Vallek appeared in the doorway like a shadow cast by fate. Before Vyx could move another muscle, the leader took a lightning-fast step, closing the distance with inhuman speed. With a sharp, precise strike of his hand to the base of her skull, he severed the woman’s consciousness.

  ?Vyx fainted instantly, but she did not hit the floor. Vallek caught her mid-air, pulling her against his armored chest with a force that was almost violent, preventing her body from falling into the filth of the straw. He held her like that for a moment, her face slumped on his shoulder, his breath the only sound in the room.

  ?The heavy silence returned, broken only by Lyra's ragged breathing. Vallek raised his gaze to Etan, who stared up at him with those stone-blue eyes filled with terror.

  ?"Lyra, tend to your hand and take Vyx away," Vallek ordered, his voice flat as a blade. "Put her in a secure room. And do not let her out until I decide."

  ?Lyra nodded in silence, pressing a piece of cloth to her wound, and dragged her unconscious companion out. The door closed with a definitive click, leaving Vallek alone with the silver-haired creature huddled in the straw, still wearing his oversized gloves.

  ?Etan rose slowly. With a gesture intended to be regal, he tried to brush back the silver hair falling over his face, but Vallek’s gloves slipped again, making him look like a child playing with his father’s armor. Despite the tremor in Tsuki’s crystalline voice, he tried to infuse authority into his tone.

  ?"Do not fear what you do not understand, Vallek," he said, staring at the leader with those stone-blue eyes glowing in the twilight. "What you see is not a monster. I am... a manifestation. A divine spark descended within these walls to lead those left in the dark. The fall of the city was necessary, and I am here to ensure that the new order is not built on ash, but on light."

  ?Vallek did not interrupt. He remained motionless, arms crossed over his chest, watching this ethereal creature speak of gods and destinies. The silence stretched until the only thing heard was the rustling of straw under Etan’s weight.

  ?"Stop," Vallek said finally. His voice was not angry; it was tired. "I can hear the rhythm of your breath, Etan. I can hear the calculated pauses between each word, the same ones you used when you tried to convince me your gloves were clean. You are no god. You are just a man afraid of dying in a body that does not belong to him."

  ?Etan fell silent at once. The divine mask crumbled, revealing a human, bitter defeat. He sank back against the wall, his small arms limp at his sides.

  ?Vallek took a step forward, bowing his head. His gaze moved from the oversized gloves to the boy's silver face. "What will become of us, Etan? What will become of all this if the only thing we have to save ourselves is a lie?"

  ?Etan shook his head slowly. "I don’t know, Vallek. Perhaps there are no saviors left."

  ?Vallek sighed, a sound that seemed to drain him of all remaining energy. He straightened up, turning his back to the room. "It has grown late. The Guild needs a lucid leader tomorrow, and you need to stay alive in that shell."

  ?He headed for the door, pausing for a moment before leaving. "Sleep, if you can. It is time for rest."

  ?"Goodnight, Vallek," Etan whispered with Tsuki’s voice.

  ?The leader did not answer, but the way he closed the door—without slamming it—was the only sign of respect he could grant. Etan remained alone in the dark, curled in the straw, waiting for sleep to erase, at least for a few hours, the horror of having become what he never wanted to be.

  ?Vallek pushed open the door to Vyx’s room. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of calming herbs Lyra had used to sedate the huntress. Vyx lay on the bed, her wrists bound to the bedposts with leather straps—a necessary precaution.

  ?Vallek approached the bed. Vyx slept fitfully. He reached out and touched her breast, a possessive and brutal gesture in its simplicity. Vyx jolted, eyes snapping open in the dark.

  ?"Vallek..." she tried to whisper, her voice thick with sleep and unshed tears. She wanted to ask about the gloves, to scream her hatred for the silver girl.

  ?But he did not allow her to speak. He pressed his palm over her mouth, stifling every word. "Silent," he murmured, his voice a low growl.

  ?There was no love in the way he sought her. Vallek discarded his clothes with frantic movements, and when he joined her, it was a clash of bodies seeking to nullify one another. Vyx arched her back against the mattress, the leather cuffs creaking against the wood as her fingers searched desperately for a grip.

  ?When they finished, the silence in the room seemed even deeper. Vallek remained over her for an indefinite time before dressing in the dark. Without looking at her, he headed for the door. "Sleep now," he said simply.

  ?The cold of the straw vanished, replaced by an absolute weightlessness. Etan was no longer huddled in a corner; he was in an infinite space, a blinding white.

  ?Tsuki stood before him. "I do not steal, Etan," she replied, her voice a chorus of a thousand whispers. "I reflect. You are the void seeking a form. I am the form seeking a purpose. We are two halves of a shattered glass."

  ?She touched his chest, and the white of the dream became a blaze of light. Etan snapped his eyes open.

  ?He was a man again. Short brown hair, broad shoulders. But as he touched Lyra, who was sitting beside him, a white heat consumed the moisture in the air. Lyra screamed as a dark burn bloomed on her skin.

  "No… Lyra, I didn't mean to…" Etan began to tremble. He looked around frantically, ignoring the sweat stinging his eyes. He spotted Vallek’s gloves, abandoned in the straw like the wreckage of a ship. He snatched them up with an almost infantile desperation, pulling them on with clumsy movements until the leather once again concealed the skin that had become poison.

  When he looked up, Lyra was standing. She hid her scorched hand behind her back, clenching her teeth against the pain, yet she was smiling at him. A fragile, forced smile that meant: It’s alright, it’s not your fault.

  The door swung open without a knock.

  Oros stood on the threshold, his massive silhouette blocking the morning light. His gray eyes scanned the room: from the disturbed straw to Lyra’s hidden hand, finally resting on Etan—a man once more, but with the look of a trapped animal. Oros said nothing for several seconds, letting the silence grow unbearable.

  "Lyra," Oros said at last, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "Vallek wants you downstairs. Immediately."

  Lyra nodded, avoiding Etan’s gaze, and slipped out of the room with a quick, uncertain step. Oros did not follow. He remained at the door, arms crossed, staring Etan straight in the eye with a cold suspicion that weighed heavier than a sentence.

  As soon as she crossed the threshold, a thick Ash Mist began to pour from Oros’s wings, wrapping the room in a muffled silence. His gray, glassy, lidless eyes remained fixed on Etan with inhuman coldness.

  "Show me," the Avian croaked. His beak parted slightly, emitting a metallic sound.

  Without waiting, Oros lunged. It was a movement of shadows, lightning-fast. His spear hissed through the mist, aiming for Etan’s shoulder. Etan dodged it by a hair’s breadth, feeling the rush of icy air before the iron tip thudded into the wooden wall.

  Oros caught his breath, tilting his head to the side. "It wasn't a question, Etan. It was a test. I wanted to see if the heat that branded Lyra was merely a fluke."

  Etan rose slowly from the straw. His fear had evaporated, replaced by a sharp resolve. He looked at the hybrid before him, then down at his own right hand, still protected by Vallek’s leather glove.

  With a deliberate motion, Etan pulled off the glove. Slowly. He let it fall to the floor. His skin appeared bare, pale, and almost vibrating within the gray ash.

  "Hand me the spear, Oros," Etan said, his voice now resonating with an aristocratic coldness that no longer belonged to him. "Let’s see if your mist can protect your steel from the Void."

  Oros hesitated, his gray pupils contracting to focus on that outstretched hand. Right then, the door burst open again.

  Oros’s ash mist shuddered as the door slammed. Kael slipped inside with an electric movement—almost a glitch in reality—and crouched in a corner. His hair hummed with bluish sparks, and his eyes flicked between Etan and Oros with feverish curiosity.

  Etan threw him a quick glance, then returned his focus to the Avian. But Kael hadn't come to watch. With a lightning-fast flick, he threw a dagger that embedded itself inches from Etan’s feet.

  "I heard everything upstairs," Kael said, his voice seeming to double for an instant. "And I think it’s better to start small. I’ve studied you… and I want to see for myself if your hands truly radiate that heat. I saw Lyra’s fingers as she went downstairs. They were in bad shape."

  Etan remained unfazed. Slowly, he leaned down and picked up the dagger. He held it with the hand still covered by Vallek’s glove. Then, staring at the weapon’s raw steel, he closed his eyes and concentrated. He didn't think of destruction, but of perfection.

  Before their eyes, the dull iron of the knife began to change. Impurities vanished, the blade lengthened imperceptibly, and it became a polished steel so brilliant it reflected the light of the mist like a divine mirror.

  Oros took a step back, his composure wavering for the first time. Kael sprang to his feet, mouth agape.

  "What is this?" Oros growled, his voice thick with suspicion mixed with dread. "Are you mocking us? I asked to see your power… and you show me a blacksmith’s trick?"

  Etan sat heavily back onto the straw, letting the perfect knife drop to the floor. "A trick?" he repeated with a bitter smile. "This is my power, Oros. It is my curse."

  In the muffled silence of the ash, Etan began to speak. He told of the maid from his childhood who turned to lead. He told of the spoiled girls’ necklace that became pure gold. He reached the darkest moment: his mother’s face crystallizing into eternal white marble under his desperate touch—a face that still pulsed and radiated heat.

  He spoke of Tsuki, the cabin in the woods, and how that silver body was the only shell capable of containing the Void that transmuted the world.

  "I don't choose what to change," Etan concluded, looking at his gloved hands. "The world transforms because it cannot endure my presence. And now, that power has merged with Tsuki’s hunger."

  The silence that followed was broken only by the electric hum emanating from Kael. Oros slowly lowered his spear, leaning it against the wall. His feathered shoulders slumped in a long, weary sigh that made the ash mist tremble.

  "Do you think you’re the only one, monster?" Oros croaked, and for the first time, his voice wasn't a threat, but a lament. "There are no men in this room, Etan. Only fragments of what the world chewed up and spat out."

  He gestured with his beak toward Kael, who was staring at an empty spot in the room, his head twitching to the side with a bluish glitch.

  "He isn't unstable by choice," Oros continued. "Kael runs because if he stands still, the voices of the dead catch up to him. He hears their final thoughts, their regrets, like a choir tearing through his skull. His magic is a desperate attempt to flee from those who are gone."

  Kael cast a fleeting glance at Etan, a bitter smile curling his lips while his fingers tapped frantically on the floor.

  "And Lyra?" Oros lowered his voice even further. "Your 'keeper.' She was sold as a slave when she was little more than a child. That heat she gives off… it’s the only thing she has left to keep out the cold of the chains she wore for years. That’s why she protects you. She knows a cage when she sees one."

  Oros turned toward the door, as if he could see through the wood to Brak’s massive frame.

  "Even that colossus… Brak would be nothing but a corpse if his father, a madman obsessed with mechanical perfection, hadn't emptied him of his flesh to fill him with copper pipes and steam. He’s a miracle of metal powered by pain."

  The Avian looked back at Etan with his gray eyes. "We are all lost souls, Etan. Every one of us has a past that makes us monsters in the eyes of the 'pure' like Vallek. But here, within the Guild, that pain is the only currency that matters."

  Etan looked at the perfect steel knife at his feet. For the first time, he didn't feel like an anomaly, but part of a mosaic of broken glass.

  A deafening explosion shook the Guild’s foundations. The cell’s ceiling groaned, and debris rained down everywhere. Oros leaped to his feet, the ash mist turning frantic. "Take cover!"

  The three of them rushed into the corridor, but what they found was a massacre. The iron colossus, Brak, lay motionless on the ground. His exoskeleton was torn open, the copper pipes severed; the iron plate on his skull had been ripped away like paper. A bit further on, the sauroid Zobb staggered against a wall, his clawed hands buried in his own entrails in a desperate attempt to shove them back into his body, while his forked tongue hissed a bloody prayer.

  "Kaelos…" Kael whispered, terror making his skin shimmer with blue glitches. "These are the soldiers who took the city of Oakhaven!"

  Running toward the main hall, they found Vallek. The aristocratic leader was a whirlwind of fury: his polished steel armor was stained with soot, but his slender sword relentlessly pierced the enemy infantry swarming inside. They wore uniforms of boiled leather and brass, moving with terrifying discipline under the covering fire of their muskets.

  But it was the sight beyond the shattered window that turned their blood to ice.

  In the sky, directly above the Guild, floated a Kaelos warship. A fortress of dark metal spitting continuous fire, crumbling the castle towers as if they were made of sand.

  The gunpowder smoke parted like a curtain, revealing the horror advancing through the rubble. These were no mere infantrymen. They were four steel titans—soldiers in heavy, burnished armor, overlapping plates like the scales of a prehistoric monster, etched with Kaelos runes that pulsed with a dim light. Their weapons—massive war hammers and halberds—dripped with the blood of mercenaries.

  At the center of the group walked him: the General.

  His armor was a nightmare of matte black metal, angular and devoid of weak points. His helm was a faceless steel mask, topped with a blood-red plume so long it floated behind him like a trail of flames. He radiated an aura of frigid authority, the very personification of disciplined death.

  Vallek, with the desperate grace of a fallen noble, lunged at the four giants. His thin blade sought the gaps in their armor joints—a ballet of steel against iron. But it was an uneven fight. As Vallek parried a halberd’s strike, the General moved. Without a word, and with a speed unnatural for such a bulk, he lunged forward.

  The General’s black blade skewered Vallek through the back, erupting from his chest in a spray of scarlet blood that stained the leader’s polished steel.

  In that instant, the roar of battle faded. The screams, the cannons of the airship, the crackling of flames… everything fell into absolute silence. Time seemed to freeze.

  Vallek fell to his knees, his mouth filling with blood, as his sword hit the floor with a dull ring that sounded like a funeral knell. His eyes, always so proud, grew dim as he stared into the void.

  "NO!" Oros’s scream broke the spell.

  In a snarl of pure rage, the Avian dove, while Kael bolted like a bluish bolt of lightning toward the General. It was a gesture of suicidal loyalty. The four heavy soldiers didn’t even have to strain: they intercepted Oros mid-air, snapping his wings with the brute force of their iron-clad hands, and pinned Kael down, striking him with the butt of a halberd during a glitch.

  Before Etan’s wide eyes, the soldiers finished the job. Oros was impaled to the ground, his gray feathers scattered in the blood; Kael was crushed under a heavy steel boot.

  The Guild was dead. The Seven were no more.

  The General sheathed his black blade and turned his helm toward Etan, who was trembling in the lingering ash mist. He hadn't come for him, but now the boy was the sole witness to the massacre. The stone beneath Etan did not just change color; it changed nature. With a sound like a thousand breaking bones, the floor heaved and transformed into a carpet of razor-sharp steel spikes, tall and lethal, erupting from the ground like infernal vegetation.

  The four heavy soldiers had no time to react. The points pierced the joints of their armor, hoisting them off the ground in a macabre dance of stifled screams. But the horror did not stop there. The spikes tore through everything: Kael’s corpse was lifted like a puppet, Oros’s feathers became snagged in the polished metal, and Vallek’s body was skewered through and through, becoming a grotesque extension of that forest of death.

  Caught off guard, the General raised his arm to protect himself, but a spike struck him full in the face. The impact was violent enough to snap the buckles of his black helm, which went flying, bouncing through the rubble.

  For the first time, the enemy’s face was bare. He was a middle-aged man, his features hardened by a thousand battles, marked by a deep scar running across his left eye, which was dull and milky. His gaze, now filled with a mixture of pain and disbelief, fell upon the boy.

  Etan did not see the end. The physical shock of transmuting an entire room, combined with the weight of Tsuki’s presence and the visual horror of what he had done to his friends, caused his mind to shut down. Blood trickled from his cracked lips as he slumped forward, fainting between the only two tiles left intact, surrounded by a cemetery of steel created by his own hands.

  The General resheathed his black blade with a sharp snap, ignoring the pain in his cheek where Etan’s spike had grazed him. He took a heavy step toward the unconscious boy, intending to finish him among the ruins. But in that instant, the sky above the Guild seemed to crumple.

  A titanic roar shook the earth. The Kaelos warship, struck at its core by an internal explosion, lurched violently. Metal screeched as the floating fortress lost altitude, crashing just outside the outer walls in a rain of fire and bolts. A massive shockwave tore through the room, kicking up a cloud of dust and ash so thick it blotted out the sun.

  As the dust slowly began to settle, the General was gone—vanished into the chaos of the smoke like a demon returning to the shadows.