"Hurry."
It came out before I could think. My voice. My urgency.
"Lilith and Celestina — both of them are in danger. Lucien — now."
Veltherion fell into step beside me — then stopped.
Just for a second.
"...Celestina." He repeated the name slowly. Something clicked behind his eyes. "Wait. Isn't she — the Elenador princess. The one you and Lilith came back with that night. She stayed at the villa, she—"
"Yes," I said. "Same person."
Something shifted in Veltherion's expression. She stopped being a title and became a person in the span of two seconds.
"Teacher — move."
Lucien raised his staff. One beat of hesitation — then—
"Felix."
The Queen's voice stopped everything.
She rose from her throne. Slowly. No urgency in her movement — and somehow that made it worse. She crossed the hall without a word and stopped in front of me.
In her hands — Crimson Death.
The blade pulsed faintly. That low, familiar heartbeat that wasn't mine.
She held it out.
"Take it."
I looked at the blade. Then at her.
"Bring Lilith back," she said quietly. "In one piece."
Her eyes didn't waver.
"The Great Race Alliance — everything we built — it rests on this mission. If Lilith falls, the treaty falls. Every race that signed, every promise made—" A pause. "Gone."
I took the sword.
Crimson Death went still the moment my fingers closed around the hilt. No pulse. No hum. Just weight — cold and certain in my grip.
I looked at Veltherion. Atherion. Lucien.
"Let's move."
Lucien raised his staff. No more hesitation.
The world twisted.
The moment my fingers closed around Crimson Death, it pulsed.
Not like before — not the slow, patient heartbeat I remembered. This was sharper. Responsive.
My eyes reacted without permission. The red bled into my vision at the edges — Lilith's blood, still somewhere in my veins, answering the blade like it recognized it.
I exhaled and let it settle.
"Gather here."
Lucien's voice. Flat. Focused.
Veltherion, Atherion, and I moved to him without argument. No wasted motion. Lucien's staff was already raised, runes tracing themselves along the wood in faint light.
He chanted once — low, precise — and the world disappeared.
When it came back, it came back all at once.
Different sky. Different air. Different ground beneath my boots.
My eyes swept the space in one motion — and found her immediately.
Lilith.
Suspended mid-air, bound, high above the ground. Her silver hair hanging loose. Not moving.
Beside her — two others. A beastkin boy, broad and tense even in restraints. A girl with muscle that showed through her torn sleeve. And another — white robes, head down.
My eyes moved fast. Searching.
Celestina.
Not there.
I scanned again. Every face. Every shadow.
Not there.
My thoughts started pulling in the wrong direction —
Where is she. Was she not taken. Did they miss her. What if she's already—
Smack.
The back of my head. Hard.
"Get it together." Atherion's voice, low and sharp, right behind my ear. "You have a mission."
I blinked. Refocused.
Everyone around me was already looking in the same direction. Not at Lilith. Not at the captives.
Outward.
I felt it then — what they'd already sensed.
Bloodlust. Thick and layered, pressing in from every angle.
We were surrounded.
"Cover formation." My voice came out steady. "Lucien — center. Atherion — left flank. Veltherion — right."
They moved without a word.
"I take the front."
A quiet sound to my side. Steel clearing a scabbard.
Cassian.
He'd been standing just behind us — silent the entire time, expression unreadable. Now his sword was drawn, and he was already turning his back to us, watching the rear.
No words. No permission asked.
Just the sound of a man who'd decided something.
The circle closed.
Five of us. Back to back. Enemies on every side.
And Lilith, still suspended somewhere above — waiting.
They came in waves.
Not one. Not two. A rain of them — monsters dropping from above, crawling from the shadows, closing in from every direction at once.
Atherion moved through them like they weren't there. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Each strike clean and final — the kind of efficiency that only comes from centuries of doing exactly this.
Veltherion was the same. Fluid. Almost bored. His blade finding gaps that shouldn't exist, his footwork never breaking rhythm.
The struggle wasn't coming from them.
It was coming from behind.
Cassian.
He was holding — barely. His sword work was precise but his body was lagging behind it, the gap between instinct and execution costing him half a second every exchange. For a normal fight, half a second meant nothing.
Here, it meant everything.
A monster got through his guard. Then another.
Lucien stepped in without being asked. No grand spell — just controlled, targeted bursts, clearing just enough space to keep Cassian breathing.
"Heads up," Lucien said flatly.
Cassian grabbed the nearest one by the collar and threw it.
Straight at me.
I was already moving. Crimson Death came up in a single arc — the blade pulsed once on contact, the red at the edges of my vision sharpening. The monster hit the ground in two pieces before it knew what happened.
Another one came. Cassian threw that one too.
Then a third.
I stopped questioning it and just started cutting. Cassian was using me as his disposal point — and honestly, it was working.
"Not bad," I said between strikes.
"Shut up and keep swinging," Cassian said.
"Atherion."
I didn't look back. Eyes still forward, blade still moving.
"Should I go all out?"
A beat.
"Twenty-five percent," he said. "You're still not developed enough for that technique. Don't push past it."
"Got it."
I stopped moving.
One breath. Slow and deliberate.
My eyes closed.
The noise of the battle — the clashing steel, the monsters, Cassian's labored breathing behind me — all of it faded to the back.
I found the rhythm underneath it all.