The entire clearing sank into silence.
Not ordinary silence.
It was a silence that seemed to have weight, that settled over shoulders and lungs like thick dust.
A silence that asked… that demanded… that nothing move.
The troops stood still, rigid, as if a single step could shatter something invisible and dangerous in the air.
Brianna kept her eyes on Ryden.
Unblinking.
Unmoving.
Breathing with the measured calm of someone who sees fractures in the world no one else can.
She opened her mouth to ask a question—
And stopped.
A vibration crossed the field.
Subtle.
Almost nonexistent.
But intimate enough to be unmistakable.
Brianna hardened inside — as if something she once thought buried had just awakened.
A crooked smile, cold and dangerously calm, pulled at the corner of her lips.
"Then… we meet again."
Karna turned toward her instantly.
Words weren't needed to know something had shifted.
His gaze ran from her to Ryden, already calculating paths, risks, collapses.
"Can you still fight?" he asked, voice deeper than usual.
Ryden nodded, drawing a long breath, straightening himself like someone returning to center through sheer will.
"I can."
Brianna took a single step — and in that moment, it felt like the entire army began to orbit around her.
"I identified one of our enemies," she said, her voice sharp, precise.
Karna narrowed his eyes, tension in every line of his face.
"Who… and how?"
She didn't blink.
Her gaze was as cold as a wet blade.
"My mother — she has her own way of being seen. As if she wanted me to know she was here. And that… explains the creatures we faced."
Shock rippled like a knife of wind.
Some soldiers raised their heads.
Others lowered their weapons without noticing.
Kaelir held his breath as if he'd taken a clean punch to the soul.
No one dared to speak.
Karna remained firm, but something old and heavy fell across his stare, darkening it.
"Explain," he said, low, steady.
Brianna raised her hand slowly.
"To understand this… I need to explain how Salem witchcraft works."
A green filament bloomed at her fingertips, lighting like the forest itself was breathing through her.
It was alive.
Pulsing.
Almost organic.
"This is the most basic," she said — and her voice didn't merely teach; it remembered something that was once home. "Nature magic. We channel what the earth itself grants us."
The green vanished — swallowed as if by an invisible hand.
Then two new filaments appeared: silver, and gold.
They danced between her fingers like serpents of ancient light — too beautiful to be human, too dangerous to ignore.
Brianna watched them with something between longing and contempt.
"Then comes the most powerful in our lineage — ancestral magic. The echo of fallen witches… and the wisdom they paid dearly to preserve."
The lights disappeared.
No one breathed loud enough to hear.
Brianna closed her hand slowly — and for an instant, it looked like something boiled beneath her skin.
"And last… the magic many call black." Her voice hardened. "But my people always used its real name: profane magic. The magic my mother chose. She broke the bond with nature — turned her back on the ancestors. With that, she can do things no witch should be able to do. Things even the gods who rule magic struggle to interfere with."
A murmur almost rose among the soldiers — but no one let it escape.
"And that brings us to what matters most," Brianna continued. "The Profane Deck. Also known as the Veil Cards."
The wind drew in around them like a breath held too long.
"Unlike the gods of prophecy, the Cards don't show the future. They show possibilities. Distorted echoes of what could be. Paths that bend… and break."
She inhaled deeply.
"And because of the blood we share, my mother can see my choices. My intentions. My failures."
Silence thickened until it felt solid.
Brianna lifted her chin, eyes fixed on the distant wall — as if they could cut straight through stone.
"She knew every step of our army because… I am the window she watches the path through."
The sentence fell like iron dropped on stone.
No one spoke.
No one dared.
Brianna let her gaze rise over the army — awakened ones, soldiers, all of them — and her presence seemed larger than the space she occupied.
"Prepare yourselves," she said, each syllable carved like a command in stone. "We attack."
Kaelir stepped forward, face marked by fatigue and urgency.
"We should plan a route, maybe—"
"Planning won't help," Brianna cut in — voice low, heavy with a certainty sharp enough to wound silence. "You've already seen what she can do."
The weight of that truth fell across every soldier.
Like ice down a spine.
Like a shadow spreading its fingers over them all.
Karna let out a bitter half-laugh — more a wound than humor.
"Those creatures… don't tell me—"
"Yes," Brianna answered before he could finish.
A muted ripple moved through the troops — instinctive, fearful.
"That's why we strike head-on," she continued, voice like drawn steel. "And for that…
Skýra. Kaelir. Rynne. Zeph. Iaso. Lys. Neriah."
Every name was a summons and a sentence.
The awakened raised their eyes — tension and resolve shining through each one.
Brianna turned to Ryden — not asking, but confirming destiny.
He nodded once.
Then she faced Karna.
"The awakened advance first. Regular soldiers follow. No retreat."
Karna drew a breath — accepting the order and its weight at once.
His eyes met hers for a heartbeat.
Brianna closed hers slowly… and opened them like someone waking something dangerous and forgotten.
"No matter what you hear," she said at last, voice falling like a vow. "Do not stop. Under any circumstance."
The clearing seemed to sink further.
Some soldiers swallowed hard.
Others gripped their weapons too tight, as if pressure alone could still the tremor in their palms.
One — young, exhausted, armor stained with dried blood — stepped forward, hesitant.
"Ma'am…" his voice trembled, but he forced it out. "Does this mean… even if we…?"
He didn't finish.
He didn't need to.
Brianna turned toward him — slowly — and the silence that followed was so absolute it felt like the world itself waited for her answer.
The soldier swallowed again, hand shaking without him noticing.
Karna watched.
Ryden breathed slower.
Kaelir barely blinked.
Then Brianna spoke.
Her voice wasn't loud.
But it carried enough weight to move air like stone.
"When I left the Central Kingdom… I knew many common soldiers would die."
Some men swallowed hard.
Others lowered their eyes.
"That is a fact — inescapable, unchanging." She didn't flinch. "In a war where awakened ones and gods shape the battlefield… ordinary humans will always be the weaker side."
Her words entered like a blade.
Not to wound — to refuse to lie.
"And even then…" Brianna breathed, gaze locked on the soldier. "Even knowing this… you marched with me."
No soldier took it as permission.
They simply listened.
"You didn't march for that kingdom." Her voice was a cutting wire. "You didn't bleed for gods who never looked at you. You didn't follow princes who would crumble in the first real battle."
A deeper silence formed.
A silence of comprehension.
"You marched for your children." Brianna continued. "For your families. For your friends. And… for me."
Some soldiers lifted their eyes, slow — as if something broke inside them, and something new took its place.
"On the road here," she said, "many asked why I never carried the Central banner."
Karna's eyes closed briefly, already knowing.
Ryden stilled.
Kaelir held his breath.
"Now you'll hear the reason."
Brianna raised her head — eyes burning like white embers lit inside the night.
She opened her hands.
The wind shifted.
Dry leaves tore from the ground.
Threads of cloth ripped from tattered cloaks.
Filaments of fiber, dust…
All of it lifted.
Spiraled.
Swirled.
And as if nature itself recognized silent authority, everything formed into a new banner — solid, flawless — settling into the hands of a stunned soldier.
The symbol:
an owl.
Watchful.
Silent.
Lethal.
Brianna continued:
"I could have chosen lions. Dragons. Forces that live on roaring and burning to hide their fear."
She stepped forward.
The clearing's dim light bent subtly around her.
"But I didn't."
Her voice fell.
Not in volume.
In truth.
"I chose the owl… because it sees everything. Even what hurts. Because it moves through silence — like you. Because it does not miss when lives depend on it. Because it carries the weight of night alone."
No one dared to breathe deep.
No one broke the chain of that moment.
The shadow of the newborn banner fell across the field — marking who they were now.
Brianna tilted her head — just enough to reveal a vow.
"I chose the owl because…" her eyes shone with something sharp, decided, irrevocable — "because if you followed me, I could not fail. Not with you."
Something shattered in the air.
Not fear.
Doubt.
She gave one last look to the army — every scar, every tremor, every breath reclaimed.
"Listen carefully — because I will only say this once."
The wind halted.
"Fight for me. To the end."
Her voice was low.
Not a shout.
A verdict.
"And I promise that even if you die here today… I will honor each of your families.
Every name. Every life."
She lifted her chin — presence too large for the field that held it.
"Now — more than ever — we must stop the Eastern Kingdom. I came here to fulfill my part of an agreement." Her eyes narrowed, burning with something ancient and ruinous. "But it seems… this fight is no longer theirs."
She breathed — as if air itself cut going in.
"This fight… is mine now. As the last daughter of Salem."
Brianna raised her hands.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Not lifting a spell — but a sentence.
Air bent around her, afraid to make contact.
The wind died.
Leaves hung motionless.
And with the voice of a witch unafraid of her own blood, she said:
"Phasmatos revelare veritatem."
The ground shuddered.
A sharp crack — like glass fracturing — split the clearing.
The world blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
And the illusion… shattered.
Near the walls, where moments ago there was nothing…
The truth surfaced:
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Entire battalions of profane creatures.
All aligned.
A sea of nightmares sculpted by profane magic.
Brianna stepped forward.
"Death is here. But so are we."
Silence held the world like breath caged between teeth.
"And today… it's death who retreats."