Alana Sato's Perspective
The cold had seeped into my armor.
It bit through the steel, through the leather lining, through the skin beneath—all the way to the bone. I tasted iron. My limbs screamed as I shifted.
I was alive.
Barely.
My vision was hazy. Light stung. The silence pressed against my ears like water.
Snow drifted across the ruined ground in uneven clumps, already beginning to bury what was left behind.
Bodies.
Piles of them.
Twisted wings. Golden feathers soaked in black blood. Angelic hybrids splayed like broken sculptures. Their horns, if that's what they were, lay cracked in the dirt.
To my left—soldiers. Scouts. Healers. Torn apart or melted down to bone. Some faces I recognized. Most, I didn't. None of them moved.
The bishops were slumped beside the ruined carriage. One was missing his head. Another looked like he had been turned to ice and shattered mid-scream.
To my right—
I froze.
Dave.
His armor was crumpled inwards, stained deep with a bloom of red. His limbs were still. His eyes, half-lidded, stared at nothing.
Something in my chest twisted, but it didn't rise. No scream. No tears.
I was too numb.
Then I saw her.
Far ahead.
A silhouette in red and white—blood and snow.
Alliyana stood alone at the center of a ring of corpses. Angelic monsters stacked like firewood. Their limbs twitched in the wind, but none moved with life.
She wasn't looking down.
She was staring up, into the grey, overcast sky.
Snow drifted across her hair, collecting in frozen strands. Her dress was torn, her arms were shaking, her legs bloodied. But she didn't fall.
And for the first time since I met her…
She wasn't calm.
There was something in her face—
Tight. Trembling. Eyes wide, not with panic, but something worse.
Grief.
Rage.
Hatred.
I remembered what she told me.
"How could I ever hate someone who's weaker than me?"
And yet… looking at her now…
I saw it.
I saw her truly hate.
My gauntlet scraped the frozen earth as I tried to push myself up.
Pain shot up my side. My leg gave out. I slipped and collapsed onto my elbow with a grunt, armor clanking against bone.
I cursed under my breath.
The sound echoed too loud in the silence.
And then—I heard it.
A sharp hum of motion.
I looked up.
She was coming.
Alliyana.
Leaping between platforms of light—crystallized mid-air, glimmering like fractured moonlight. Her movement wasn't rushed, yet she crossed the bloodied ground in seconds.
She landed beside me. No words. Just presence.
"Stay still," she said calmly.
Her voice cut through the cold like warmth I didn't deserve.
I obeyed without question.
She lifted me.
I expected pain—but what startled me more was her strength. I wasn't a small woman. Plated armor. Dead weight.
And she carried me like it meant nothing.
But it wasn't brute strength.
It was control. Every step, precise. Every shift, measured. Not a wasted motion. It was the kind of strength you couldn't teach.
Inside the shack, she laid me down gently against a wall of old stone and rotting timber. The air was stale, but there was no wind. No blood.
Just... silence.
"I'll be right back," she said.
And then she was gone.
Minutes passed.
The door opened again.
She returned with wood—corrupted and warped—but dry, and a small bundle of what I recognized as travel rations. Likely from the scattered supply carriages.
She didn't speak.
Just set the wood down, started a fire, and began preparing what food there was. Her movements were efficient. Intentional. Like she'd done this before.
Like she'd done everything before.
She handed me the food.
"Eat," she said simply.
I looked at her. "Aren't you going to—?"
"There's only enough for one," she interrupted, without hesitation. "If you want to make it back to Orell."
I opened my mouth to argue, but she was already at the door. She stepped outside. I heard something heavy drag against the snow. When she returned, she carried slabs of meat, steaming faintly in the cold air.
Not rations. Not normal. Corrupted meat.
"You're not seriously going to eat that," I said, eyes wide.
"I'm going to test something," she replied.
Calm. Unshaken. Curious.
Her answer scared me more than if she'd screamed.
"Take the food," I said, struggling to sit straighter. "Eat the rations. Just go. Leave me. You can survive."
She looked at me.
Smiled. Like a parent. Like someone who saw everything—and still believed in me.
"We're both getting back," she said. "Alive."
And somehow... I believed her.
Even as she prepped that cursed meat. Even as the smell hit my nose—metallic and sweet and wrong.
Even as the fire crackled and the snow whispered outside.
I placed my faith in the one person who shouldn't have to carry it.
A girl. No… something more.
And for the first time since the expedition began—
I let myself hope.
The fire had burned low.
Only embers now—glowing faintly orange, snapping softly like coals remembering brighter days.
Outside, the wind had stilled. The snowfall had lessened. The beasts no longer howled.
For the first time in what felt like days—there was only quiet.
I shifted beneath the rough wool blanket, adjusting my position against the shack's wooden wall. The pain in my side was dull now, numbed by time and fatigue.
She sat across from me.
Kneeling, as always. Still. Watching the flames. Her blade beside her like it was part of her body. Alliyana.
I studied her for a long moment.
"…How did you survive?" I finally asked, my voice hoarse.
A question I already knew the answer to. I just needed to hear it.
She held up her knife. The simple one. Black handle. Iron edge. A plain cooking knife.
I stared. Then laughed. Softly. Then louder. Then with a wheeze that made my ribs hurt.
"That's it? Really?"
She nodded.
I shook my head, biting back another laugh. "Absurd."
But I believed her.
I let the silence stretch again before speaking.
"Where did you learn to fight like that?" I asked. "To move like that?"
She didn't look at me.
"During my walks," she said simply.
Something in me shifted.
The walks.
I remembered the night watch. Her shape stepping out from the trees. Yawning as if the mountains hadn't been crawling with monsters.
And how peaceful the mornings always were, no matter how deep we went.
It all clicked.
It wasn't peace. It was her.
"…Was it you?" I asked. "Were you the one protecting the camp?"
She didn't answer right away.
Then she shrugged. "I wasn't protecting anyone. I was just training. It's the only free time I had."
Cold words. But her voice was soft.
And then—that smile.
It wasn't smug. It wasn't cruel.
It was… kind.
Gentle. Patient. Like a parent indulging a question they already knew the answer to.
That smile broke something in me.
"…Then why do you hide it?" I asked.
"Your strength."
She looked at me again, same calm expression.
"True strength does not need to be flaunted. It shall come when the need arises."
The words landed like stone. Not heavy. Just… final.
Unarguable.
I stared into the fire again. My throat dry.
"…Does it bother you?" I asked, quieter. "That people look down on you?"
She tilted her head, confused. Like I had asked her if snow was wet.
She paused.
"…Why would I care about the opinions of those beneath me?"
The bluntness of it made me recoil slightly.
"That arrogance," I muttered, unable to hide the edge in my voice. "Do you always look down on others?"
She blinked once.
Then answered plainly.
"I always look down on others."
I glared at her.
But then she continued.
"Not to throw rocks at others below," she said. "But to lift them up when they need me."
The fire popped.
I didn't speak. I couldn't.
Because I understood. The gap between us wasn't just power.
I was still worried about being seen. To present myself as a protector.
Still tethered to pride, to shame, to the things others thought of me.
She wasn't. The higher she soared, the smaller we looked to her.
She had stepped beyond all that.
She's not above us to mock those beneath her. But high enough that she didn't need us to understand.
And suddenly… I didn't feel insulted anymore.
I just felt small.
But not in a way that hurts.
What she said was an invitation.
The morning crept over the snow-drenched peaks like a secret too heavy to keep. Pale orange light pressed through the mist, catching the edges of twisted trees and ruined beasts like a dream slowly waking into memory.
We were already packed. Not much to carry. Just wounds, breath, and one another.
In the distance, I saw her—Alliyana—kneeling beside Dave's body. The wind brushed her hair like reverence. She reached down, slid the sword from its sheath, and unbuckled the belt from his armor. I approached quietly. There was something about the moment that asked for silence.
She looked up at me, the holy sword in her hand.
"I'm just borrowing it," she said plainly. "Until we get back to the Duchy."
Not if.
When.
There was no doubt in her voice. No ceremony in her touch. She spoke of our survival like a foregone conclusion.
I once thought her terrifying. A heretic. A child-shaped vessel for something unspeakable. She is, but…
Now, I understood something deeper.
The way she looked at the sky yesterday—when Isabelle died—that wasn't rage alone. It was the grief of someone who chooses to be gentle. And seeing that same girl now, wrapping the belt around her waist, steady and serene… I realized how much of a privilege it was to witness her calm.
She walked over to one of the corpses and opened her satchel. Out slipped a black slime—shimmering faintly like ink under moonlight.
I blinked. "Is that… yours?"
She didn't answer. The slime slithered forward, feeding on the remains of a winged beast like it had done this a hundred times before.
After everything, this barely registered.
So I followed. We walked on.
We marched for hours in silence.
The wind had grown thinner. The snow deeper. I could barely feel my feet, and the bite in my ribs from yesterday's blow hadn't faded. Still, I walked.
Alliyana moved like a shadow that knew where light would fall.
Not fast. Not slow. Just… certain.
A certainty I'd only seen in war-hardened captains who'd survived every battle through instinct alone.
But this wasn't instinct. It was something else.
She didn't speak of gods. She didn't curse them either.
She didn't acknowledge them.
She simply lived—as if they were irrelevant. As if they were wind. Background noise. She ate corrupted flesh. She defied sacred laws with every step.
Before this… I might have arrested her for that.
Now? I almost laughed.
What punishment could I offer someone who'd already walked further than I had dared to?
I looked up—
Demonic beasts, several ahead, lay torn open. Piles of them.
I squinted into the fog.
There she was.
Leaping.
Platforms of light flickered beneath her feet—crystalline prisms forming just long enough to launch her through the air.
She was grace incarnate. Cold. Exact.
And for the first time, she wasn't just dancing with death—
She was conducting it.
It didn't look like instinct. It looked like memory. Like she had done this before—many times—long before she ever learned to walk.
Dave's sword cleaved through beast after beast. Her movements were so minimal it felt like the world was moving around her.
Calculated. Precise.
I understood now. Why the Duchess was fond of her. Why she smiled the way she did, standing beside her.
I caught up to her, finally.
My voice cracked when I spoke. "What was the Duchess like?"
I hated how the words stumbled out.
But she didn't mock me.
"She was a good friend," she said quietly.
I paused. Friend?
As if they were equals. As if a girl the world dismissed walked shoulder to shoulder with a Duchess and Archmage of Zepharim.
But then again… who else could?
She kept walking. Then her voice again—this time, heavier.
"I'll handle him," she said. "Don't worry."
I didn't have to ask who.
"The church will kill him," I replied. "You don't understand. That man… he's not just a man. He's the God of Chaos. The church will conduct a hero summoning. Like before. The gods will choose a champion, bless them, and—"
She stopped walking.
Her head turned slightly. There was steel in her voice now.
"And why would I need the gods' permission?"
I froze. A part of me wanted to snap back—to defend my faith and pride. To remind her what divinity was.
But I didn't. I couldn't. She wasn't angry at me—but I felt the force of her words through me.
She turned to face me, eyes like still water stretched over a deep, silent current.
"I will become the strongest," she said calmly.
"Just like then, I will simply stand in a place where no one—not even the gods—can refuse."
There was no pride in her voice. No arrogance.
It felt inevitable. As if it was already written the moment she said it.
And I…I felt relief.