In a locked chamber deeper within the ruins, a young woman pressed her back against the heavy oak door.
She trembled, holding it shut with everything she had left.
Dust filled the air. The stone walls around her were cracked and trembling. The wind outside howled like something alive.
She wore a torn royal gown of faded red and silver, now stained with soot and dried blood. Her blonde hair hung in tangled strands around her face, once braided with gold thread, now frayed and wild. Her blue eyes darted with panic, rimmed with exhaustion and tears. Pale, ghostly skin stretched tight across her face, making her look more specter than queen.
She cursed under her breath.
"This… This is how it ends?"
She looked at the broken mirror on the wall, as if hoping for a different answer.
"No," she muttered, voice low with hatred. "It ends because of him."
She clenched her fists.
"My great ancestor… had to fight the gods. Had to deceive them. And now we all pay for it…"
A low growl.
A sudden slam.
She turned nut it was too late.
The door exploded inward.
Wood and iron splinters flew across the room. She fell back, screaming.
Gnarlings poured in, their eyes wild, jaws snapping. One pounced. Another crawled over the ceiling. They shrieked as they closed in, claws raised, mouths wide.
She curled up, whispering prayers.
And the dark swallowed her.
Tithonus moved through the halls like a shadow.
Aetherfang pulsed faintly in his grip, the golden blade shifting with his steps it was now a spear. The radiance it emitted was dim, restrained. He was conserving what little vitality he had left.
As he turned a corner, the stench struck him first.
Blood. Rot.
"Something is… wrong."
His steps slowed.
Ahead, a group of Gnarlings huddled in a half-collapsed chamber. They writhed, snorted, and fought among themselves, screeching, snapping their jagged teeth, driven mad by hunger and something deeper.
Tithonus didn't wait.
He raised the blade. Wings of golden light flared from his back, pushing him forward with a sudden burst of speed. He landed among them like a falling star.
The first Gnarling lunged, he caught it mid-air and slammed it into the stone floor, the sound like breaking bones in a cave of drums.
Aetherfang shifted into a chainblade, lashing through the next two in a single sweeping arc. Their flesh hissed where the blade touched, ichor boiling into steam. The light from the weapon scorched their eyes, blinding them.
Another leapt from the side.
He ducked, then drove the blade upward into its chest, and the creature burst into motes of golden ash.
Silence.
Only his ragged breath and the sizzling echo of divine flame remained.
Then, he saw her.
His heartbeat stuttered.
In the corner of the room, tossed like garbage beneath a shattered pillar, was the body of a young woman. No, not just a woman she seemed to be wearing the clothes of nobility. Her once-elegant gown hung in blood-soaked ribbons. Her limbs, both arms and one leg, had been ripped clean, jagged stumps still oozing fresh blood.
Her breathing was shallow. Too shallow.
Her face was slack, pale as parchment.
And beneath her…
A Garnling.
Its penis dug into her hips, its grotesque body still pressed against hers, its maw smeared with her blood.
Bile rose in Tithonus' throat. His vision swam. For a moment, he thought he might vomit.
Tithonus staggered.
He dropped to his knees, bile rising in his throat.
He looked away, biting his tongue until it bled. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
He didn't think.
The blade in his hand ignited with gold and fire, becoming a glowing javelin.
He hurled it.
It struck the last Gnarling in the chest with a wet crack. The creature was thrown backward, its spine snapping against the wall like dry wood. It screeched, limbs spasming, pinned to the stone like an insect to glass.
The flesh around the wound began to sizzle, the divine heat cauterizing and burning deep into the muscle and organs, but it didn't die cleanly.
It writhed.
It shrieked.
Its eyes bulged from its skull, pus and bile dripping from its fanged maw. Then, with a final gasp, its neck slumped to the side. Smoke rose from the puncture, black and greasy.
Its body hit the floor with a heavy thud, blood pooling thick and dark beneath it.
He turned back to the girl and, gently now, lifted her into his arms. She was impossibly light, like something already half gone.
He carried her to a cracked window where moonless twilight filtered in, setting her down beneath the dusty light.
He pressed Aetherfang to her chest.
"Come on," he whispered. "Let her not be beyond this… please."
Golden veins of light spread from the blade into her body. First it knit the open wounds closed, sealing the jagged edges of flesh, then bone began to regrow, slow and trembling like branches reaching for the sun. Muscle wrapped around them in cords of divine light, then pale skin shimmered into place as if painted by invisible hands.
She gasped.
Her body spasmed.
Then she opened her eyes, blue as a storm sky.
She sat up with a cry, startled, clutching her sides.
Tithonus knelt nearby, exhaustion weighing down every limb. He offered a tired nod.
"You're safe," he said, voice low.
She looked around the ruined chamber. "Where… where am I? What happened?"
"You were attacked. There were… things." He paused. "You don't remember?"
Her brow furrowed. She shook her head slowly. "No. Just darkness. I ran… then I woke up here."
Tithonus felt the tension in his chest ease.
A small mercy.
She didn't remember the horror.
He looked down at his hands, they still slick with blood, both hers and theirs.
He had seen many things. Endured far worse.
But something about this-this fragile, broken girl amid ruins and monsters, felt like a crack in the armor he had worn for centuries.
He stood slowly, voice steady.
"We need to move. You can rest later. What's your name?"
She blinked. "Elara."