Fern knocked twice, then a third time, harder.
"Frieren-sama. It's nearly noon. We agreed to leave today! Please wake up!"
Stark leaned against the wall beside her, arms crossed, watching the door with mild disbelief. "Didn't she go to bed early last night?"
"She promised to wake up on time too." Fern grumbled while trying the handle. "I made her say it out loud and everything."
The door swung open.
Fern stepped inside. Stark heard her start to speak — the familiar cadence of a scolding being assembled — and then stop.
Silence.
"Fern?" He pushed off the wall. "Everything alright?"
Nothing.
He stepped into the doorway.
Fern stood motionless at the bedside, one hand resting against Frieren's cheek. She wasn't moving. Wasn't speaking. Just standing there with an expression Stark didn't know how to read.
"Fern?"
"She's cold." Fern's voice came out strange. Flat in the wrong way. "She's — Stark, something is wrong."
Stark frowned as he crossed the room. Frieren lay exactly as she must have fallen asleep — small, still, white hair spread across the pillow. Nothing visibly wrong. Nothing out of place.
But the room felt wrong. The air felt wrong.
Fern finally looked up at him, hand still pressed to Frieren's cheek.
"She feels dead."
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Percia was already past the treeline before any thought had finished forming.
Mana surged around her, compressing the air, driving her forward toward the place where Frieren's signature had been a moment ago.
She knew where that mana had been coming from. How could she not? She had visited that place every passing century.
It had been her home, once. A long time ago.
Now it was Serie's.
She skidded to a halt, watching as Frieren's mana faded. She wouldn't be able to make it in time.
Serie lived deep in the north, far into the Northern Plateau. Percia was just encroaching on the Klee Region of the Central Lands. Even at full speed — even pushing past what was comfortable — it would take more than a week.
She hit the bark of the nearest tree with her palm. The wood cracked.
Just what was going on? Why was Frieren's mana dwindling in Serie's domain?
I hope you understand that I'll have to report this to Serie-sama.
Those mages— Genau and Methode.
Perhaps she should have silenced them then and there. Then Serie wouldn't have learned about it. Then Frieren would be—
"Percia— "
Kraft skidded into the clearing beside her, breathing hard. He took one look at her face and skipped whatever he'd been about to say.
"This is futile. You can't reach her like this." He steadied himself, thinking fast. "That's coming from Serie's territory. Don't you have teleportation arrays set up out there?"
"Several." Percia's jaw was tight. "I can't feel any of them."
"Serie doesn't want me interfering."
"I expected her to be angry," Kraft said slowly. "But to this extent—" He stopped. "I can't sense Frieren's mana anymore."
"Neither can I."
A beat. Kraft opened his mouth.
"Don't." Percia's voice came out harder than she intended. "Don't say it."
Her mind was already moving — cycling through every option, every spell, every violation she could justify. Breaking continuity was too dangerous, too loud. But a rift, if she shaped it carefully enough, if she bent rather than broke—
Something pulled at her gut.
She stopped.
The world had been quiet since the cavern of magic nullifying crystals. It was far too soon for it to reach for her again — she had years at minimum, usually decades.
Not now, she thought. I'm busy.
It didn't withdraw. It leaned into her instead, insistent, and she felt the shape of its intention shift — not asking for her help. Trying to give her something.
The grass in the clearing tilted toward her. The leaves of the trees at the edge moved against the wind, framing her, reaching.
Kraft had gone very still.
"Percia." His voice had dropped to something she hadn't heard from him in a long time. "Why is this happening to you."
It wasn't a question. He had seen this before. Once. She was surprised he could remember. He had been just out of his second century back then.
The grimoire summoned itself into her hands. The pages opened without being touched, rustling softly in a breeze that belonged only to her.
"Why do you have that." Still not a question. Barely a whisper.
Percia looked at him.
"...I didn't know how to tell you."
A single page tore free. The air folded.
And she was gone.
Kraft stood in the empty clearing for a long moment, the grass settling back to stillness around him.
He knew that book. He had tried very hard, for a very long time, to forget what it looked like — but he knew it.
He could still see the way their mother had looked, curled on the floor with it clutched to her chest, laughing in a way that had nothing to do with anything funny.
He had to get it away from Percia.
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The room reformed around her in pieces — familiar stone, familiar cold, the particular silence that Serie had always preferred.
Serie stood at the far end reorganizing a stack of grimoires.
"Serie—"
Percia's foot met something wet.
She looked down.
Frieren's eyes looked back at her. Empty. Open. The kind of stillness that had nothing left in it.
"Percia." Serie didn't turn. "I didn't feel you arrive. How have you been?"
Percia couldn't move.
Those eyes weren't supposed to look like that. She had seen Frieren's eyes annoyed, curious, bemused, distant — a hundred different variations. Not this. Never this.
A hand touched her face, turning her away, tilting her chin upward until blue met gold instead.
Serie frowned. "Percia. Are you alright?"
"What is the meaning of this."
Serie glanced around at the scattered grimoires, the cracks spreading up the walls. "If you mean the mess, I should have it sorted by noon."
"You know that's not what I mean."
Serie gaze dropped down to Frieren's decapitated head.
"...I had hoped it would take you longer to get here," she said quietly.
Percia reached up and removed Serie's hand from her face. Held it. "What did you do."
"I taught her a lesson."
"You killed her."
"Did I?" Serie tilted her head, something careful moving behind her eyes. "Is that what you see?"
The floor beneath her feet ceased to exist.
Serie rematerialized across the room, one eyebrow slightly raised, regarding the smoking absence where she'd been standing.
"That could have killed me."
"Yes." Percia held her gaze. "It could have."
A silence.
"Do you want to kill me?" Serie asked.
"You don't get to ask questions." Percia's voice was very quiet. "You only get to answer mine. What have you done to her."
"You're deflecting."
Percia's mana surged in anger. The cracks along the wall spread further as the room creaked in protest.
"My." Serie looked at her with something akin to wonder. "I haven't seen you like this in a very long time." Her gaze moved briefly to the floor, to what lay on it. "You're still attached to her."
Serie sidestepped a blur of mana; the throne behind her disappeared.
"...That's quite the spell." Serie glanced back at Percia. "You've never looked at me like that before."
"Nevertheless, I've never been one to turn down a real fight." Serie turned her palm upward, the air thickening with the slow release of mana.
"Let's make this a fun one, shall we?"