The forest greeted them with silence that felt engineered rather than natural. No rustling of small creatures, no distant birds, not even the lazy hum of wind through leaves. Everything lay still, as though the entire clearing had paused its own heartbeat the mont Seraphis and Lediya stepped into it.
They halted at the sa ti.
Corwin's body lay at the center of the field exactly where he had fallen, untouched by decay. Days had passed, yet his skin held its color, his features remained serene, and even the folds in his clothing looked freshly pressed. He could have been sleeping. He could have woken up at any mont.
He didn't, of course. Truth had its limits.
Seraphis stared at him with an expression so neutral it almost felt like cruelty, but Lediya knew better. That blankness was not emptiness. It was compression — a dam built of nothing but restraint, holding back sothing vast and difficult. Seraphis walked forward without a whisper of hesitation, each step taken carefully, almost ritualistic in its calm.
Lediya followed a few paces until instinct made her stop. Grief this large had gravitational pull. It was only right to give space.
Seraphis reached Corwin and lowered herself slowly. Her hand hovered above his chest, trembling just enough to betray her. The air around her shifted, heavy with a sensation that could not be described in words. It was not sorrow; it was the feeling when reality hit.
The fact that the guy who used to share her joy and sorrow lay there with no more ti to give, it was acceptance — though hollow, with eyes that could not even shed tears.
Seraphis turned to look back at Lediya.
But Lediya wasn't there.
She had stepped backward; she couldn't share her pain. She had never lost her husband nor her child. What Seraphis was feeling now could only be a distant imagination for her, not a pure feeling. Giving space was the better alternative than comforting, she thought.
"Thank you…" she whispered, smiling despondently, though no one stood near enough to hear. Even if Corwin was alive, he could not have heard that.
The smile slipped away, and Seraphis collapsed to her knees. The ground caught her like an undeserved rcy. She folded over Corwin's body, her shoulders shaking with a grief that rose slowly, like water rising inside a sealed chamber. No sobs, no shouts, just quiet, suffocating tears sliding down her face as she tried and failed to steady her breath.
Her fingers brushed Corwin's sleeve. The contact shattered the last of her composure.
That was when the movent stirred behind her.
It was subtle, almost polite. A whisper of displaced air. A shift of presence that should not have existed in a clearing this still. Seraphis lifted her head a fraction too late.
A kick ca toward her skull.
Seraphis spun, arm snapping up in defense. The impact cracked the ground beside Corwin's body, sending a spray of dirt into the air. She sprang to her feet, divine reflex overtaking grief in an instant.
Her attacker stepped fully into view.
The woman looked like a ghost sewn from dical gauze. White bandages wrapped her entire head, covering her ears, cheeks, and neck, leaving only the faint outline of a mouth visible beneath the layers, and a pair of eyes Seraphis was familiar with. Her long white coat fluttered slightly with her movent, but not enough to disturb a single speck of dust on its pristine surface.
That mouth curved in a smile. And the pair of eyes shone with a purple light.
Seraphis did not waste ti staring or asking questions. She lunged forward, and the bandaged woman reacted with a speed that felt almost dismissive. Their first clash was a flurry of motion, clean and brutal — an exchange of strikes delivered with the kind of precision that made even the air wince.
Seraphis drove an elbow toward the woman's ribs. The woman twisted, catching Seraphis's arm and using her montum to flip her over a shoulder. Seraphis hit the ground, rolled backward, and ca up already countering with a sweeping kick aid to break a knee.
Her opponent stepped over it neatly, as though strolling through a garden.
The woman struck again, her fist cutting through the air in a perfectly straight line. Seraphis caught it, blocked a second strike, dodged a third, and retaliated with a rapid combination of palm strikes aid at pressure points.
The bandaged woman avoided almost all of them.
Almost.
Seraphis's final strike caught her across the jaw. The woman's head snapped to the side, bandages creasing with the force. She straightened her neck like soone cracking their spine after a nap.
Then she smiled wider.
Seraphis stiffened. That smile wasn't taunting or mocking like any normal person. It was of enjoynt, like any abnormal person. Every second of this fight seed to amuse the attacker in ways Seraphis did not understand and didn't want to.
The woman vanished in a blur and reappeared behind her, driving a fist toward Seraphis's spine. Seraphis whirled, catching the punch in the palm of her hand. Their locked arms trembled, the ground beneath them sinking from the pressure of their clash. Seraphis twisted, using the woman's own montum to hurl her into a tree.
The trunk exploded into splinters.
The bandaged woman stepped out of the debris, brushing a few bits of bark from her coat with absentminded grace. Not a single bandage shifted.
Lediya finally erged from the trees, breath unsteady, eyes wide. She didn't interfere. Couldn't. The battle was too fast, too sharp, too closed off for any mage to insert themselves without becoming collateral.
She was confident she would survive, but she would only get in the way if she were to interfere.
Seraphis darted in again, unleashing a barrage of blows. Each one carried the weight of her grief sharpening into fury. The woman ducked, parried, sidestepped, countered — never wasting a motion, never losing that deeply unsettling poise.
The two collided once more, hands t, twisted, and grappled in a locked struggle that sent cracks through the earth beneath them.
Then the bandaged woman abruptly disengaged.
She stepped back, relaxed her posture, and lifted her hand in a genteel, almost playful gesture.
"That should do," she said, her voice bright even through the muffled layers of cloth. "Now that we're properly acquainted…"
She dipped her head in a small, polite bow.
"…allow to introduce myself."
The smile beneath the bandages stretched just slightly too wide for comfort.
"My na is Mina."
The clearing fell silent again. Corwin's body remained impossibly untouched by ti.
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