The battlefield was no longer ground—it was a crucible.
Stone melted beneath magic. Trees burned and screamed in ancient tongues. The Hollow Choir reeled from Rose and Mortain's onslaught, but they were not yet broken. They regrouped quickly, shifting into new formations, weaving new illusions.
Rose didn't let up.
With each heartbeat, she hurled flame—controlled, surgical, brutal. The Bramble Fire had stopped feeling like a tool. It was part of her now. It knew where to strike before she did, driven not just by rage, but by purpose.
Then something changed.
A new figure emerged from the depths of the Choir. Not one of the shifting specters or half-shaped regrets, but solid. Real. Clad in robes darker than shadow and crowned with a halo of silence.
"Who the hell is that?" Basil said from behind her. He was still miraculously alive, now armed with a fork and an apple that may or may not have been cursed.
Mortain tensed beside her. "That's the Mouthless King."
Rose's fire dimmed for a breath. The name itself was heavy.
She could feel him without even touching him. The King's aura smothered the battlefield like a burial shroud. His presence sang with promises of endings—quiet ones, final ones.
He raised a hand.
The Choir surged.
But instead of attacking, they sang into themselves, weaving their song inward, toward the King.
Rose's eyes widened. "He's going to absorb their power."
Mortain cursed, electricity dancing dangerously from his fingertips. "If he does, he won't just silence us. He'll erase us."
Without waiting for orders, Rose charged.
The fire around her screamed with her—wild and alive and furious. She launched into the air with a burst of Bramble energy, arching toward the King like a comet. The sky bent around her path, and her cloak flared like wings of flame.
He turned his head.
He saw her.
And in that instant, she saw him—not his face, but his essence.
He wasn't made of darkness. He was made of quiet love twisted into something monstrous. A being who had once sought peace through silence, now corrupted by the belief that destruction was mercy.
She hurled the Bramble Fire at him.
He caught it with a single hand.
The flames flickered, then died.
Time paused.
Then the King spoke—not aloud, but inside her.
You burn so brightly. Too brightly. You will ruin everything. Let me hush you.
Rose's heart thundered in her chest. Not with fear, but defiance.
She thought of Bramblewood. Of Emberfen. Of Basil and Nimbus and Mortain. Of the witches who came before her.
She drew in a deep breath and whispered, "No."
And then Mortain appeared behind her, his hands outstretched.
Together, they struck.
A lance of lightning met a surge of Bramble Fire—and it all collided into the Mouthless King.
The explosion tore the silence.
And for the first time, the King staggered.
He bled light.
He bled possibility.
The war was not yet over.
But now, they knew the King could bleed.