"Each Pillar of Peace shall find, select, train and prepare a successor prior to their own demise." -P.A.C.T., Article III, Section 2: "Persistence"
***
Unknown
Unknown
Anna stared at her hands.
A faint spectral green mist coiled around her fingers, rising and falling as though breathing with her. Her muscles responded sluggishly, as if they belonged to someone else. Even her heartbeat felt borrowed.
Cold air scraped down her throat, carrying the taste of rot and suffering.
Around her sprawled a forest that should not exist. The trees stood dead and hollow, as if drained long ago. Blue mist saturated the air, alive, restless, drifting with a deliberation that wind should not possess. It wailed between branches and slid across the hardened snow. The haze devoured distance, hiding the horizon.
Snow reached Anna's knees. It clung to her, resisting every step.
This place was wrong.
How did she come here? The thought appeared in her mind.
A sound shattered the silence.
Footsteps. Hurried. Uneven.
A small figure materialised from the blue, sprinting blindly. Their breaths came ragged. They did not see Anna. They passed through her, untouched.
Anna flinched. Shock rippled through her.
The figure halted only a few steps away.
A strangled cry tore through the air as the stranger collapsed into the snow.
At once, the mist around them thickened.
Focusing.
Then it struck.
Blue tendrils lanced forward, burying into cloth and flesh. Snow stained red.
Who is that? And why here? The thoughts imprinted themselves into her mind.
A tremor ran through Anna. A force, primal and instinctive, pushed her forward.
The snow gripped her legs like buried hands.
She knew she was too far.
As she drew nearer, the mist shifted.
A pause.
A consideration.
A flicker of recognition. As if something unseen evaluated her presence.
New tendrils rose, curling, waiting.
A new target.
Anna dropped beside the stranger as the mist struck again.
The tendrils pierced her skin and a distorted voice shrieked through her mind.
...DIE!...DIE!...DIE!...
Agony detonated inside her, sharp and immediate, like burning needles driven into her nerves. Her lungs seized, her body froze.
She collapsed beside the stranger.
With fading strength, she reached out. Her trembling fingers pulled back the stranger's hood.
A girl. No older than fifteen.
Blue eyes. Blue hair.
Impossible.
And yet ... unmistakable.
Is she a demon?
No.
Innocent. Human. Fragile.
Anna touched the girl's cheek. The skin was still warm, damp with sweat, tears and blood.
Barely alive.
The mist coiled again, tendrils arching high above them.
The air trembled.
The tendrils descended.
Two heartbeats faltered.
The forest grew still.
The blue rose.
Consuming both of them.