The road north of the Cathedral of Black Echoes wound through lands that had once been called blessed, a region where wheat bent like golden oceans beneath gentle winds and rivers carried silver reflections of cathedral spires in their currents. Now the fields lay flattened into gray husks, the rivers choked with ash that glimmered faintly under moonlight like powdered bone. Saint Noctyra walked through that silence without haste, her steps measured, her obsidian halo dimly pulsing above her brow as if keeping time with some distant, unseen heart. The night around her felt alive, but not with the warmth of crickets or the hush of wind through grass; it was alive with attention. Something in the dark watched her, and something in her watched back.
The abyss within her had grown quieter since she left Aerthas kneeling amid broken mosaics, yet its presence was no less immense. It was like standing at the edge of an ocean that no eye could perceive but whose tide she felt in her veins. She did not speak to it, and it did not intrude upon her thoughts, but an understanding lingered between them—an unspoken covenant bound not by affection but by shared purpose. The Demon Kings breathed somewhere beyond the horizon, and that truth was enough.
Three days into her journey, the sky shifted from violet bruises to a pallid gray that bled across the heavens like watered ink. On the fourth morning, she saw smoke rising in steady spirals from a cluster of rooftops nestled within a shallow valley. It was not the violent, ravenous smoke of burning conquest but the softer plume of hearthfires. Life still persisted there.
The village was called Elaris—though she would not know its name until much later. From the hill where she stood, she observed its narrow streets, its modest stone chapel at the center, its fields cautiously replanted despite the scars of war. Bells rang as she descended, their chime hesitant but resolute. It was the sound of people who still believed that heaven listened.
As she crossed the wooden gate into the village, conversations faltered. Faces turned. Some eyes widened in recognition; others narrowed in suspicion. Her veil, once sheer and luminous, now draped like a shadow across her shoulders. The halo above her brow did not shine—it absorbed light, bending it into a faint corona of midnight.
A child tugged at his mother's skirt and whispered, "Is she…?" The mother hushed him sharply.
Noctyra felt their fear brush against her like a chill wind. She had grown accustomed to it. She offered no smile, no greeting. She merely walked toward the chapel at the village's center, drawn by the faint vibration of prayer rising from within.
The chapel doors stood open. Inside, candlelight flickered against walls adorned with faded frescoes of angels descending in radiant arcs. A handful of villagers knelt before the altar, heads bowed, lips moving in quiet supplication. At the front stood a young priest, scarcely older than twenty, his robes patched but clean, his voice steady as he recited verses older than the empire itself.
"May the Dawn remember us," he intoned, "though we falter. May mercy find us, though we are small."
Noctyra stepped across the threshold.
The temperature dipped. Candle flames quivered.
The priest's voice faltered mid-verse. He turned slowly, and when his gaze fell upon her, confusion crossed his face before recognition struck like a blade.
"Saint…" he breathed, though the word trembled as if unsure whether it should exist.
The villagers followed his gaze. Murmurs rippled through the chapel, disbelief tangled with dread.
Noctyra inclined her head slightly. "You still pray," she observed, her voice low but clear enough to fill the chamber.
The young priest swallowed. "We must."
"Must?" Her gaze drifted across the kneeling figures. "Or hope?"
A woman rose from her knees, her face lined with hardship yet fierce in its defiance. "Hope is all that remains," she said. "Without it, we are already dead."
The abyss stirred faintly within Noctyra, amused perhaps, or contemplative.
She stepped further inside, the wooden floor creaking beneath her boots. "And what do you hope for?"
The priest straightened despite the pallor in his cheeks. "Protection. Deliverance. A sign that we have not been forsaken."
Her obsidian halo pulsed once, faint as a heartbeat.
"And if no sign comes?" she asked.
A silence followed, thick as smoke. Then the priest answered, his voice steadier than before. "Then we will keep praying."
Something flickered in her expression—something almost fragile.
"You know who I am," she said quietly.
"Yes." His eyes did not leave her face. "Saint Noctyra the Veiled."
"Do you know what they call me now?"
The villagers shifted uneasily. No one spoke.
"They call me False Dawn," she continued. "They say my prayers opened the gates for ruin. That my silence invited damnation."
The woman who had risen earlier stepped forward, her gaze unwavering. "People say many things when they are afraid."
Noctyra studied her. "And you are not afraid?"
The woman's jaw tightened. "Of you? Yes. Of losing what little faith remains? More so.?
The priest moved beside the woman, though his hands trembled. "If you have come to judge us," he said, "we have nothing left to give. But if you have come seeking refuge—this chapel is open."
The simplicity of his offer struck her harder than accusation ever could.
"I do not seek refuge," she replied. "I seek a Demon King."
A collective gasp rippled through the chapel.
"There is one near," she continued, her gaze distant. "Its presence coils across the northern marshlands. It feeds not on flesh, but on despair. It whispers to those who kneel too long in prayer."
The priest's face drained of color. "We have heard… voices," he admitted, almost to himself. "At night. Promises that the pain would end if we only—"
"Stop," Noctyra said sharply.
The shadows at her feet stirred, curling like living smoke. "Do not listen. That is how it binds you."
The woman's defiance wavered. "Can you stop it?"
The question hung in the air, heavy with fragile hope.
Noctyra hesitated—not outwardly, but within. The abyss shifted, eager, sensing prey.
"Yes," she said at last. "But not without cost."
The priest drew a breath. "What cost?"
Her gaze swept across the chapel—the candles, the cracked frescoes, the villagers clutching rosaries worn thin by desperate fingers.
"Faith," she answered.
Confusion furrowed his brow. "Faith in what?"
"In me."
The word landed like a stone in still water.
"You ask us to replace heaven with you?" the woman demanded, suspicion flaring anew.
"No," Noctyra replied evenly. "I ask you to trust that I will kill what hunts you. Nothing more."
The priest studied her face, searching perhaps for the luminous saint of old. "And if you fail?"
"Then your prayers will not save you."
Silence again. Heavy. Trembling.
At last, the priest spoke in a single, unbroken stream, his voice gaining strength with each word as though conviction itself carried him forward: "We are tired of waiting for miracles that do not come, Saint Noctyra. We are tired of burying children while chanting verses about divine plans. If a demon stalks our nights, then we will not kneel and ask permission to live—we will stand beside you, even if our knees shake, even if our faith fractures, because doing nothing has already cost too much.
So if you intend to face this creature, you will not do so alone."
The villagers murmured in agreement, fear mingling with fragile resolve.
Noctyra regarded them in silence.
The abyss whispered softly within her. They will break.
"Perhaps," she murmured under her breath.
Then she lifted her gaze to the priest. "Gather those willing. At dusk, we march."
As the villagers dispersed to prepare, the woman remained behind.
"You do not look like the stories," she said quietly.
"Stories rarely survive truth," Noctyra replied.
The woman studied the obsidian halo. "Does it hurt?"
A pause.
"Yes."
The honesty surprised them both.
"Then perhaps," the woman said softly, "you are still human."
Noctyra turned toward the chapel doors, the gray sky beyond heavy with gathering storm.
"Do not mistake pain for humanity," she answered. "Monsters feel pain as well."
Yet as she stepped into the open air and the villagers rallied behind her, a faint warmth stirred somewhere beneath the abyssal tide within her chest—fragile, flickering, but not yet extinguished.
Far to the north, across marshlands veiled in mist, something ancient shifted and smiled without lips.
And Saint Noctyra walked toward it, not as heaven's chosen, nor as abyss's puppet—but as something undefined, forged in ruin and sharpened by loss, leading a kingdom that still dared to pray into the mouth of gathering darkness.