The cheers were still climbing when the street split around a knot of armor and authority.
"Make way! Make way!"
The crowd parted faster than it had for banners or music. Elira cut through first, hair tied back, travel cloak thrown over an officer's cuirass that still bore dust from the road. Eric strode at her shoulder jaw set, eyes scanning, the kind of presence that made people stand straighter without knowing why. A half-ring of city guards cleared space with the flat of their hands and the weight of their stares.
"Elira," Valen said, flashing his grin like he could bend the moment toward ease.
"Save it," she returned but the corner of her mouth twitched. Then she took in the whole group Nyra steady, Luken already bracing, Tar a moving wall, Thal a shadow that made even the lamplight feel thin. Her eyes lingered there.
"We need you," Eric said. He didn't raise his voice it simply carried. "Triad now. Council wants your account before the songs write their own."
His gaze slid to Thal, measuring. "And him."
A ripple moved through the people closest. No one said the word giant out loud but it shaped their mouths.
Elira followed the look, chin lifting a fraction. "You're coming too," she told Thal. Not a question, not a plea. A fact. "Whatever you are, you're an anomaly. The Hall wants to understand the shape of you before rumors make their own."
Thal didn't answer. He didn't have to. His silence read as assent as easily as it read as refusal.
Before anyone could step, a new voice threaded the noise soft, precise, and somehow heard by every ear.
"Lions Gate honors its saviors."
The crowd's hum tugged toward reverence. A figure in immaculate white robes stepped from a side street as if he'd been waiting there all along. Light seemed to like him torch-glow found the polished edges of his staff and the gold thread laid in careful triads along his sleeves. Three interlocked emblems sword, flame, and eye were stitched at his breast, their lines too perfect to have been made by a mortal hand.
"High Canon Voren," someone near the front whispered, hat in fist before he realized he'd removed it.
Voren smiled as if the word High had been meant for someone else and he was just keeping it safe. "Nyra, Luken, Valen," he said, inclining his head to each as if the bow sanctified them. "Reflections of the Three. Lions Gate sings because you returned your breath to it."
Valen's grin cooled. Luken bowed an inch and then regretted it. Nyra did not bow at all.
The High Canon's gaze moved inevitable as a tide to Thal. The smile thinned by a hair.
"And you," he said softly. "The unmeasured piece."
The title wasn't a title, and yet the crowd held it the way hands hold a knife. Voren's eyes were a calm grey that gave nothing back. He studied Thal as if trying to see the seam where he fit into the world.
"God's measures are precise," Voren murmured, loud enough to be heard and soft enough to feel intimate. "We know the pattern of our times: three threads intertwined by the Maker's will. Yet you stand outside the weave and pull whole armies toward you." He didn't blink. "Such anomalies must be… understood. We are eager to do so."
Eric's jaw flexed. Elira's shoulders went still.
"The City Council will debrief the Triad," Eric said, neutral as parchment. "And the giant."
"Of course," Voren said smoothly. "The House of the Three serves Lions Gate." He tipped his head a fraction, as if acknowledging a smaller altar. "We will attend. The god delights in proper order. Instruments should be kept in tune."
He turned back to the Triad, the warmth returning as if summoned. "You have done exactly as you were made to do."
Luken's hand tightened on his staff. Nyra's eyes sharpened. Valen said nothing at all, which was rare enough to make men near him swallow.
Neo felt the knot in his stomach twist. Instinctively, he shifted closer to Alinda but before he could say a word, Tar moved. The minotaur stepped in front of him, broad shoulders blotting out much of the crowd's view. His massive frame formed a wall, and though he made no sound, his meaning was clear no one would touch Neo while he stood there.
Alinda's gaze lingered on Thal a moment longer before she slid away, her steps quiet, deliberate. She melted into the shifting crowd without even the Triad or the priest noticing. Eric's eyes flicked briefly across the group as if expecting Tar to follow but he did not register Alinda's absence.
Instead, he frowned at Tar's looming form. "The beast comes as well?"
For a moment, it seemed no one would answer. Then Thal's voice came, low, steady, unbothered.
"No." His eyes did not leave Eric's. "Tar can handle himself in the city. He'll wait for my return."
The blunt certainty in his tone carried like iron striking stone. Tar did not react, only stayed where he was, his horns catching the torchlight as he remained before Neo.
Eric looked as though he might argue but Elira rested a hand on his arm and shook her head. "Very well but the rest of you come."
The high priest stepped back, motioning with his staff, and the crowd opened like a sea, forming a pathway that led toward the cathedral's looming steps.
The Hero's Triad followed, Valen already basking in the applause, Nyra's eyes cautious, Luken's shoulders stiff. Thal moved last among them, his shadow stretching long against the cobbles as the people whispered behind their hands.
Neo felt the weight of eyes on him still, though none lingered as long as the children from the alley. He glanced back once, searching the twisting lanes but nothing stirred. Only Tar remained at his side, silent and unmoving, a sentinel of flesh and horn.
And Alinda was gone.
Neo's shoulders eased the moment Thal's broad frame disappeared into the throng with Elira, Eric, and the priest. Relief came like a long breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding yet beneath it, worry coiled tight. Thal leaving them here felt both freeing and terrifying, as though the one immovable pillar had suddenly stepped aside, leaving only open air.
Tar shifted at his side, the minotaur's heavy bulk casting a shadow over him. A soft, guttural huff escaped the beast's chest, followed by a surprisingly gentle shove of his massive hand against Neo's shoulder. It wasn't words but Neo understood well enough.
Neo's lips twitched at the corner. "Yeah," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "I know."
Then a voice, low and velvet, slid in behind him. "You look like a child left outside the temple gates."
Neo flinched, spinning halfway before catching sight of Alinda drifting into view, silent as smoke. Her crimson eyes gleamed with amusement, her lips curled into a faint, knowing smile. She must have peeled away from the others while no one was watching, and he hadn't heard a single footstep.
"Gods " he hissed, hand at his chest. "Do you have to sneak up like that?"
Alinda tilted her head, her expression feigning innocence though her smirk betrayed her. "If I'd walked up like everyone else, I wouldn't have gotten that reaction."
Neo scowled, his cheeks burning, though whether from irritation or embarrassment he wasn't sure. "Scaring me half to death counts as entertainment to you?"
"Better than brooding like you were," she teased, her tone lilting. "Besides…" She leaned in just a fraction closer, enough to unsettle him. "…you wear fear in your eyes like an open book. It's adorable."
Neo's jaw tightened but he said nothing, shifting his weight in a poor attempt to look unaffected. Tar, still looming protectively in front of him, glanced at the exchange with a grunt, as though unimpressed by both of them.
Alinda chuckled at that, straightening as she brushed a stray lock of hair back over her shoulder. "Relax, little Kruul. If Thal trusts you here, then you're safer than you think and you " she gestured lightly at Tar with her chin " couldn't ask for a better shield."
Neo swallowed, forcing himself to look away, though her words lingered, threading unease with a strange warmth. He wasn't sure whether to be annoyed at her constant prodding or oddly grateful that she refused to treat him like glass.
She tilted her head, gaze flicking past Tar to the gates where the others had gone. "They'll be fine without us for now but you…" She studied him, her expression tightening with something close to worry. "You still carry that look like the world might swallow you whole."
Neo shifted uncomfortably, his arms crossing. He wasn't used to anyone prodding at the things beneath his skin not Alinda, not Thal, not anyone. Yet here she was, peeling back layers with nothing more than her eyes.
Neo's reply came sharp and automatic. "I'm fine," he said flatly, though the words felt hollow even to his own ears.
Tar, standing like a wall at his side, exhaled through his nose in a low, heavy snort a sound that somehow carried the weight of disagreement, as if the beast's silence could still call him out for a lie. Neo's jaw tightened but he didn't look up.
Alinda's smirk softened, losing its edge. Her crimson eyes lingered on him, and the faint playfulness in her expression faded into something almost sorrowful. She tilted her head, strands of dark hair sliding across her cheek.
"Fine," she echoed, the word carrying a weary echo of mockery. Then, with the faintest sigh, she added, "That's what people always say before everything collapses."
The words settled between them like a warning and a confession both, neither quite a jest nor a comfort. For a moment Neo wanted to argue, to deny that she had seen through him so easily but the knot in his stomach the one that had been there since that Kruul child's purple eyes met his own pulled tighter, choking off any response.
Tar gave him a light shove with his shoulder, a gesture both grounding and oddly reassuring. Neo stumbled half a step, then glanced up at the towering figure, catching the faintest glimmer of patience in the minotaur's dark eyes. It was wordless, simple but it steadied him in a way no speech ever could.
Alinda, however, did not relent. Her voice dropped lower, softer, her tone threading with something far heavier than her usual teasing. "You're carrying something. I see it. Tar feels it. Pretending won't make it lighter."
Neo's gaze darted to her, uneasy. For a heartbeat he thought of telling her about the Kruul child in the alley, about the way its smile had mirrored his own hidden heritage but the words stuck in his throat, trapped between shame and fear. He clenched his fists instead, muttering, "It doesn't matter."
Her eyes narrowed slightly, not with anger but with a subtle, unsettling clarity. She didn't push further not yet. Instead, she let the silence stretch, her gaze never leaving him, as if she was waiting for him to understand that one day the lie of fine would not be enough.
Alinda's eyes didn't blink, didn't shift. They burned into Neo, steady and unyielding, her crimson irises surrounded by that sea of black sclera making her look less like a companion and more like a predator waiting for the rabbit to flinch. Neo swallowed, trying to play it off with a crooked half-smile but the weight of her silence pressed harder than any blade at his throat. His hand flexed against his side as if looking for something to fidget with but her gaze pinned him in place. It was a stare that promised she'd strip the truth from him no matter how deep he buried it.
Finally, his breath stuttered, and the words broke from him in a rush. "Fine. I I saw them."
Alinda's brows arched faintly but she didn't let up.
"In the alleys," Neo said quickly, his voice low. "Kruul children. Just… there. Like it was normal." His eyes darted aside, guilt creeping into his tone, as though simply seeing them had been some betrayal. "It was strange. I wasn't expecting "
Alinda eased back slightly, her stare softening, though the unease in her eyes lingered. "Of course it was strange," she murmured, as if trying to soothe him. "To see them here of all places… almost unseen but alive. That must have unsettled you." She shook her head faintly, voice even, almost sympathetic. "Most in the city don't even believe the Kruul have children at all."
But Neo's jaw tightened. He shook his head, eyes narrowing. "No. You don't get it."
That shift in tone froze her. "Then what?"
"One of them…" His throat bobbed as he tried to form the words. "One of them changed. I don't know if it was a boy or a girl but they looked at me really looked and then they shifted." His hands unconsciously mimicked the horn gesture the child had made, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Their eyes… red to purple. Their hair from red to white. Like mine. They made it obvious."
Alinda went still, her composure faltering just enough to betray her unease. Her lips parted, then closed again, as if the words she wanted to use were too heavy to release. Her crimson eyes flicked toward the ground, then back to Neo, sharper now, cutting through his expression as though weighing him against the truth he'd just laid bare.
"A Kruu'Voth…" she finally breathed, the word tasting bitter in her mouth.
Neo nodded slowly, his shoulders tightening.
"That's not possible," she whispered, though even as she said it, her tone betrayed doubt. Her mind ran ahead, faster than her tongue, chasing possibilities that should never exist. "They're rare rare beyond measure. Entire bloodlines rise and vanish without ever producing one and yet " She caught herself, voice trailing into silence.
Neo's lips pressed into a thin line. "And yet I saw it." His voice wavered, part defiance, part dread. "They looked right at me, Alinda. Like they knew. Like they were… like me."
Alinda straightened, her expression guarded now, though tension coiled at the corners of her mouth. She forced herself to speak evenly but the unease slipped through like cracks in glass. "For one to be here, in a human city of all places…" She glanced around instinctively, as if expecting the shadows to listen. "That isn't chance. That's…" Her voice dipped, almost breaking into a whisper. "That's dangerous."
The thought of it hung between them, unspoken but heavy: a Kruu'Voth hidden in Lions Gate was more than strange. It was an omen. Neo shifted, wishing she would say more but dreading what might come next.
When her eyes returned to him, the teasing light he'd grown used to was gone. Her voice was low, firm, each word laid with purpose. "This can't be buried, Neo. Thal has to be told."
The name hit him harder than he expected. He stiffened, shaking his head before the words even reached his mouth. "No," he hissed, his tone sharper than intended. "He doesn't need to know. Not this."
Alinda's gaze did not falter. Crimson eyes fixed on him with the same unyielding pressure that had stripped his lie of fine apart only moments ago. "You don't understand," she said, steady, without a trace of heat. "It isn't about what you want him to know. It's about what must not be hidden from him." She leaned closer, her voice quieter but heavier than steel. "Secrets rot faster than wounds, and if this festers in the dark, it will poison more than you."
Tar rumbled beside them, a sound like stone dragged across earth, the faint snort carrying agreement. Neo's lips parted to argue but his throat betrayed him. The memory of the child's shifting eyes stole the words before he could summon them.
Alinda's tone softened but it carried no mercy. "You think silence will keep you safe. It won't. Thal carries more than all of us combined, and if anyone has a right to this truth, it's him. You know it."
Neo's fists clenched, his breath uneven. "And if telling him changes everything?"
Her expression darkened, not with anger but certainty. "Then it changes everything in the open, not from a knife in the shadows."