Seraphine ran as fast as she could, panting.

  Rocher didn't wait for her.

  He tore through the brush as if Ysel herself smoothed the path for him, branches bending out of his way in obedient arcs. Seraphine chased after him, far less gracefully, staff clutched in both hands as vines and roots snagged her ankles at every opportunity.

  "Rocher," she hissed under her breath, irritation rising with every stumble. "Would it kill you to slow down for five seconds?"

  Seraphine shoved aside a curtain of leaves—and stopped short.

  A figure stepped out of the foliage, blocking her path.

  White cloak. White helmet, ornate and regal. Runes etching his armor, circling him in a slow, steady pulse.

  A long, pale bde hung at his hip, its sheath embossed with the same runic ttice.

  The White Warden.

  Her stomach dropped.

  He stood perfectly still in the narrow gap between two massive roots, hands csped behind his back, posture as rigid as a marble statue. Only the faint movement of the runes suggested he was anything but carved stone.

  "Move," Seraphine said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  The Warden tilted his head with the calm, unreadable patience of someone observing an insect struggle.

  "You should not follow him," he said. Quiet. Almost kind. "It is not your pce."

  She bristled. "Rocher is my friend. If he's running into danger, I'm going after him."

  "I'm afraid I must insist," the Warden replied, raising his sword. "This is a line you cannot cross."

  Seraphine squinted, eyes straining somewhere past the White Warden. But Rocher was already gone—far enough ahead now that she could no longer feel his presence through the forest at all.

  Good. She exhaled slowly and lifted Pulseweaver.

  That meant he wouldn't be here to tell her when to stop.

  "Let her go."

  Rocher didn't lower his sword.

  He didn't blink.

  His eyes were fixed on the dagger at my throat.

  Quiet. Controlled. And somehow more dangerous for it.

  I'd seen this look before. The stillness before he stopped holding back.

  The Crown Prince tilted his head, studying him from behind the obsidian lenses.

  "My, my," the Crown Prince murmured. "Look who came to py."

  Rocher's jaw flexed. "Corveaux."

  The name sounded like it'd scraped its way out.

  A faint smile ghosted across the Crown Prince's lips.

  "How nostalgic," he drawled. "You usually avoid saying my name unless His Majesty is in the room. When was it st we called each other by name, Rocher? When we were children, perhaps."

  Rocher moved a step forward, ignoring the provocation. "Let her go. Don't make me say it again."

  Evelyn's bde pressed into my skin.

  "No farther," she snapped.

  He stopped instantly. His breath shuddered before he turned to the Crown Prince.

  "What are you doing here?" he said. "Why aren't you handling things at the capital? The court—"

  "Oh, spare me," Corveaux sighed, rolling his eyes behind the lenses. "I get bored listening to you pretend you care about politics."

  Rocher grit his teeth. "I care about her."

  The Crown Prince's eyebrows lifted the slightest amount.

  "Yes. Clearly." The words dripped with disdain. "You should be thanking me. For cleaning up the mess you've made. Panic. Death. The Church and Tower acting with impunity, screaming about witches and apostates. All for one girl."

  "Corveaux, I—"

  "Rocher." Evelyn's voice cut in, sharp.

  He did not look at her.

  "Please. Lay down your arms," she continued, more urgently. "No harm will come to you if you just cooperate."

  His gaze flicked to her at st. "And Cire?"

  I closed my eyes, already knowing the answer: the Crown's protection had never extended to me.

  "She will be remanded to the Tower." Corveaux smiled wryly. "The White Warden insisted."

  Rocher's eyes fshed to mine. After all the damage I'd done, we both knew what the Tower would do.

  His grip tightened on his sword. "I'll go with you. But only if you let her free."

  Corveaux regarded him for a long moment.

  "No," he said simply.

  Rocher stiffened.

  "You will surrender," the Crown Prince continued, unperturbed. "Without incident. Those are the terms."

  "Rocher, please," Evelyn said. "It won't go like it did before. His Highness will shield us from the worst of it."

  "Evelyn—" I tried, but her grip tightened.

  Rocher looked at me, pained. "We'd already attempted that once. And we saw what happened then."

  Evelyn turned to the Crown Prince, eyes begging for something—anything—but his expression didn't change. Only a trace of impatience crossed his mouth, gone almost before it appeared.

  "Just let her go," Rocher demanded once more. "Whatever this is—whatever you want—you can take it out on me. I mean it."

  That made something flicker behind the dark lenses. Corveaux's smile thinned.

  "Oh, I know you mean it," he said. "You always do. You think you can solve things by throwing yourself in front of them. Offering yourself to the sughter."

  He studied Rocher for a moment longer, then looked faintly disappointed.

  "As long as you're offering—until you learn better—I'm happy to keep taking."

  Something settled then in Rocher's expression.

  With a sharp exhale, he surged forward—just enough for every bowstring in the clearing to creak.

  He would have been made a pincushion if Evelyn hadn't moved first.

  She shoved me aside and threw herself between him and the volley of raised crossbows. Her body angled sharply toward the mercenaries, blocking their shot with a speed that didn't feel human.

  "Hold!" she barked.

  Every crossbow dipped by a hair.

  Rocher skidded to a stop, breath ragged, staring at her like she'd just betrayed him twice in the same heartbeat.

  I tried to take the smallest step towards the treeline—

  A cold hand cupped my chin, fingers pressing into my cheeks.

  "Oops," the Crown Prince said lightly. "Where do you think you're going?"

  His fingers dug in, forcing my jaw up. Rough. Too rough. Like he was holding something fragile purely for the pleasure of feeling it break.

  Rocher roared and lunged.

  Evelyn met him halfway, her dagger intercepting his bde with a speed I had only ever seen her use on enemies. Rocher's strength smmed into her, but Evelyn absorbed the hit, twisting with the momentum, forcing him back a step.

  He didn't relent.

  His arms glowed faintly—magic sparking along the runes in sharp, controlled bursts. Evelyn dodged fast, impossibly fast, but he kept up with her, bde sweeping in arcs of golden light.

  Their movements blurred.Steel. Sparks.The sound of Rocher's breath thinning into a snarl.

  "Rocher—stop!" Evelyn hissed, parrying another blow that would have taken her arm clean off. "That bastard will escate! You don't understand—he'll level the forest!"

  Corveaux winced in mock pain. "Bastard, is it?"

  But Rocher didn't stop.

  "You're lying," he growled, swinging again, pushing her backward. "He wouldn't—"

  "Wouldn't I?" the Crown Prince said behind me, amused.

  I froze.

  Evelyn's face twisted. "Rocher, listen to me! You're not safe either! If he thinks he's in danger, he'll—"

  I wasn't listening to her anymore.

  My hand drifted toward my pocket.

  The dagger hidden inside it.

  I looked up at him. His eyes were still fixed on the duel.

  I could reach him. I could end it.

  One thought froze me.

  The future king. Last line of defense against the Demon Lord.

  The pause sted less than a heartbeat.

  But it was enough.

  Movement fshed at the corner of my eye.

  The Crown Prince's free hand slipped into his coat pocket.

  He withdrew a small, smooth orb the size of an apple, etched with faint sigils that pulsed once—white, sickening, familiar.

  My breath caught. My blood turned to ice.

  No. No, no, no—

  I knew that device. I had seen it in the game.

  My heart smmed against my ribs. "Rocher—"

  He didn't hear me. He was locked on Evelyn, bde in motion, magic pulsing bright.

  I recognized that look in his eyes. Reason would no longer reach him—he wouldn't stop until he had me.

  The Crown Prince's thumb brushed the top of the orb. The lines lit.

  I screamed. "Rocher, stop!"

  The clearing held its breath.

  Everything jerked to a halt.

  Evelyn froze mid-parry.Rocher faltered for half a blink.Even the Night Wardens shifted uneasily at the sheer panic in my voice.

  The only one who didn't stop was the Crown Prince.

  His fingers dug into my jaw, tilting my face up sharply as he inspected the orb in his other hand—its sigils beginning to glow with a soft, terrible white.

  "Ah. Recognition," he murmured. "I do love that look."

  Evelyn's eyes went wide. "Your Highness—wait—"

  It was too te.

  In desperation, I whistled.

  A small blur shot out from Rocher's pocket.

  The makeshift bird zeroed onto the signature I'd programmed into it. The same ignition ttice. The same magical flint.

  It hit the ground running, wings fpping. Its cws ticked against the dirt as it unched itself upward—straight at the Crown Prince's wrist.

  He saw it a fraction too te. The golem tched onto his gauntlet with a desperate wooden screech, cwing at the orb with all its fragile strength.

  For the first time all night, Corveaux actually looked startled.

  I bit down hard.

  "What—"

  His grip loosened—just enough.

  Rocher saw the opening.

  His entire body snapped toward me.

  A golden pulse exploded under his feet as he tore past Evelyn with brute force she couldn't divert in time. She sshed after him, steel grazing his arm, but he didn't slow—he couldn't.

  "Cire!"

  I barely had time to breathe before his arm wrapped around my waist and wrenched me back from the Crown Prince.

  For one heartbeat—one impossible, stolen heartbeat—I was in Rocher's arms again.

  The golem gave a shrill, splintering cry.

  Corveaux's grip tightened. His fingers crushed the tiny construct against the orb—a snap of wood, a spark of mana—and flung its broken body aside.

  Then he pressed his thumb to the device.

  The sigils fred.

  "Run!" I screamed.

  Rocher's eyes blew wide. "Cire—"

  But there was no time. No escape.

  The orb sang.

  A thin, rising whine, like metal being drawn across gss—Then the world detonated.

  A white fsh swallowed everything. No sound. No breath. Just light so bright it carved straight through my skull.

  Fire punched into my lungs.

  Not heat. Burning. My chest seized, vision fracturing as every vein in my body felt scalded from the inside. The ground lurched beneath me. My knees buckled.

  Rocher's scream tore through the clearing.

  I spun toward him—too te.

  He was on fire.

  A blue fme crawled up his arms, his chest, his throat—clinging to him like a living thing. Not physical. Magic. His magic, ripping itself apart from the inside out. The runes on his bracers sparked violently, then cracked like gss.

  He writhed on the ground, fingers cwing at his throat, his breath breaking into raw, strangled sounds I had never heard from him before.

  "Rocher—Rocher—" My voice dissolved into choking.

  I tried to crawl toward him. My arms shook too hard to support me. I colpsed halfway, gasping uselessly at air that tasted like smoke and iron.

  And only then—when the white faded from my eyes—did I see the Forest.

  Or what was left of it.

  Everything within sight was ash.

  Trees stripped to skeletal shadows. Moss burned to dust. Fireflies gone. The clearing so full of life mere moments ago had been scoured clean like a painter wiping a canvas bare.

  It was armageddon.

  A memory surged up unbidden.

  The final chapter of the game.

  The Demon Lord's army flooding the capital.The Tower unveiling their st resort.A perfected version of this same device—one calibrated to annihite only demonic mana.

  This one wasn't perfected.

  This one didn't discriminate.

  It tore through everything with mana—forest, creatures, magic-users alike—without care or mercy. And the stronger the mana, the more violently it reacted.

  Even fledgling as it was, Rocher's mana was the highest of anyone in this clearing.

  And he was paying for it.

  A shadow fell over me.

  The Crown Prince snapped the orb closed with a soft click, as if he'd just finished examining a trinket at a market stall.

  "Well," he said mildly, surveying the devastation. "For a proof of concept, I'd call that a resounding success."

  "Your Highness," Evelyn rasped, staring at the ruin around us, her face drained of all color. "What have you done—"

  He didn't look at her.

  "Collect them," he said, flicking his fingers once. "Both of them."

  Boots moved. Hands grabbed my arms. I tried to fight them. My fingers didn't even close.

  Rocher tried to push himself up, a broken groan scraping from his throat. Even through the pain, his eyes found me. He tried to reach for me.

  "Don't—touch—her—"

  Corveaux frowned. "Careful with him—he's a bit votile at the moment." He clicked his tongue. "Apologies, brother. Had I known you'd developed this much mana, I'd have asked the White Warden to keep you out as well."

  My vision swam.

  The world kept tilting.

  Someone hauled me upright. My head lolled forward. I could still see Rocher's body twitching, magic sputtering and fading across his skin like dying embers.

  "And careful with that one as well," the Crown Prince added zily. "She's more useful to me alive."

  My knees gave out.

  Everything went bck before I hit the ground.