Raijin did not remember the exact moment he lost consciousness.
One second he was gripping the phoenix's burning fur with everything he had, his fingers sunk deep into the strange flame-like plumage while the frozen wasteland blurred beneath them, and the next his body finally realized that it had escaped.
The pressure of the Monolith Forest was gone, the stone projectiles no longer chased them and the masked Saint was nowhere close enough to kill them with a careless sigh.
Even the heat radiating from the Echo, painful and overwhelming as it was, felt strangely comforting after the suffocating cold and terror that had pressed down on him for so long. His hands loosened, his head sank into the blazing fur beneath him, and just before darkness swallowed him, he heard the phoenix scream into the pale sky.
Eliot lasted even less. The moment he understood that the phoenix was not about to throw him into the abyss or burn him alive, whatever thread had been keeping him conscious snapped completely. His injured arm had gone numb by then, which somehow scared him more than the pain, but he lacked the strength to panic about it anymore.
**********
Seraphiel was already outside the cave when the sky had changed, waiting for the strange Saint from before to return with his brother.
He had been standing there for some time, staring toward the distant Monolith Forest with his usual calm expression, although the slight drop of his lips and the tebsion in his shoulders spoke against that.
The cold wind dragged strands of snow-white hair across his face, but he did not bother brushing them aside. His eyes remained fixed on the direction Raijin and Eliot had disappeared in. He could finally feel his brother again which meant that they were coming back. Whatever it was trapping them, apparently it got dealt with.
Behind him, the cave was quiet. Eirwen had said very little since the Saint left, spending most of the time leaning against the wall with his golden eyes half-lidded and his mind clearly somewhere else.
Andromeda stayed near him as usual, though her gaze kept drifting toward the entrance.
She trusted Eirwen enough not to question him openly, but even she could feel that something was wrong. The air outside had changed. A distant pressure had been rising and falling for several minutes now, too far away to harm them but too heavy to ignore.
It felt like thunder hidden beneath the earth, occasionally rumbling just loud enough to remind them that something monstrous was happening beyond their sight. When the first wave of heat rolled across the snow, Eirwen finally opened his eyes.
"What now?" he muttered annoyedly, pushing himself off the wall.
Before Andromeda could answer, a bright orange glow appeared beyond the mouth of the cave. It was faint at first, nothing more than a line of fire cutting across the bright, azure sky, but it grew quickly.
Seraphiel took one step forward, his expression finally cracking as his eyes widened slightly. Eirwen and Andromeda rushed out a moment later, both stopping beside him when they saw what was descending from the clouds.
For a moment none of the Sleepers spoke, and only inside of Eirwen's mind, a chorus of voices resonated, deafening him for a second, 'A Phoenix? This place truly did change quite a lot.'
But Eirwen didn't pay Leviathan any attention as his eyes focused on what he saw.
Above the frozen land, enormous wings of flame spread wide enough to cast a burning shadow across the snow. The creature diving toward them looked like a phoenix from some ancient myth, its body massive, covered in long strands of burning plumage with each strand and feather glowing with gold, orange and crimson light.
The phoenix descended with a scream that shook everything around them and Eirwen instinctively raised one hand before his face as the heat and bright light crashed over them.
The snow around the cave began melting before the Echo had even touched the ground, turning into clouds of steam that hissed upward and surrounded the area in a white veil.
When the phoenix finally landed, the impact made the frozen ground tremble. Fire spread beneath its talons in a wide circle, burning away every patch of snow and leaving blackened stone behind.
Andromeda stepped closer to Eirwen without even realizing it, one hand lightly gripping the edge of his sleeve. But he didn't care, his gaze was fixed on the phoenix's back, where two unconscious bodies lay half-buried in the burning plumage.
"Raijin," Seraphiel whispered. The usual calm vanished from his face as he shot upward, landing on the phoenix's back.
He nearly stumbled from the heat and unstable surface, but ignored both as he hurried toward his brother.
Raijin was still breathing, though barely conscious, his clothes torn, hair damp with sweat and soot, several cuts covering his skin.
Eliot looked worse: his right arm hung at an ugly angle, his sleeve soaked dark with blood, and his face was so pale it matched Raijin's skin.
Seraphiel dropped to his knees beside them and immediately began inspecting Raijin first, his usually emotionless hands moving faster than his face could ever show.
Only then did the orange-haired Saint hop down from the phoenix.
He landed heavily, his boots cracking the scorched stone beneath him. His smooth black armor was battered and torn in several places, one shoulder guard missing entirely, and a large gaping hole had been ripped through his side. Blood ran down his waist and thigh, sizzling faintly whenever it touched the heated ground. His orange hair, tipped with crimson, was matted with dust and blood, and several glowing lines beneath his armor flickered unevenly.
Yet despite all that, he still walked toward them with a crooked smile, pressing one hand against the wound in his side as if that would somehow keep his insides from falling out.
"You gathered everything like I told you to?" the Saint asked, his voice pleasant but strained.
Eirwen looked him up and down once, taking in the wound, the damaged armor, the blood and the man's expression. Then his brow twitched as he held himself back from attacking the Saint. The thought was sitting dangerously at the back of his head. 'If Leviathan helped me just a bit,' he thought, supressing a smile, 'Then maybe I could kill and devour him...'
But Leviathan only called him a fool and refused to say anything more.
"We don't even have food," Eirwen said after collecting himself, his eyes rolling. "Do you seriously think there is anything important for us to take with us, you half dead old man!? "
The Saint chuckled softly, then immediately winced when the motion pulled at the wound in his side. "Half dead is a bit dramatic, don't you think?"
"There is a hole in your body," Andromeda said quietly.
"Exactly. A hole. Singular." The Saint gave her a strained grin before glancing back at the phoenix. "If there were three, maybe I'd let you call me half dead."
Eirwen stepped forward, his expression lacking any hint of amusement. His golden eyes moved from the Saint to the distant Monolith Forest, where dust still rose in slow clouds. "So what now?" he asked, his voice sharpening slightly. "You're taking us to a citadel?"
The Saint looked at him for a few seconds without answering. His smile remained, but it wasn't as true as before.
"I'm taking you to my corps. The Lieutenant General will decide what to do with you brats," he said with a heavy sigh, pressing his hand harder against the wound as another line of blood slipped between his fingers.
Eirwen's brow twitched. "What do you mean he will decide what to do with us? Bring us to a Citadel and let us return to the waking world to finish this at least."
The Saint's smile slowly disappeared.
For a moment, the only sounds were the phoenix's low breathing, the hiss of melting snow and Seraphiel's quiet voice as he tried to wake his brother.
The orange-haired Saint looked down at Eirwen, and the pressure around him changed just enough to make the blonde haired boy. But he held his gaze anyway, his golden eyes narrowing slightly.
He did not step back. 'He's just a Saint,' he scoffed inwardly, remembering what Leviathan had said once.
The Saint stared at him for another breath, then suddenly moved.
Eirwen barely had time to react before the man grabbed him by the shoulder. Andromeda reached for him instinctively, but the Saint caught her as well.
The world blurred and the ground vanished instantly. Just a heartbeat later, both of them were on top of the phoenix.
Eirwen staggered, his hand shooting out to grab a handful of the burning fur beneath him before he could fall. Heat bit into his palm, but not enough to burn through the skin.
Andromeda landed beside him, one knee hitting the phoenix's back as she quickly steadied herself. Eirwen's first instinct was to curse, but before the words could leave his mouth, his eyes moved to Seraphiel.
The white-haired boy was crouched beside Raijin and Eliot, sweat running down his face as he tried to do too many things at once.
His hands moved between his brother's chest, Eliot's ruined arm and the blood soaking into the fiery plumage beneath them. For the first time since Eirwen had met him, Seraphiel looked genuinely shaken.
The Saint appeared with them, landing near the front of the phoenix with a heavy step that made the Echo shift slightly beneath them.
He did not look at Eirwen at first. Instead, his gaze moved toward the Monolith Forest, where the great black pillars stood silent beneath the pale sky. Dust still settled over the region, drifting slowly between the rubble.
There was nothing. No golems, no enemies. Nothing whatsoever.
The phoenix beneath them spread its wings and the motion sent a wave of fire and heated wind across the scorched ground below, erasing the last traces of snow near the cave.
Then the Echo lifted into the air with a powerful cry, carrying the five Sleepers and the wounded Saint above the frozen wasteland. The cave shrank beneath them. The blackened circle where the phoenix had landed became smaller too.
Only after they had risen high enough for the wind to howl around them did the Saint finally speak.
"It isn't that easy around here, boy," he said, his voice calmer now, though the strain underneath it was impossible to miss. "And I think we might be more fucked than usual because of you."
Eirwen turned toward him slowly, the choir of voices sounding in his mind again. 'I can sense an opportunity coming from him,' Leviathan said. 'Stay by his side for now and let him do what he wishes to. He will bring you exactly where you need to be at.'