Noel stood frozen, Revenant Fang hanging low at his side, its weight grounding him just enough to keep him from slipping apart completely. The blade humd faintly, shadows clinging to its edge like they understood the situation better than he did.
Noir was close. Her form was half-turned toward him, half toward Marcus, shadows bristling, teeth bared at the world. She was protecting him with everything she had left.
Marcus was on the ground.
Blood soaked into the stone beneath him, spreading wider by the second. Too much. Far too much. His chest rose unevenly, each breath weaker than the last, like his body was already negotiating how long it could hold on.
’He’s dying.’
The thought landed with a sickening calm.
Marcus was going to be a father. He didn’t even know yet. That future—small, fragile, stupidly hopeful—was bleeding out right in front of him. And Noel knew, with brutal clarity, that he could not allow that to end here.
Running wasn’t an option.
If he turned his back, they’d chase him down and cut him apart before he’d taken three steps. If he stayed still for too long, they’d attack anyway. Either way, soone died.
Probably him.
In front of him, the Second Pillar stood ready, chains tense, posture coiled to strike. Her attention never left him. She was waiting.
Then Roberto lifted a hand.
The gesture was casual. Almost lazy.
He murmured sothing Noel couldn’t hear, voice low, unreadable.
"Wait," Roberto said calmly. "Let him make the first move."
The Second Pillar froze instantly.
’Noir.’
His voice echoed only in her mind, tight and controlled despite the chaos tightening around them.
’Take Marcus. Get him to Charlotte. Now.’
She snapped her head toward him, erald eyes wide. ’Dad—no. I’m not leaving you here.’ Her shadows flared, agitated. ’You’re outnumbered. Outmatched. You won’t last.’
He didn’t argue.
’It’s the only way,’ he sent back, firm enough that it hurt. ’If he stays here, he dies. You know that.’
Noir hesitated. Just for a heartbeat.
Marcus coughed, blood bubbling weakly at his lips, and that hesitation shattered.
With a sharp, angry breath, she moved. Shadows surged beneath her paws as she hauled Marcus onto her back, careful and frantic all at once.
"...Shadow Step," she snarled.
The darkness swallowed them.
They vanished in an instant, leaving behind stained stone and an emptiness that felt too large.
Noel didn’t look back.
He felt it instead—the absence of her presence snapping tight inside his chest. The sudden silence where her mind had been.
Across from him, Roberto watched it all with mild interest.
"Always the sa," he said, almost fondly. "Throwing yourself into the fire to save everyone else." His eyes flicked briefly to the blood left behind. "Charlotte will manage. She always does." A pause. A thin smile. "Though I wonder how much of her life she’s already given away with those Blessings."
Noel stayed silent.
"And if she breaks?" Roberto continued lightly. "Well. You’ve still got the other three."
Sothing cold settled in Noel’s gut.
He tightened his grip on Revenant Fang instead, shadows crawling up the blade as his stance shifted.
Noel moved.
"Shadow Step."
The world folded in on itself, shadows snapping tight around his body as space collapsed and rewrote him in a blink. Cold darkness pulled—and released.
He reappeared behind the Second Pillar.
Perfect.
For half a second, everything aligned exactly the way it needed to. The Second Pillar in front. Roberto just beyond her. Both of them in a straight line, unaware or uncaring, frad by ruin and bloodstained stone.
This was it.
Noel drew in a breath, shadows surging violently around Revenant Fang, the blade vibrating as if it recognized what was coming.
"Eclipse Rend."
The shadows exploded outward.
Not light versus dark—absence versus existence. The blade carved forward, dragging a crescent of void behind it, space itself buckling as the attack tore free. It wasn’t ant to wound.
It was ant to erase.
And then—
The world tilted.
No—
the world fell away entirely.
Noel was suddenly above it.
Not flying. Not moving. Just... there.
Looking down.
He saw his body still standing where he’d been an instant ago. Saw the shadows still spilling forward, the attack half-born, unfinished.
And he saw sothing else.
A thin line of light.
Running straight through his neck.
’...Oh.’
There was no pain yet.
His head wasn’t connected anymore.
His body swayed, Revenant Fang slipping from numb fingers as the shadows lost cohesion, collapsing into nothing before the attack could fully form. The void dissipated like smoke with no fire left to feed it.
Noel watched his own corpse fall.
Watched blood arc upward far too late, watched stone rush closer as his vision began to dim—not fading, but breaking, like glass under pressure.
So this was the limit.
So this was what happened when he made one mistake too many.
The last thing he registered wasn’t fear.
It was a single, furious thought—
’Fuck.’
And then everything went dark.
The darkness shattered.
Ti lurched.
Noel gasped, and the world snapped back into place.
Six seconds earlier.
Stone beneath his boots. Blood still spreading from Marcus’s body. Revenant Fang steady in his hand. The Second Pillar in front of him. Roberto watching, calm, unreadable.
Alive.
His heart slamd against his ribs as the realization hit him all at once.
’I died.’
There was no confusion. No doubt. He rembered it too clearly—the weightlessness, the wrong angle of the world, the clean slice of light. Death hadn’t been dramatic. It had been precise.
Ashen Sigil.
The thought steadied him even as his pulse raced. Six seconds rewound. One mistake erased.
Not forgiven.
Noel lifted a hand to his neck without thinking, fingers pressing against warm skin where his head had been severed monts ago. Intact. Whole. His breath ca a little too fast, then slowed as he forced it under control.
Don’t do that again.
Across from him, Roberto tilted his head slightly.
"...Why are you touching your neck?" he asked, genuinely curious. "Sothing wrong?"
Noel didn’t answer. The instinct to strike scread at him—to repeat the attack, to adjust the angle, to go faster—but he crushed it down hard. Charging again without thinking would just lead him right back to the sa end.
In front of him, the Second Pillar remained perfectly still. Waiting. Chains taut, posture unchanged. She hadn’t attacked.
Because Roberto hadn’t told her to.
Six seconds ago, Noel would’ve missed that.
Now, he saw it clearly.
This wasn’t a standoff of equals.
It was permission.
Roberto studied him, eyes narrowing just a fraction. "You’re hesitating," he said. "That’s new." A pause. "Did sothing happen, Noel?"
The space between them stretched, heavy and fragile.
Noel tightened his grip on Revenant Fang, but he didn’t raise it. For the first ti since the confrontation began, he chose not to attack.
Noel let the silence breathe.
Not because he was calm—but because he needed the extra second to keep himself from doing sothing stupid. Revenant Fang stayed low in his hand, shadows clinging to the blade like they were waiting for a decision he refused to give them. His pulse was still too fast, his thoughts still sharp with the mory of dying, but he forced them into order.
Running wouldn’t work. Attacking wouldn’t work.
So he did the only thing left.
"Roberto," Noel said at last.
His voice ca out steadier than he felt, rough around the edges but real. No posturing. No challenge. Just a na spoken the way he’d said it a thousand tis before campfires and ruined cities.
"Why are you doing this?"
The question hung there, fragile in a way violence never was.
For a mont, Roberto didn’t answer.
When he did, the smile was gone.
Completely.
His expression settled into sothing flatter, heavier—like a mask he’d been wearing had finally cracked under its own weight. "Because I’m tired," he said quietly. "Because I’ve been stuck in this loop for too long, Noel. Longer than you can imagine."
Noel didn’t interrupt.
"I want it to end," Roberto continued. "I want to be free." His gaze flicked briefly to the side, to the stillness of the Second Pillar, to the chains that never really stopped moving. "There are only two ways out. Soone kills ... or Elarin leaves his prison."
Noel’s jaw tightened.
"And you don’t want to die," he said.
Roberto’s eyes returned to him. "No," he admitted without hesitation. "I really don’t."
The air felt heavier with every word.
"So I need you to grow," Roberto went on, voice low, almost matter-of-fact. "Strong enough. Stable enough for him to use you as a vessel." His gaze sharpened.
There was no triumph in it. No cruelty. Just inevitability.
"I didn’t choose you by chance," he added quietly. "You’re the closest we’ve ever been. The closest I’ve ever been." His shoulders lowered a fraction, the tension settling into sothing heavy and exhausted. "That’s why this is worse than the others. Because this ti..."He paused, just long enough for it to sting."...it almost felt real."
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