In the silent embrace of a vast mountain range, Artoria walked alone.

  Snow-dusted trees parted gently before her as she passed, their branches bending aside as if recognizing her presence. Cradled carefully in her arm was a sleeping infant, his small chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. Her pace was slower now, deliberate, measured, not because she could not move faster, but because she would not.

  For the first time in what felt like an eternity, she was content.

  A faint smile lingered on her lips as she adjusted her grip, pressing the child closer to her chest. Each step carried her nearer to her goal, nearer to sanctuary. Though her body bore corruption and her voice was stolen, her heart, whatever remained of it, felt lighter than it had since her rebirth.

  Far, far behind her, unseen and unheard, another knight followed.

  He moved with the discipline of a seasoned hunter, never breaking stride, never making a sound. His bright blond hair flowed quietly in the wind, and his icy blue eyes reflected the morning sun as he observed his target from a great distance.

  Callum.

  He slowed, watching the woman and the infant through a long-range optic before reaching up to his earpiece.

  “I’ve confirmed the target,” he acknowledged quietly.

  Countless miles away, inside a command chamber lit by cold screens, Rikin pressed his own earpiece while studying the live feed. His eyes flicked over the image, Artoria’s corrupted form, the unmistakable relic blade at her side, and finally the child in her arms.

  “Positive,” Rikin replied after a pause. “She appears off guard. Eliminate her now and avoid further casualties.”

  Callum’s jaw tightened.

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His gaze lingered on the infant, on the way Artoria’s hand brushed the child’s cheek with unmistakable tenderness.

  Callum exhaled sharply and pressed the earpiece once more.

  “Negative, sir,” he said firmly. “There is an infant in her arms. I refuse to kill civilians.”

  On the other end, Rikin’s eyes narrowed. He stared at the screen in silence before reaching for a cup of coffee. He took a slow sip, considering.

  “…Fine,” Rikin said at last. “Just don’t let this situation escalate.”

  Callum allowed himself a faint, almost imperceptible, smile.

  “Roger that.”

  As he continued to follow at a distance, he muted the device and spoke under his breath.

  “Are you really going there…?”

  He knew she possessed intelligence now. He had seen it. She had chosen to protect the child. But did that mean her memories had returned?

  And if they had…

  Callum’s expression darkened.

  “Hell is waiting for you, Elder,” he murmured.

  Artoria, unaware of the eyes upon her, continued forward. She pressed her thumb gently against the infant’s cheek, her smile soft and genuine. Her pace never slowed, even as the final mountain rose before her.

  At last, she reached its peak.

  Beyond it lay her destination.

  The Pendragon Dynasty.

  Legendary. Feared. Revered.

  A dynasty unlike any other, less a bloodline than a kingdom bound by principle. Power, origin, age, past, none of it mattered. Only loyalty. Only honor. Only the vow to protect the world.

  Artoria took a single step forward.

  Then she froze.

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  Her eyes widened in horror. Her body trembled violently. She tried to scream, to deny what she was seeing, but no sound escaped her lips.

  She leapt down from the peak and landed before a massive gate. With shaking hands, she reached beneath it and forced it open, passing into the inner kingdom.

  What awaited her shattered what remained of her soul.

  The streets were filled with people.

  Thousands of them.

  But none were alive.

  Every man, woman, and child had been turned into obsidian-black stone, frozen mid-motion, running, laughing, reaching for one another. A city preserved in the instant of its death.

  Artoria staggered forward.

  She stopped before a small statue, a child, no older than the infant she held. The stone face was carved in joy, eyes wide with laughter.

  Artoria lowered herself slowly and touched the statue’s cheek.

  A tear slid down her face.

  She lingered there for a long moment before forcing herself to rise and look toward the heart of the city.

  The castle.

  She leapt again, landing near the inner walls just as shattered guards came into view, some mid-attack, others shielding unseen figures. One statue stood out among them, a woman who had thrown herself forward, body broken in sacrifice.

  Artoria knelt and touched the shattered stone with reverence.

  Then she stood.

  Above her, on the second inner wall, Callum watched in silence. His face was pale, his eyes hollow as they swept over the ruins of his own dynasty, his home, annihilated by an unseen enemy.

  He knew who had done this.

  He clenched his fists.

  “I hope you don’t take this too badly,” he whispered.

  He turned off his earpiece.

  Artoria reached the castle gates and pushed them open.

  Inside the throne room, devastation reigned.

  Warriors lay frozen, some shattered, others standing defiant. At the center, seated upon the Pendragon throne, was a man who looked untroubled by the apocalypse around him.

  He, too, had been turned to stone.

  Artoria’s breath hitched.

  Her family.

  Her kin.

  Gone.

  She collapsed to her knees, clutching the infant to her chest. Tears streamed freely now, soaking into the child’s clothes. She looked down at him, this small, living thing in a world of death, then lifted her head toward the ruined throne.

  From deep within her chest, a sound finally escaped.

  A howl.

  Primal and broken.

  Now, at last, it was her turn to cry.

  She cried for a long, unmeasured time.

  Her shoulders trembled as silent sobs wracked her body, tears falling freely onto the cold stone beneath her knees. Yet through it all, the infant in her arms did not stir. He slept on, breathing softly, as though honoring her grief with his silence, an unspoken promise that life, at least, had not abandoned her entirely.

  Eventually, when her tears could no longer fall as freely, Artoria lowered her gaze to the child. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face streaked with grief, yet something gentler surfaced as she looked upon him. Slowly, she rose to her feet, careful not to wake him, and began walking deeper into the grand hall.

  At its center stood an altar.

  It was ancient, carved from pale stone veined with gold, and it bore a familiar absence. For generations uncounted, a straight sword had rested there, its presence so constant that the altar itself seemed incomplete without it. That blade had vanished centuries ago with its last rightful bearer.

  With her.

  Artoria halted before the altar. She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand and stared at the empty recess where the sword once belonged. After a long hesitation, she lifted her own blade.

  The sword in her grasp was broken, its edge fractured, its surface scarred by impossible battles. Yet despite its ruin, the metal still held a faint sheen. In it, she saw her reflection.

  Grey skin. Dark hair. Hollow eyes that no longer belonged to the woman she once was.

  Her jaw tightened. Slowly, her lips moved as she tried to speak again, forcing sound into a world that had long denied her voice. She read the inscription etched faintly along the blade, her mouth shaping the words in silence.

  ''Whoever may wield me shall command both space and time, for I am the mighty sword forged by the First King, Excalibur.'

  No sound came.

  Her hand trembled as she lowered the sword. With reverence, and no small measure of sorrow, she placed it back upon the altar. The stone accepted it as though it had never been gone, the recess sealing perfectly around the blade.

  For the first time in over five hundred years, the altar was whole.

  Artoria stared at it, her face still wet with tears, when something shifted at the edge of her vision.

  She turned.

  At the entrance of the throne hall stood another knight.

  He wore white armor, immaculate despite the ruin surrounding him, its crest bearing the sigil of a knight and a dragon. His golden hair flowed faintly in the stale air, and his icy blue eyes were fixed not on her, but on the altar behind her.

  Callum stepped forward.

  Artoria’s hand clenched into a fist, her expression unreadable, caught somewhere between dread, despair, and resignation.

  Callum passed her without a word and stopped before the altar. He looked down at the sword resting there, whole once more. His breath caught.

  A sorrowful expression crossed his face.

  He turned and walked toward the throne, lowering himself to one knee before the obsidian statue seated upon it.

  “Do you see it, Father?” he said quietly. A faint, broken smile touched his lips. “Our family’s relic has returned at last.”

  The statue did not answer.

  Silence filled the hall.

  After a moment, Callum rose, brushing dust from his armor. He turned and approached Artoria once more. As he passed her, he placed a hand on her shoulder, gentle, brief, and heavy with meaning.

  “Go,” he said softly. “Live your life, Elder.”

  Then he walked away.

  He left the castle behind once more, his ruined dynasty, his frozen kin, but he did not leave empty-handed. Two lives had been spared that day: that of his long-lost elder, and that of a lone, nameless infant who still slept peacefully in her arms.

  Artoria stood motionless.

  Tears welled again, falling one by one onto the stone floor. Her fingers curled tightly against her chest as she drew a trembling breath.

  She opened her mouth.

  And for the first time since her revival, words finally came.

  “…Thank you.”