The city never truly slept.
Even at night, its streets hummed with tension—torchlight flickering against steel walls, watchtowers whispering orders down through crystal relays, patrols stomping in unison like gears in some enormous, merciless machine. But in the gaps, in the cracks between banners and chants, silence lived.
And Rein moved through that silence.
He no longer carried crates or tools. Not tonight. Tonight he was just a man, hood pulled low, slipping between alleys lined with cracked brick and magic-scoured stone. The people here had long since learned not to speak after dark. Not even to their own children.
But their eyes spoke plenty.
Fear. Exhaustion. Surrender.
He paused beside a ruined archway and watched a family sleep on straw woven into mats. A mother held two children close, her arms wrapped around them like they were the only barrier between them and the world.
And in a way, they were.
Rein turned away.
He had seen enough of this. Of people forced to live under the weight of someone else's glory.
And yet…
He remembered crowds cheering for him once. He remembered children shouting his name. Remembered how good it had felt. Righteous. Noble. Like justice given form.
He had believed in it.
He wasn't sure he did anymore.
He found the old temple near the edge of the city, where the light of the Citadel was weakest.
It had once been a place of worship, its spires shaped like open hands, its floors carved from pale stone veined with starlight ore. But now, it was half-collapsed, its roof torn open like a wound, its icons defaced. And yet the air was calm, almost sacred.
He stepped inside.
A voice spoke behind him, old and cracked.
"You carry divine heat, but not his. Yours burns quieter."
Rein turned.
The speaker was a frail man in priestly robes patched with common thread. His eyes were pale, but saw sharply. In his left hand he held a long staff that pulsed faintly—an old relic, half-broken. His back was hunched, but his presence filled the ruined space with something more than age.
Rein said nothing.
The man stepped closer. "Not from here, are you?"
"No."
"I thought not." He looked up. "The fire around you whispers. Not like his."
"You know Valen."
"I knew him." The priest sat slowly on a stone bench. "Before all this."
Rein hesitated, then sat across from him.
"I was his teacher, once. When he was just a boy with a too-big sword and dreams of saving the world."
A pause.
"I buried that boy a long time ago."
They spoke for hours.
The priest's name was Isareth. He had once served as High Flamekeeper of the Iron Monastery—the place where Valen was raised, trained, blessed by the gods. He had watched the boy become a man, watched him lead armies and topple horrors. Watched him bleed for others.
And then… he watched something else.
"The war ended," Isareth said. "And the Demon King fell. But Valen came back… changed."
Rein tensed. "How?"
Isareth looked down. "They say the Demon King bled onto Valen's sword. That the blood of such a being, thick with forbidden power, seeped through the steel. Into the flesh. Into the soul. It was slow at first. But it changed him."
"Poison?" Rein asked.
"Worse. A curse disguised as strength. It amplified him. Amplified everything. His fear. His pride. His love. His rage."
Isareth's hands trembled. "He said he could see the future. That only he could protect this world. That the people needed order, and that he would give it to them—even if it meant crushing their will."
Rein stared at the broken altar.
"And no one stopped him?"
"We tried." The priest's voice broke. "He burned the monastery to ash. Those who survived serve him now. Or pretend to."
"And you?"
"I fled. I kept this place. It's the only temple he hasn't destroyed." He looked at Rein again. "Perhaps because he wants to forget it ever existed."
They fell into silence again.
Until Rein asked, "Can he be saved?"
Isareth didn't answer immediately.
Then, softly, "You believe he can."
"I don't know what I believe."
"Yes, you do," Isareth said. "You were a hero once, weren't you?"
Rein closed his eyes.
"I was."
"And you still are. You wouldn't be here otherwise."
Rein looked down at his hands. "I was told to kill him. That he's too far gone."
"By a god?"
Rein nodded.
"Gods don't always tell the full truth."
"I know."
Another pause.
Isareth leaned forward. "Then let's try. One last time. Before you raise your blade, let's try."
They began searching.
Not for weapons, but for answers.
Old texts. Broken scrolls. Forgotten relics buried beneath temple rubble. Isareth showed Rein how the curse might be undone—how blood magic could be reversed under the right conditions, at the right place, with the right soul to anchor it.
A soul like Rein's.
But as they worked, doubt crept in.
Whispers in the night. Visions in dreams.
And a voice in Rein's head—not Isareth's.
Not his own.
"He is already gone."
It was Arios.
"His mind has been devoured by power. You saw what he did. What he became. This path leads only to failure."
But Rein ignored the voice.
He had to try.
He owed it to Valen.
To the man he once might've become.
But three nights later, as they lit the final brazier and opened the seal beneath the temple's floor, the voice returned—louder.
"End this. You were not sent to heal. You were sent to judge."
Rein fell to one knee, clutching his head.
Isareth rushed to him. "What is it?"
"He's… speaking."
"The god?"
Rein nodded. "He says it won't work."
Isareth's face twisted with pain. "Then we prove him wrong."
But Rein didn't rise.
Because deep down… he felt it too.
This wasn't resistance.
It was obsession.
Valen had chosen to believe he was the world's last light. He had embraced the power. Not fought it.
Perhaps once, long ago, there had been a chance to save him.
But not now.
Now, he ruled through fear. Through fire.
And those chains didn't come from the curse.
They came from within.
Rein stood slowly.
His shoulders were heavy.
"I have to kill him," he said. "Don't I?"
Isareth looked away. "Yes."
Silence.
Then, quietly, "If you do… burn his crown. Not his name."
Rein frowned. "What do you mean?"
"He was a boy once. Let the people remember that. Don't let his grave become another throne."
As the sun rose, hidden behind clouds of ash, Rein left the temple.
The sword had still not appeared.
But soon, it would.
And when it did, he would walk alone to the Citadel.
Not as a weapon.
Not as a god's servant.
But as a ghost of a hero.