I force myself upright even though my body screams that I shouldn't, that it can't, that I've already gone farther than I was meant to. My breath tears through my chest like broken glass as pain flares through my ribs and down my leg. My fingers lock around my nagata because letting go feels like permission to fall, and I refuse to fall here, not like this, not after everything that's already been taken.
Every step forward is an act of stubborn defiance against a body that wants to give out beneath me. Dust clings to my skin. Blood is warm and slick under shattered armor. The silence around me is heavier than the battle ever was, because silence tells the truth.
The truth is that Matte is gone.
Buried beneath the rubble where the anomaly vanished. Buried with him, whatever hope I was still holding onto.
As I limp toward the center of the battlefield, my mind betrays me with memory, sharp and cruel, replaying the moment I was lowered to the ground earlier. My vision dimmed, the taste of iron thick in my mouth as fear stripped away command and strategy and left me small and human. My voice shook when I whispered, please don't let me die.
And the way he answered without hesitation. Without doubt.
On my honor, I won't.
The words were spoken like a law of the world I could trust. Something solid I could lean on.
Now each step forward feels like walking through the wreckage of that promise. The hurt isn't loud or angry. It's quiet and suffocating, because I believed him. Because I trusted him completely.
I'm still standing not because I think I can win, but because this is what remains when belief is gone. Duty without hope. Resolve stripped to its bare bones.
My eyes lift to the Dracus Lieutenant standing untouched amid the ruin, that grin carved into its face like confirmation of everything I've lost. Something inside me finally breaks. A tear slips free despite my clenched jaw as I accept what I've been resisting.
This is my last walk.My last stand.
I'm going to die here thinking about a promise that couldn't be kept, and somehow that hurts more than the thought of death itself.
My nagata rises slowly into position. My hands tremble from exhaustion rather than fear. My breathing is shallow and uneven as I force my spine straight, because if this is the end, then I will meet it facing forward. Not as a commander issuing orders, but as a shield. As one more body standing between the people behind me and the thing that will finish them.
My gaze steadies as I lock eyes with the Lieutenant. I brace for the final blow.
Ready to be erased.
The ground beneath my feet shudders.
It's faint at first. A subtle vibration rattles dust loose and sends unease crawling up my spine. My grip tightens instinctively as it happens again, stronger this time, the tremor rolling through the battlefield like a pulse.
The Lieutenant's grin falters as it shifts.
My breath catches as the rubble behind it begins to move. Stone grinds against stone in a deep, unnatural sound that I feel in my bones. The tremors grow violent enough to knock me off balance as cracks split through the collapsed mass and something pushes from beneath with relentless force.
My heart hammers painfully as the rubble explodes outward in a thunderous blast, debris screaming through the air. My arm comes up on instinct as the shockwave hits, dust and light swallowing everything.
When my vision clears, I see a silhouette standing at the center of the wreckage.
Tall.Unmoving.
It's bathed in a glistening purple glow that makes the air feel heavy and wrong. My breath catches as recognition slams into me before understanding can follow, because it's him. It has to be him.
And yet something is wrong. Horribly wrong.
His eyes are completely white, empty of anything I recognize. Essence rolls off him in a way I've never seen before, too controlled and too violent at the same time. Relief surges through me and tangles instantly with fear.
He kept his promise.He came back.
But as I stare at him standing in the rubble, I know with terrifying certainty that whatever line he's standing on, he's closer to losing himself than I've ever seen.
I don't know yet what that means.
Only that the cost of his return is written all over him.