Arthen’s shout wasn’t a warning.

  It was action.

  He moved before the last echo of “Enough!” finished spreading.

  His sword drew a clean arc—too fast for an ordinary eye. The wind itself changed direction, as if the blade had split it in two.

  The first strike didn’t seek flesh.

  It sought control.

  Steel met steel with a sharp vibration and ripped Carmilla’s sword from her hand. The metal spun through the air and landed embedded in wet sand, far from the stage.

  A second motion—lower, more precise.

  The edge grazed Carmilla’s cheek.

  A red line appeared on pale skin.

  Blood slid down slowly.

  Carmilla smiled.

  The sea roared louder. The wind turned violent, lifting sand and cloth. League watchers stumbled back. Priests collided with each other. Townsfolk screamed without knowing where to run.

  Arthen didn’t speak.

  He attacked again.

  His enchanted blade cut the air like fabric. Every thrust displaced the wind in visible waves; every turn left a silver trail hanging a moment longer than it should have.

  Carmilla didn’t retreat.

  She dodged.

  Bare-handed.

  She vanished a heartbeat before the edge touched her—then reappeared at the side, behind, above.

  Her hands reached for necks, joints, eyes.

  Arthen blocked with perfect precision.

  The fight wasn’t chaotic.

  It was brutally technical.

  Neither landed cleanly, yet every graze drew blood.

  Carmilla moved laughing, breathing each exchange like music.

  “The League… the Church…” she spat between attacks. “It’s the same.”

  Arthen pivoted, forcing her off-line.

  “Men craving power. Small. Finite. Weak.”

  A gust slammed three watchers to the ground.

  “And on top of it…”

  “Thieves.”

  Her eyes began to burn.

  “GIVE ME BACK WHAT’S MINE!”

  The scream wasn’t human.

  Air compressed.

  An invisible pressure exploded from her chest and crashed into Arthen like a black wave.

  The knight planted his feet and drove his sword into the ground. The blade vibrated and shaped a cutting wind-shield in front of him.

  Demonic force hit the barrier.

  Sand blasted outward.

  The stage splintered.

  The collision was deafening.

  Arthen held.

  Then he fell.

  He rolled across the beach, leaving a dark streak behind him. Blood seeped from his side.

  The crowd screamed as one.

  Carmilla walked toward him slowly, savoring it.

  She retrieved her sword without looking away.

  Arthen tried to rise, but didn’t make it fully upright.

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  Carmilla set the tip beneath his chin.

  He breathed hard. Sand clung to blood at his side. Wind hammered his cloak as if trying to tear it off.

  “Give me what is mine,” she whispered.

  Arthen met her gaze.

  No fear.

  “Demons don’t deserve even a last word.”

  Carmilla raised the sword.

  The edge began to fall—

  And in that same motion, Arthen closed his fist.

  His enchanted sword—lying several meters away—vibrated.

  It didn’t fly immediately.

  It dragged first, carving a line through sand.

  Then it rose, spun, and speared Carmilla through the abdomen from behind.

  The blade burst out of her belly in a silver flash.

  The sound was dry.

  Carmilla froze for a heartbeat.

  Looked down.

  Dark blood began to pour.

  Her sword slipped from her hand.

  Arthen rolled away and, with brutal effort, stood. He tore the blade from his own side—ignoring pain—and gripped it hard.

  Carmilla dropped to her knees in the sand.

  The crowd screamed.

  Wind softened slightly.

  The image had inverted.

  Arthen limped toward her, firm despite the wound. His sword point lowered until it hovered at Carmilla’s throat.

  She lifted her face.

  Blood on her lips.

  No pleading.

  Only contained rage.

  “Demons,” Arthen said quietly, “don’t deserve even a last word.”

  The pressure of the blade began to sink—

  And then—

  A lateral impact hit him with violent force.

  He never saw it coming.

  Ilian appeared like a shadow cutting through the wind and slammed into Arthen with his full weight.

  The knight was thrown several meters, rolling into an overturned boat. Wood splintered.

  The sword stuck in the sand.

  Ilian landed on his feet between Carmilla and the hero.

  Breathing hard.

  The patch torn away.

  The rune lit.

  Carmilla stared up from the ground.

  And the world understood: this was no longer League versus demon.

  It was something else.

  The impact left a hollow.

  When the dust settled—

  Ilian was gone.

  Carmilla too.

  No smoke.

  No explosion.

  No visible portal.

  They simply weren’t there.

  As if the wind had claimed them.

  For a second, nobody understood what had happened.

  Then pain returned.

  Cael reacted first. He ran to Arthen without looking back.

  “Sir!”

  Maelis followed and dropped to her knees beside the knight. Arthen tried to rise on pride more than strength. Blood kept leaking from his side, darkening the sand.

  “I’m fine,” he said—though he wasn’t.

  Cael held him by an arm. Maelis pressed a hand to the wound and began murmuring old words. A faint glow wrapped the open flesh.

  Rhea stood a few meters back, staring at the empty space where Ilian had been.

  She didn’t understand.

  She didn’t want to.

  Brann was already moving through bodies.

  “Inside! To your homes! Close your doors! Don’t stand here!”

  He lifted children, shoved stunned men, helped the fallen up. League watchers formed a cordon, forcing order back into chaos.

  At the center of the square, Enoch lay mutilated on splintered stage wood. Priests knelt around him, invoking restoration magic. Flesh closed. Blood stopped.

  But limbs didn’t return.

  The arm didn’t come back.

  The leg didn’t come back.

  Enoch breathed with eyes open—his face pale for the first time in his life.

  He didn’t speak.

  Arthen managed to stand with Cael and Maelis’s help. His gaze swept the square.

  He wasn’t looking for Carmilla.

  He was looking for Ilian.

  There was no trace.

  Rhea finally tore her eyes from the void and went to help Brann clear the area.

  “Inside! Now!”

  People obeyed.

  Fear was authority enough.

  Wind calmed gradually.

  The sea lowered its fury to a distant murmur.

  Night—like nothing had happened—spread again over Port Mist.

  The sky was clear.

  Stars shone with ancient indifference.

  Sand remained wet with blood.

  The town knew something no one had to say out loud.

  There was no going back.

  The League had seen.

  The Church had bled.

  A demon had attacked.

  And Death had chosen a side.

  Port Mist was no longer just a port.

  It was a point on the map the continent would remember.

  The sea struck the rocks with irregular force when Ilian reached the breakwater.

  He wasn’t running.

  He walked fast—steady—with Carmilla in his arms.

  She fought him the entire way.

  “Put me down,” she spat, voice rough. “I didn’t need your help.”

  Blood still dripped from her side, marking the path across wet sand.

  Ilian didn’t answer.

  The cave was small—a narrow split in stone carved by water. Dark, but dry. Wind didn’t fully enter.

  He set her down with rough care.

  She hissed as the wound touched cold rock.

  “I told you to leave me.”

  Ilian knelt beside her. Arthen’s sword had pierced her abdomen, but not in a fatal place. Blood was heavy, and the cut hadn’t been clean.

  “If you didn’t move,” Ilian said, “he would have killed you.”

  “No,” she snarled. “I was going to kill him first.”

  Ilian looked at her.

  “You didn’t.”

  Carmilla held his gaze, rage intact.

  “I didn’t need you to save me.”

  Wind whistled outside.

  Ilian tore a strip of cloth from his cloak and pressed it against the wound. She growled—but didn’t push him away.

  “Why did you save me?” she asked.

  It didn’t sound grateful.

  It sounded offended.

  Ilian took a moment.

  “I don’t know.”

  The words hung in the cave.

  “Maybe it was the heart.”

  Carmilla scoffed.

  But didn’t deny it.

  Silence dropped between them, heavy as tide.

  Ilian sat on a rock across from her.

  “If you already know it’s me… why were you demanding it in the square?”

  Carmilla looked at him from the side. Rage shifted into something more complex.

  “It’s hard for me to admit it.”

  Ilian frowned.

  She narrowed her eyes and stared at his chest.

  “But yes.”

  “It’s there.”

  The statement wasn’t gentle.

  It was instinct.

  “You could’ve taken it already,” Ilian said. “When you dragged me unconscious to that cabin. You could’ve ripped it out.”

  She gritted her teeth, pain flashing as she tried to sit up.

  “I didn’t.”

  “You said you didn’t because I didn’t steal it. That someone implanted it.”

  Carmilla breathed hard. Blood stained the stone.

  “The Church has the answer.”

  Not doubt.

  Certainty.

  “They know who took it. Who moved it. Who played with something that doesn’t belong to them.”

  Her eyes burned again.

  “I’m going to annihilate them all—until someone tells me who stole it.”

  Her gaze dropped back to Ilian’s chest.

  “And then…”

  “I will take it from you.”

  There was no hate in it.

  No compassion either.

  Only fate.

  Ilian held her gaze without flinching.

  “Then do it now.”

  The cave fell absolutely silent.

  The sea struck rock once more.

  Carmilla didn’t move.

  Didn’t try.

  Because they both knew the truth.

  She could feel it.

  But she couldn’t pull it out without something else.

  And neither of them understood what that something was.