The wind came first.
Low.
Constant.
The leaves moved in layers, a dry rustling that spread between the trees like a continuous whisper.
The forest breathed.
The moon, high above, poured cold light through the branches, cutting the space into fragments of silver and shadow.
She was there.
Still.
The light touched her hair — long, wavy, silver — sliding through the strands as if it met no resistance, marking every curve with a cold, almost ethereal glow.
The wind passed through them.
Slow.
Not enough to unsettle them.
Just enough to let them exist.
Then—
the incandescent white eyes.
Fixed.
Unwavering.
Ahead—
the body on the ground moved.
First a finger.
Then the arm.
Breath returned in an irregular, broken sound, like something that shouldn't be there… trying to fit itself back into its own body.
He rose slowly.
As if there were no urgency in returning.
The head tilted a degree before aligning with her.
Then he stood.
His eyes met hers.
Brianna didn't move.
Her voice came out low.
Controlled.
Carrying more than its volume allowed.
"…how long has it been."
The young man stared.
A brief laugh slipped out, unhurried, as if time there held no weight at all.
Clean face, firm features, nothing to betray what lay beneath.
But the gaze—
far too old.
"Yes…"
The voice came soft.
Steady.
Carrying a familiarity that didn't ask permission.
"long enough for the world to forget… what we were."
A step.
No threat.
"And yet…"
The head tilted slightly.
Observing.
Measuring.
"you survived."
The silence between them didn't break.
He looked away for a moment.
Around.
The bodies on the ground.
The mark of the fight still fresh in the air.
A slight lift of the brow.
"Curious."
He looked back at her.
"The last time I saw you…"
Another half-smile.
Sharper.
"you barely understood what you carried."
A short pause.
"Now you walk all the way here…"
His gaze dropped a degree.
As if seeing beyond the surface.
"without hesitation."
A controlled silence.
"Even deprived of what makes you… dangerous."
The wind passed again.
Colder.
Brianna remained exactly where she was.
Her eyes still fixed on him.
"You keep watching the same things…"
A short pause.
Her breathing steady.
"…and ignoring the only ones that matter."
The silence returned.
Denser.
More present.
He didn't answer immediately.
He only smiled.
The wind crossed the space between them.
Cold.
Constant.
Brianna didn't look away.
"And how long do you intend to keep up this farce."
The question came low.
Unhurried.
The young man's smile didn't fade.
On the contrary—
it widened.
For a moment, he didn't move.
Then, his hand rose.
Slowly.
His fingers curled in the air, as if touching something invisible… or undoing a layer that no longer needed to be there
Then—
the body didn't step back, it simply yielded, as if it let go of its own form. The young knight's silhouette faltered once… and the smoke appeared.
White. Dense.
Rising.
It didn't spread — it ascended, wrapping the body from the bottom up, erasing the old shape as another revealed itself beneath it.
The legs changed first.
Then the torso.
The presence adjusting, firmer, older, as if the space around had to recognize it before accepting.
The smoke kept rising, covering the shoulders, the neck… until it completely hid the face for a brief instant.
And then it began to give way.
Revealing.
Dark skin, smooth, perfect, with a cold sheen that didn't belong to moonlight.
The garments formed with the body — long, too pale to be called white, like something that had never known heat or life.
The hair came right after — long, white like ancient snow, falling in straight, heavy lines while the last strands of smoke still rose around.
At last—
the eyes.
Completely white.
Incandescent.
Already fixed on her.
The smoke vanished into the air.
And nothing of the knight remained.
Only her.
The smile didn't change.
"So…"
"tell me, dear daughter…"
The head tilted a minimal degree.
"what is it you expect from me?"
Brianna's jaw locked for a moment.
The answer came without haste.
"How much of this is part of your plans?"
A short pause.
"At what moment did you decide… to hand over your own people?"
The silence didn't hesitate.
It settled in.
"Plans… are human things, Brianna. I don't limit myself to them."
She watched her daughter for a moment… as if measuring something whose outcome she already knew.
"But since you insist on understanding…"
A pause.
Cold. Exact.
"Shannon was one of the few who survived what they call the witch hunts."
"While others died… she grew stronger."
"While they were judged… she observed."
"And when it was over… she did something unforgivable."
A slight tilt of the head.
"She forgot."
The gaze hardened a degree.
"She forgot fear."
A short pause.
"She buried the blood."
Her eyes fixed.
"And chose to live… as if there had never been a price."
She took a step forward.
"And then she built…"
A subtle gesture.
"A settlement hidden in the woods of Salem Village."
"A sanctuary for survivors."
Another pause.
Colder.
"A place where nothing had to be paid."
Another pause.
Deeper.
"A place where power was suffocated… in the name of a peace that never existed."
Her eyes returned to Brianna.
"They called it home."
A short silence.
Cutting.
"I called it waste."
The voice didn't rise.
But it weighed.
"You ask when I sold them…"
A small step.
The distance between them shrinking.
"I didn't sell them."
A pause.
"I offered them."
Silence.
"To the ancients."
Something almost imperceptible passed through her gaze… not emotion — certainty.
"Gods that existed long before the first bonfire… before the first judgment… before the first human lie about what is divine."
"They hid from the world."
"I… brought the world to them."
Her voice dropped.
Lower.
Closer.
"Power demands a price, Brianna."
"And they…"
A pause.
Final.
"were an irrelevant price… for a world that would finally remember what it must fear."
Her gaze didn't waver.
"You see betrayal."
"I see purpose."
Brianna's gaze didn't waver.
"And me…"
"At what moment did you decide… that I too should be sacrificed for your ambitions?"
The woman didn't answer immediately.
She observed.
As if that question were far too old to surprise her.
"Do not forget, Brianna…"
The voice came low. Precise.
"I do not share Shannon's weakness."
A slow step.
"Long before you were born…"
A brief pause.
"I had already seen your fate… among the cards."
Silence.
Brianna inhaled through her nose.
Controlled.
"I see…"
Her eyes didn't move.
"So you had already touched profane magic long before all this."
A short pause.
"The Weaver's last words…"
Her gaze narrowed a degree.
"now make sense."
A slight tilt of the head.
The woman smiled.
Minimally.
"So… he finally decided to weave the paths together."
Silence.
Brianna held her gaze.
And then—
a smile appeared.
Not of defiance.
But of something older.
More tired.
Melancholic.
The first strands appeared.
Green.
Gold.
Thin as lines of energy, crawling beneath the skin before emerging — running along her arms, her neck, her face… like living electricity.
The air around reacted.
Subtle.
But immediate.
The woman's gaze changed.
For the first time—
real attention.
"That's impossible."
The voice didn't rise.
But it tightened.
"You cannot use your magic here, Brianna."
A step.
"I sealed this place."
Brianna closed her eyes.
Silence.
Breath steady.
Then—
she opened them.
Slowly.
The white of her eyes began to change.
Fine lines.
Bright.
Moving within the irises… connecting, crossing, forming something precise.
A web.
At the center—
a minimal circle.
Perfect.
Like the eye of a needle.
The symbol of weaving.
Brianna's voice came low.
But firm.
"Then I just need to… take it from elsewhere."
The silence stretched.
Heavy.
The woman watched.
Without blinking.
"So that's it…"
Almost a whisper.
"Your mark of the Abyss."
A pause.
Denser.
"That's how you survived."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"But even you know…"
Her voice returned to absolute control.
"touching the Abyss… demands a price."
The wind crossed the space between them.
Cold.
Constant.
Brianna didn't step back.
Didn't hesitate.
"I know."
A pause.
Short.
Final.
"And I will pay…"
Her gaze fixed on her.
Unwavering.
"with your life."
The wind changed.
No longer constant.
Unstable.
The air seemed to pull back—
as if something greater were about to take its place.
Brianna took a step forward.
The strands still pulsing beneath her skin.
Her eyes fixed.
And then—
she spoke.
"Caelum respondeat… et iudicium descendat."
The sky reacted.
Immediate.
Thunder tore through the silence above the trees, deep, vibrating through the very ground.
Moonlight vanished for a moment as clouds closed in, dense, alive, turning as if pulled by something beyond the natural.
The air grew heavy.
Charged.
The woman smiled.
Without surprise.
"It would seem…"
A slight tilt of the head.
"this encounter comes to an end."
A pause.
Short.
"Even so…"
Her white eyes fixed on her.
"it wouldn't be appropriate for me to depart… without leaving something behind."
Her hand rose.
A simple gesture.
Precise.
"Reveal."
Nothing happened.
For a full second, the world seemed suspended… as if even the air waited.
Then—
one of the trees trembled.
The wood cracked, not in rupture, but in surrender. The trunk gave slowly, opening from the inside out, as if something there had waited far too long to be revealed.
The fibers split.
Not like wood.
Like flesh.
And what was inside emerged.
Karna's body.
Fused to the trunk.
Brianna's eyes shifted slowly, as if the simple act of looking required more than her body could sustain.
Her breath faltered for an instant.
And the voice came behind her—
cold.
"If you intend to move forward…"
A minimal pause.
"then you will do so accepting the cost."
Silence.
Brianna's jaw tightened.
The green and gold strands flickered beneath her skin, unstable for a moment… before beginning to disappear, one by one, as if something were being slowly shut down inside her.
The light faded.
First in her arms.
Then in her chest.
Until nothing remained.
Her eyes returned to normal.
Above, the sky answered — the thunder receding little by little, farther and farther, until only silence remained.
The pressure eased with it.
The woman said nothing.
She only watched.
Then she turned.
Walked to a nearby rock, without any haste, as if the outcome had been decided long before that moment.
Her hand moved in a simple gesture.
And the stone yielded.
It didn't break — it changed.
The surface unraveled and reformed at once, lines appearing where there had been nothing, contours taking shape with unsettling precision.
Two small figures formed.
A girl. A boy.
White hair.
Completely white eyes.
Still.
Brianna stared at them.
No immediate reaction.
The woman cast a sideways glance.
The smile returned — subtle, almost absent, but heavy with meaning.
"Our paths do not end here, Brianna."
A pause.
Slower.
Heavier.
"They merely… diverge."
Her eyes still on her.
"And when they touch again…"
A slight tilt of the head.
"I hope that by then… you understand what you are destined to become."
The woman didn't move immediately.
Her eyes remained on Brianna, as if that moment were not an end, but merely a pause that had been decided long before.
Then she extended her hand.
Slowly.
Her fingers touched the heads of the two children in a simple gesture, almost intimate, devoid of any hesitation.
For an instant, nothing happened.
Then the light appeared.
White — not intense, not warm, but empty.
It began at the point of contact and spread through the body with softness, rising in continuous lines that did not burn or consume, only… undid.
The form began to lose definition little by little, as if it were no longer sustained by something invisible.
The edges gave first, then the contours, until the body itself seemed unable to maintain its presence.
There was no sound.
There was no resistance.
Only disappearance.
When the light finally dissipated, nothing remained — no trace, no echo — as if she had never occupied that space.
The silence remained.
Brianna didn't move immediately.
Her gaze stayed fixed on the space where she had been, as if there were still something there to understand.
Then she turned.
Unhurried.
Her steps were firm, direct, to the still-open wood before her, where the body remained bound to the trunk.
She stopped for a moment, simply observing — not with hesitation, but like someone who registers… and accepts.
Her hand rose without deviation.
At the touch, the wood yielded. It didn't break — it gave way beneath her fingers, as if it had never been solid.
Karna's body came free.
Heavy.
Inert.
She caught him before he fell completely, without apparent effort.
Her other hand rose next, pausing in the air for a brief instant before touching his face.
The gesture was light.
Precise.
Without tremor.
Her fingers slid once, restrained, like someone who merely confirms what she already knew.
Her breathing remained steady.
Her gaze didn't change.
But it didn't pull away either.