The world froze. The sound of the city faded, as if submerged underwater.

  Lyciah's body reacted before her mind did: her fingers went numb, and her legs refused to move.

  Ekchron. The worst of the Seven. The name people only dared to whisper. The monster who played with humans as if they were disposable pieces.

  Noah had tried to take her to him. He had failed.

  Spain was Caelan’s territory. She was supposed to be safe here.

  A thousand thoughts raced through Lyciah’s mind, but none reached her lips. Fear held her frozen in place.

  “Th-this is Caelan’s territory…” she managed to say, her voice breaking. “You can’t be here.”

  “Can’t I?” Ekchron echoed. “Strange. Because here I am.”

  His gaze slid over Lyciah slowly, unhurried, as if appraising an interesting object in a shop window.

  “W-what do you want from me?”

  Ekchron pretended to think for a few seconds.

  “I just wanted to put a face to the name,” he shrugged. “The daughter of the Dawnbringer. The great heir. The most talked-about disappointment of recent years.”

  He smiled with impeccable politeness. His expression was angelic. Every word, however, was carefully chosen to wound.

  “I won’t lie to you,” he added. “I was expecting… more.”

  Lyciah tightened her scarf with trembling hands.

  “Look at you,” he went on. “Silent. Pale. On the verge of running away. Such a contrast to your mother.”

  He leaned toward her. She stepped back.

  “If she could see you now,” his tone darkened, venomous, “she would be deeply disappointed.”

  Ekchron straightened. The cruelty vanished from his voice as easily as it had appeared. He sounded light again. Pleasant.

  “But I suppose it’s not your fault,” he concluded. “Not everyone is born to be useful…”

  He gave her one last once-over.

  “Is that right, little bird?”

  The nickname crawled down her spine like a chill.

  ?No…?

  Doubt and paranoia flooded her thoughts.

  ?Was that a coincidence… or…??

  A deep voice pulled her out of it.

  “Dawnbringer.”

  Lyciah spun around. Caelan was there.

  Relief washed over her whole body. He had come. He had kept his word.

  She didn’t think. She ran to him and hid behind him, clutching the fabric of his coat.

  “Caelan…” she whispered, her voice shattered. “You came.”

  “You’re in my territory,” he replied calmly. “I told you no one would hurt you.”

  Lyciah nodded, staying close to him by pure instinct. Caelan tilted his head slightly to look at her, making sure she was unharmed. His expression didn’t change, but his stance did: firm, grounded, like a wall that had no intention of yielding.

  A low laugh cut through the moment.

  “Ah…” Ekchron said. “The eternal martyr.”

  Caelan lifted his gaze calmly and turned toward him. He didn’t step forward, but his body naturally positioned itself between Ekchron and Lyciah, shielding her completely.

  “You are not permitted to enter Spain,” he said. “You sent no envoys. You asked for no permission. You broke the pact.”

  “The pact?” Ekchron repeated with a short laugh. “And what exactly are you going to do about it, knight? You’re the Second Ancestral. The one of barriers.” He stepped a little closer. “Are you going to drive me out with... what? An invisible wall? A very solemn protective circle? Everyone knows you’re the most harmless of the Seven.”

  Ekchron smiled. It was wide and relaxed—the smile of someone who had never feared consequences. Someone who believed himself untouchable.

  “Relax,” he said at last. “I just came to meet the famous Dawnbringer. The historical disappointment. The little bird with broken wings.”

  Lyciah flinched at the nickname again. Caelan didn’t react.

  “She is not your concern,” he said. “Just as no one within my territory is.”

  Ekchron pressed a hand to his chest theatrically, feigning injury.

  “Well. Always so upright. So steadfast.” He smirked. “I’m surprised you don’t spit flower petals every time you speak.”

  He began to walk slowly in a loose circle. His footsteps were soft, careless. Lyciah tensed without realizing it.

  “You know what I find most amusing about you?” Ekchron continued. “That you still believe you chose this path. That you still think you’re different from me.”

  He stopped in front of Caelan, close enough to invade his personal space.

  “We’re the same, eternal martyr. The difference is that I stopped pretending.”

  “No,” Caelan replied without raising his voice. “The difference is that you gave up.”

  The blow wasn’t physical, but it landed just the same. Ekchron blinked.

  “Gave up?” he repeated, incredulous. “I’m untouchable. I control time. I—”

  “You keep calling it a ‘game,’” Caelan interrupted, “because you can’t face what you’ve done.”

  His voice didn’t waver. Ekchron clicked his tongue.

  “Humans are fragile,” he shot back. “They break. They beg. They die. You put them on pedestals. I treat them as what they are.”

  “No,” Caelan replied. “You reduce them so you don’t have to feel anything for them.”

  Ekchron’s smile stiffened.

  “You kill because feeling terrifies you,” Caelan concluded.

  The silence that followed was uncomfortable. There was no immediate retort. No laughter. Just a tense void.

  “Breathing moral superiority in my direction again?” Ekchron finally said, feigning indifference. “You, the guardian. The knight. The one who clings to his humanity like it’s a sacred relic… judging me.”

  “I’m not judging you,” Caelan replied. “I’m observing you. You hide behind the game because you can’t stand to look at yourself when you’re not playing. Because if you stop… all that’s left is what you are.”

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  Ekchron frowned. The smile vanished completely.

  “You’re a child who was given too much power,” Caelan went on. “Without guidance. Without purpose.”

  His eyes never left Ekchron’s.

  “And you chose destruction over facing yourself.”

  Ekchron let out a dry laugh.

  “What a speech,” he said, clapping slowly. “Do you rehearse that at night before going to sleep?”

  “No,” Caelan replied. “I say it when someone crosses the line.”

  “And where exactly is that line?” Ekchron asked. “Killing? Playing? Stopping pretending the world is anything more than a board?”

  “Cowardice.”

  Ekchron went still.

  “Calling slaughter a ‘game,’” Caelan continued. “Calling people ‘pieces.’ Laughing while you destroy because you don’t know what to do when you’re not destroying… That’s not strength. It’s escape.”

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  Ekchron raised a hand to his face and snapped his sunglasses into place. He cast a glance to his side, as if listening to some unheard voice, and frowned in irritation.

  “What a disappointment,” he muttered. “I came to have fun. And I get a sermon.”

  He turned as if to leave… then stopped.

  “I intended to take the little bird,” he said, gesturing toward Lyciah without looking at her. “But your marble face annoys me too much. For today, I’ll settle for observing.”

  Lyciah, who had remained silent the entire time, clutched Caelan even tighter.

  “Take good care of her,” Ekchron added, a crooked smile forming. “It would be a shame if she learned too early that heroes fail too.”

  The air around him rippled like water. In the blink of an eye, Ekchron vanished.

  Lyciah, who had been rigid the whole time, relaxed all at once as soon as he was gone. The world seemed to start moving again.

  That was when she realized it. She was still pressed against Caelan, gripping his coat with both hands.

  She pulled away immediately, red as a tomato, yanking her hands back as if the fabric burned.

  “I-I’m sorry!” she blurted out. “I didn’t mean to grab you like that, it’s just when I get nervous I don’t really control my hands, or my words, or my body in general, and he’s terrifying, and you were there, and I thought if I let go I’d die or something, which I know is an exaggeration, but—”

  She stopped to take a breath, mortified.

  “Sorry.”

  Caelan watched her for a few seconds. His expression didn’t change, but his posture relaxed slightly.

  “It’s not a problem,” he replied calmly. “My coat is designed to withstand pressure.”

  Lyciah blinked.

  “D-designed?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “Strong winds. Adverse conditions. Hostile situations.”

  He paused briefly, as if mentally checking an invisible list.

  “And, apparently, unexpected embraces.”

  The silence that followed was thick. It took Lyciah a second to process it. Then her face turned even redder.

  “I-it wasn’t a hug!” she rushed to say. “I mean, not exactly. I was just… very close. For safety. Strictly for safety.”

  Caelan tilted his head, thoughtful.

  “I understand.”

  Another second of silence.

  “Then,” he added, “it functioned correctly.”

  Lyciah covered her face with her hands.

  “P-please stop talking.”

  Caelan looked at her, genuinely confused.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  Lyciah, still hiding her face, shook her head.

  “No…” she murmured. “Thank you… for coming.”

  Caelan nodded. Lyciah was smiling despite herself, though he couldn’t see it.

  The city continued on.

  The world did not stop.

  That night, Ekchron wandered the city streets without direction.

  The encounter with Caelan had left a bitter taste in his mouth. A lingering one. The kind that refused to fade no matter how hard you tried to ignore it. He’d had all day to brood. To reconstruct the scene. To replay Caelan’s words over and over. To imagine better replies. To hate him more precisely.

  He despised him.

  For five millennia he had cultivated that irrational hatred with care. But what bothered him most was that Caelan didn’t seem to hate him. He seemed indifferent. Or worse: pitying.

  “He still thinks he's superior,” Ekchron muttered, gesturing wildly, as if speaking to someone. “That his ‘humanity’ is a virtue.”

  He wasn’t smiling. There was no sarcasm this time. Just a pure irritation burning slowly in his chest.

  “How convenient. The hero who chose right. The monster who chose wrong.”

  The image of Caelan standing between him and the Dawnbringer made something twist painfully inside him. That posture. That calm. That unbearable certainty of being on the right side of the story.

  He wanted to break something.

  No games. No theatrics. He just wanted to kill someone.

  Then he saw a light on in the middle of the empty street. A bakery. The warm scent of freshly baked bread drifted through the air like a provocation.

  His eyes slid to the sign above the door.

  Always on Time.

  Ekchron frowned.

  “Tch…” he muttered, not entirely sure why it irritated him. “What a pretentious name.”

  He shoved the door open violently. The bell chimed cheerfully, completely out of place.

  Inside, the light was warm. The oven was still on. The air was thick, welcoming… and dangerously human.

  Behind the counter stood a woman with long brown hair tied in a low ponytail. Her sleeves were rolled up, her hands lightly dusted with flour.

  She looked up. And Ekchron did not get—not even close—the reaction he was expecting.

  “If you’re going to rob the place, at least wait until I finish counting the register,” she said calmly. “Can’t you see you’re distracting me?”

  Ekchron stopped short. Blinked.

  “…What?”

  He blinked again.

  “No, I… I didn’t come for money.”

  The woman lowered her gaze again and finished counting the coins with almost provocative slowness.

  And Ekchron... waited. He didn’t know why. He just did.

  She sorted them, then closed the register.

  Finally, she looked up and studied him for a few seconds, as if he were an odd customer. Not a threat. Not an ancient monster.

  “Then?” she asked. “Are you here to kill me?”

  Ekchron blinked again.

  Did she read my mind?

  “…Maybe.”

  She tilted her head, studying him carefully.

  “Where are your parents?” she asked. “How old are you? Fifteen?”

  “NINETEEN!!!” Ekchron snapped without thinking.

  She made a small face, as if the difference were irrelevant.

  “Oh. Well. A huge evolutionary leap,” she commented. “Does your mother know you’re wandering around with a face like you’re about to murder someone?”

  “I’m not—!” He cut himself off. “I’m not… murdering. I’m… observing!”

  “Observing what?” she asked. “My bread? Is it suspicious?”

  “Maybe!” he shot back. “What if it’s poisoned?”

  “It’s only poison if you’re celiac. Are you?”

  Ekchron blanked.

  “…I don’t know what that is.”

  “Great,” she muttered. “Doesn’t know what gluten is, but wants to kill me. Youth is thriving.”

  “I can kill you if I want!” Ekchron snapped, offended.

  “Sure,” she smiled. “But first tell me—seeds or olives?”

  “I DON’T WANT BREAD!!” he raised his voice without realizing it. “I want to— I want…” He stumbled, frustrated; two millennia living in Greece and Spanish still resisted him. “Don’t distract me! I came for… for destruction and pain.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I thought you were here for baguettes.”

  Ekchron started walking toward the counter. Each step was a rehearsed threat. A display of power. Of terror.

  She crossed her arms. Didn’t move an inch.

  “You have a strange accent,” she continued. “You’re disoriented, you don’t know what gluten is, and you slam doors open. I’d say you’re one nap away from being functional.”

  “I don’t need naps!” he snapped. “And I’m not functional because I don’t want to be!”

  She looked at him with genuine attention.

  “Have you eaten anything today?”

  “I don’t eat—!” He corrected himself. “I mean… I don’t want food. I want… revenge.”

  “Well, that’s disappointing for your first visit,” she replied. “I only have bread and cookies. Revenge gets delivered on Fridays.”

  Pause.

  Ekchron opened his mouth. Closed it. Shut his eyes for a second, searching for human words. The right words. Words that didn’t sound ridiculous.

  “Your attitude is—!” He gestured in frustration. “It’s… it’s…” He spread his arms dramatically. “What do you call it… inflaming my soul.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Inflaming your soul?”

  “Yes!” he nodded. “That.”

  She watched him in silence for a few seconds. Then, without a word, she turned, took a still-warm loaf, and slid it across the counter toward him.

  “Here,” she said. “Looks like you need it more than I do. Come back tomorrow to pay for it.”

  Ekchron took it on reflex.

  “…Ah. Thanks.”

  “But if you come back,” she added, “don’t yell at me. And don’t kill anyone in here.”

  “Okay.”

  He left. The bell chimed again.

  Out on the street, he took two steps… and stopped.

  He looked at the bread. Looked at his fingers.

  The smell filled his chest with something uncomfortable. Something warm. Something he didn’t know how to name.

  “What…” he murmured in Greek. “What just happened?”