Chapter 31: Fading Trace

Chain links snapped taut, then clattered hard against stone as Miyu wrenched herself upward, fighting to stand. Whatever restraint she’d held onto until now had clearly run out. The paladins closed in at once, forcing her back down before she could rise more than a few inches.

"I gave you everything you asked of me for this. Didn’t you swear these innocent people would stay out of your ambitions, Zoria!"

Her voice tore raw as she strained against the hands pinning her down, and it landed on nothing. Zoria didn’t so much as turn his head toward her.

Unease rippled through the crowd instead, the weight of what they’d just heard finally settling in. War with Babayaga. Even with allies standing beside them, plenty of those gathered doubted victory was guaranteed.

Babayaga’s name carried real weight across the Red Lands these days, and striking first risked dragging every other kingdom in the region into the fight against them.

Zoria’s eyes narrowed slightly as the murmur of fear spread through the people in front of him. He lifted both hands, palms open, the posture of a shepherd calming a frightened flock, his voice dropping into something warm and reassuring, the practiced cadence of a man who’d given this kind of sermon before.

"People of Selena, there is no cause for fear among you. We walk as her chosen people, carrying a new prophecy into the world. Whether what stands against us is human or something else entirely, victory will come to us with ease. The Goddess herself walks this path beside us."

He spread his arms wide as he spoke, sweeping the words out over the crowd like a benediction, until a small, sharp sound behind him cut clean through the moment and pulled his head around.

"Someone with hands as rotten as yours, hoping for a prophecy from the Goddess?"

Something shifted across Zoria’s face at that, the warmth draining out of it in an instant. His jaw tightened, teeth catching at his lower lip, as though Miyu’s words had landed somewhere he hadn’t expected anyone to reach.

"Silence, you filthy creature. Devil."

His voice cracked like a whip, meant to cut her off before she could say anything more. But Miyu didn’t stop. She lifted her head instead, chin rising to meet the eyes of every person watching them argue, and let her words carry past him to the crowd itself.

"I am what you say I am, born of dark mana. Given my bloodline, perhaps disgusting is exactly the word for what I am. And I was wrong not to tell you all of this sooner, I’ll own that."

"But outside of that one thing. Every act of service I’ve given this Goddess has been real, untouched by pretense."

Her finger snapped up, aimed straight at Zoria. "And do you all know where he actually comes from? He’s really from Crim—"

SLAP!

The blow caught her full across the cheek, hard enough to snap her head sideways. Zoria’s breath came ragged after it, his whole frame drawn tight with something close to panic.

"Haa... so I was right." Her voice had dropped, low and cold now.

"I couldn’t figure out why the Cardinals had all gone so quiet through this. But it’s because you already had them under control, isn’t it, you filthy Crim—"

Gasps broke out across the altar. Miyu, still fighting to finish that same word, was being strangled in front of every single one of them, Zoria’s hand locked around her throat, all pretense of dignity abandoned the instant she’d threatened to say his name in full.

Her breath choked off entirely. Color drained from her face, then darkened toward blue as the air ran out, her hands clawing weakly at his wrist, fighting a grip she had no strength left to break.

Even the paladins standing closest to her flinched at what they were watching their own Archbishop do.

Then came the ring of a blade clearing its sheath, cold steel angled straight at the back of Zoria’s shoulder.

"Stop that. The two behind me already have what they came for. I don’t. If you insist on finishing what you’re doing, I’ll have no choice but to put this through your neck."

Another voice followed right behind it, dry and pointed. "Rhaiven. I never would have guessed you’d become a Necromancer and still be carrying that old sword of yours."

Rhaiven said nothing back, ignoring Kai’s needling entirely, the blade at Zoria’s shoulder never wavering an inch. It was that stillness, more than the threat itself, that finally got through to Zoria. His hand snapped open, releasing Miyu’s throat all at once.

She was alive, at least. The mark of his fingers stayed pressed into her skin regardless, dark and raw, as she dragged in one ragged breath after another, trying to remember how to breathe on her own again.

"It seems I let myself get a little carried away just now," Zoria offered, straightening his robe.

Rhaiven didn’t dignify that with a response either. He shoved Zoria aside instead, closing the distance to where Miyu knelt, and reached up to peel the lower half of his mask away, just enough to speak plainly.

"Tell me. Where did you get this Kirana crystal?"

Miyu’s head hung low, her vision swimming, and through the haze she made out only the barest outline of the strange mask still covering the rest of his face. The question itself, though, was enough to make something in her go rigid.

Her eyes gave her away before her voice did, a fine tremor she couldn’t quite hide. She said nothing, offering him nothing at all about where the crystal had come from.

"Don’t lie to me. You know exactly where this crystal came from."

Even with the edge of threat creeping into his tone, Miyu held her silence.

"Still nothing to say. Let me ask it differently, then. Have you met a woman with silver hair?"

This time, her expression betrayed her completely. Shock broke across her face before she could stop it, raw and unguarded, disbelief that Rhaiven would even know to ask about her at all. He caught it instantly and pressed further.

"Tell me where you last saw her."

Miyu’s eyes squeezed shut, as though closing them might make the question disappear entirely. But the refusal only deepened the suspicion settling over everyone watching.

Off to the side, Yunxi, who’d been quietly observing the entire exchange, leaned in to murmur something to Kai beside her.

Whatever she said was brief, but it visibly rattled him. His head dipped low a moment later, an odd sight from someone who technically outranked everyone else standing on that altar.

"If that is Her Grace’s wish, then I, Kai, will see it done."

Whatever that meant, Kai began walking toward Miyu without further explanation. Rhaiven, clearly displeased at the intrusion, cut in first, reminding them both that everyone here had already gotten what they’d come for.

Kai had come for Miyu’s body, a chance to study whatever power ran through it. Yunxi, who’d claimed to want nothing more than the Kirana crystal, now apparently wanted the answer to Rhaiven’s question as well.

Rhaiven turned to object, ready to push back against how far Yunxi seemed willing to overstep, and found himself facing down four separate points of killing intent instead, each one pressing into him with real, tangible weight.

They came from directly behind Yunxi, four guards who matched his own strength close enough to give him pause. Whatever protest he’d been about to voice died there.

"Don’t you dare damage this girl," he warned instead, and stepped back, ceding the space to Kai.

Kai came to stand in front of Miyu and drew a small sepia-toned talisman from inside his coat, folded thin as paper.

He reached down to press it against her forehead. She fought it with everything left in her, but her body refused to obey, locked in place as though something had already decided this outcome for her.

"Don’t keep fighting me, little one. It’ll only hurt more if you do."

Purple mana bled out from Kai’s palm, forcing its way into her through the talisman.

His eyes drifted shut. His free hand rose into the air, tracing shapes that hung there like handwriting made of light, each stroke pulling another fragment of memory out of her, unspooling something she’d clearly meant to keep buried.

Miyu’s scream tore loose the instant it began, her hands clawing into her own hair, and the sound of it crawled under the skin of everyone close enough to hear it, until no one could quite bring themselves to look at her directly.

For Lucian, it landed differently entirely. That scream carried a weight none of the others in the room seemed to register, cutting into him with an immediacy that made no sense for something happening inside a memory.

His knees buckled first, dropping him hard against the floor, both hands clamping over his ears before he’d even decided to move them.

Argh, why does this scream feel so real? Why does it hurt this much?

Lumina, seeing him crumble under it, reached toward his head, some instinct pulling her hand up before she’d fully thought it through.

But the scream cut off before she ever touched him.

Across the altar, Kai’s hand, which had been carving shapes in the air a moment before, went suddenly, completely still.

Something had crossed his face, fear, unmistakable, the look of a man who’d just seen something he was never meant to see. Sweat broke out along his hairline, thick enough to catch the light, nothing left of the composed expression he’d worn only seconds earlier.

His hand flew to his mouth almost on reflex, as if some part of him already knew something had gone badly wrong inside his own body.

Slowly, as though moving through water, he opened his eyes and looked down at his own palm, now streaked red with blood that had come from somewhere inside him.

"Lord Kai, are you all right?"