---
The ruins had never been silent for this long.
Even the wind seemed to hold its breath, as if afraid to stir the ash still clinging to the edges of cracked stone and blackened bone. Dawn had broken hours ago, but no light touched the battlefield—not truly. The sun filtered weakly through clouds that never moved, casting a pale glow over a world that had forgotten warmth.
Serin stood alone near the edge of the shattered chapel, where the Harrowed One had fallen.
The spot was still scorched. Her fire had left a mark nothing else had. Not even centuries of bloodshed had managed to carve a wound like that into this cursed earth.
She stared at it, unmoving.
It should have scared her. It didn't.
Lucien hadn't said much since the fight. He had stayed nearby, always watching, but hadn't asked her about the white fire. Not yet.
Maybe he didn't want to know.
She touched the stone wall beside her absently, fingers tracing ancient carvings. Her body felt heavy—tired in a way no rest could fix. The fire hadn't returned. It left her raw, like something had been torn open and left unfinished.
"I can hear it," she whispered.
The wall didn't respond, but the air shifted.
"It calls me."
A voice stirred behind her. "The Veil?"
Serin turned. Lucien stood just a few feet away, cloaked in shadow as always, but softer now. Less soldier, more... human.
"You knew?" she asked.
"I guessed," he replied. "Only the Veil whispers after the fire. It speaks to the ones it marks."
She frowned. "What does it say?"
Lucien's gaze darkened. "Nothing you want to hear."
---
They sat in the chapel's hollow heart. What had once been an altar was now rubble and bloodstains. Serin picked at the edge of her coat, silent. Lucien sat cross-legged beside her, polishing his blade with slow, methodical movements.
"So?" she asked after a while. "What is it? The Veil?"
Lucien didn't look up. "It's the place between life and death. Between realms. Where the condemned go when they can't pass fully into Hell."
"Like a purgatory?"
"Worse. It's a prison built from memories and regrets. It whispers in the voices of the ones you've failed."
Serin swallowed. Her throat was dry.
"I heard my mother last night," she admitted.
Lucien stopped. His hand froze on the blade.
"I thought I was dreaming. But... she was crying. Asking me why I left her. Why I didn't save her."
Lucien said nothing for a long time.
Finally, he set the blade down and looked at her—really looked.
"You didn't leave her, Serin. You were a child."
"I was her daughter."
"You're still her daughter."
Silence stretched between them.
"But the Veil doesn't care," Lucien added. "It'll use her voice. Her face. Anything to pull you in."
Serin looked down at her hands. Pale. Unremarkable. Nothing like the girl who had burned a demon to ash.
"So I'm cursed now?"
Lucien shook his head. "No. You're chosen. That's worse."
---
Later that day, while the others tended to the injured and tried to rebuild what little shelter they had, Serin wandered beyond the ruins.
The land was strange here—twisted in quiet ways. Trees that bled sap like ink. Flowers that wilted when touched. Rivers that whispered instead of flowed.
She found a lone tree at the edge of a cliff, where the world seemed to end in mist. The ground beneath it was soft, damp with dew that smelled faintly of ash.
She sat beneath it, curling her knees to her chest.
And for a moment, she let herself cry.
Not loud. Not broken.
Just soft, quiet tears for a girl who didn't know what she was becoming. For a fire that didn't ask for permission before taking root in her bones. For a voice that sounded like her mother's but spoke with the Veil's cruelty.
Then, a presence.
Lucien again. She didn't even need to look. She knew the way he moved, how the air folded around him like a second skin.
"You should sleep," he said gently.
"I can't."
He didn't push. Instead, he sat beside her. Not close. Just near enough that his warmth settled against her arm like a secret promise.
"You're strong, Serin. But strength won't save you from the Veil. Only truth will."
She wiped her eyes. "What truth?"
"The one you're afraid to face."
A breeze stirred. The branches above them whispered.
Serin didn't speak. Neither did he.
But something passed between them—unspoken, heavy. A tether forming quietly, like thread stitching two fractured souls.
---
That night…
The campfire crackled low. Others slept in scattered corners of the ruins, curled beneath cloaks and broken banners. Serin watched the flames, drawn to them in a way that frightened her.
She missed who she was. The scared, angry girl who didn't know her place.
Now she had one.
It just happened to be in the middle of Hell.
She turned to Lucien, who stood guard at the edge of camp.
"Will it ever get easier?" she asked.
He didn't turn. "No. But you'll get stronger."
She walked to him, her boots crunching on loose stone. "Why me?"
He hesitated.
"Because the fire doesn't choose the brave. It chooses the broken. The ones who have something left to lose."
Serin looked up at him. "And you? Why are you here?"
He smiled faintly. "Because I lost everything."
A pause.
She reached out—slowly, carefully—and took his hand.
It was calloused. Warm.
"I don't want to burn alone," she said softly.
Lucien didn't answer in words.
But he didn't let go.
---