The blade hovered one heartbeat from splitting Kael's core wide open.
The Wound-sphere in the center of the chamber had begun to fracture,
thin violet fissures racing across its surface like frozen lightning.
SFX: CRRACK… CRRACK… CRRACK…
Emperor Cassian's eyes blazed with triumph.
"Open," he commanded.
"Open and become—"
The fortress screamed.
Not metaphorically.
Greyspire itself shuddered, stone crying out, as something vast moved beneath it.
The floor erupted.
A pale serpent burst through obsidian and scripture-steel alike.
Bone-white scales glimmered like frost under moonlight.
Eyes, brilliant winter blue, glowed with the chill of eternity.
Its body flowed with impossible elegance, moving like liquid light and shadow merged.
A tongue, forked and shimmering, dripped venom that hissed against the holy wards,
eating light as it passed.
Paladins never had time to raise their spears.
SFX: WHHSSHH—CRACK!
Coils thicker than siege towers whipped sideways.
Bodies burst into red mist and golden confetti.
The new Saints tried to form a wall of scripture.
The serpent's jaws opened.
They were inhaled—silenced.
Scripture wheels spun once… twice… then shattered into quiet snow.
Cassian spun, blade still buried in Kael.
"You—"
The serpent's head lowered, filling the emperor's world with that icy, mesmerizing gaze.
Its tongue flicked once, tasting the air.
A voice, soft and amused, drifted from the serpent without its mouth moving:
Shhh, little tyrant. Playtime is over.
Cassian went pale.
The serpent struck—not to kill, but to silence.
One coil wrapped around his torso, lifting him like a doll,
squeezing until every vertebra sang a note of surrender.
The scripture blade clattered to the floor.
Kael sagged in his restraints,
blood pouring from the wound in his abdomen,
vision narrowing to a single cold blue point.
The serpent turned to him.
Its coils—gentle now, impossibly tender—slid beneath his broken body.
The marrow-spears were lifted free from his wrists,
and Kael was cradled against scales colder than starlight.
He tried to speak.
Veyra—Seraphine—
but his tongue was thick with blood.
The serpent's tongue brushed his cheek, leaving a trail of frost that numbed the agony.
Shhh.
A glimpse—a flash.
The serpent lifted him toward a rift it had torn in the chamber's ceiling.
Perched atop its long, sinuous back stood a woman, elegant as moonlight on water.
Long white hair floated around her in a lightless wind.
Her robes layered and flowing, one sleeve torn to reveal pale skin etched with faint, moving runes that whispered a single word over and over:
quiet… quiet… quiet…
She pressed a finger to her lips.
Smiled.
The serpent carried Kael into the night sky,
Greyspire collapsing behind them like a house of cards finally allowed to fall asleep.
Far below, in the failing sigil-prison the emperor had prepared,
two girls fell through endless dark.
Veyra reached out blindly, fingers brushing nothing.
Seraphine's voice echoed, small and terrified:
"He's gone…"
Then the darkness folded in on itself, swallowing them whole.
Above, the Pale Serpent flew north,
carrying the broken shadow boy toward a horizon that had never existed on any map.
The woman knelt beside Kael, brushing blood-matted hair from his face,
whispering in a voice that tasted of lullabies and winter:
Sleep, little key. The song isn't over. It's only changing key.
The serpent opened its jaws, exhaling a single breath of blue frost.
Where it touched the empire below,
every torch, every ward, every scream
went perfectly, beautifully… quiet.