. She didn't look older than me. She looked sad. Lonely."
He opened his eyes, and they were wide with the shock of the truth.
"Evergreen isn't just alive, Sharley. She hasn't been hiding in a cave. She is walking freely in that town. She's been right in front of us the whole time."