The night settled over the camp like an ancient veil.
The fires burned at spaced intervals, not for comfort, but out of necessity — circles of contained light surrounded by dense shadows.
The wood cracked at irregular intervals, small dry explosions that broke the silence just enough to remind that the world was still breathing.
Further back, set apart from the others, Éreon stood motionless.
He was upright, hands relaxed at his sides, his gaze fixed toward the east.
He was not observing the terrain — he was passing through it.
As if the past and something not yet revealed occupied the same horizon.
Sèsinmè approached without announcing her presence.
Her dark skin caught the unstable reflection of the fire, taking on a soft glow, almost ritual.
The red tips threaded through her long hair swayed discreetly with each step, silent like marks of ancient blood that never fade.
Her silver-gray eyes remained alert, not to Éreon himself, but to the space around him — like someone reading an invisible map.
She stopped a few steps away.
She did not invade his space. Nor did she remain too far.
She drew a deep breath once, long and controlled.
"You regret it?" she asked.
Her voice came low, measured.
There was no accusation. No ordinary curiosity. It was a statement released into the air, waiting for an echo.
The crackle of a nearby fire answered before Éreon did.
He did not move.
"Is there something that demands regret?" he replied, without turning his face.
Sèsinmè tilted her head slightly.
A minimal gesture.
An acknowledgment.
A brief smile crossed her lips — too short to be comfort, too long to be casual.
"At our first meeting…" she said.
She paused.
The silence was not empty; it was charged with intent.
"In the territory of Viscount Ardentis, I presented you with three paths."
The wind swept through the camp, making the flames lean for an instant, as if listening.
"The first…" she continued, "cost little, but took time."
"The second… required predictable sacrifices."
The interval was intentional.
"Both offered less risk."
She took a lateral step, entering part of his field of vision, still without forcing his gaze.
"And yet, you chose the third."
The red tips in her hair reflected the fire as she lifted her chin slightly.
"The only one that promised no return."
"The same path that did not lead to one of yours…" — she corrected herself softly — "but to two."
The silence that followed was deeper.
No immediate reaction.
No gesture.
The wood in the fire cracked again, louder now, breaking under its own heat.
Sèsinmè did not complete the thought.
She did not ask for explanations.
She did not offer judgment.
She simply remained there.
Waiting.
And Éreon, still facing east, breathed.
Time seemed to stretch in that interval — as if the world awaited the shape that answer would take.
Then Éreon spoke.
"There are things time does not carry whole."
A short pause. Not hesitation — overlap.
"Some yield…" he continued. "Others… only come into being after they are broken."
The words hung in the air.Not as provocation.As ancient law.
Sèsinmè did not respond immediately.
"That's why…" she said at last, "you did not send reinforcements."
Éreon spoke then, without changing his posture:
"Arriving intact… is also a form of loss."
No explanation followed.
None was needed.
Sèsinmè inclined her head slightly.
"And still there are things that must cross intact…""so that others may break."
Her gaze did not seek his face, but the space around him — as if assessing invisible currents.
"Containing the northern wind…""Walking where the sea does not accept footsteps…"
A pause.
"That kind of shaping requires rupture.""Not connection."
Silence.
"Those who preserve bonds… sustain.""Those who break them… win."
She turned her gaze to Éreon now, direct.
"But rarely… both in the same body."
The flames stirred lightly, as if reacting to the sentence.
Éreon's gaze shifted for an instant.
To one of the nearest cabins, where some warriors rested in silence, shadows flickering across leather and wood walls.
When his violet eyes returned, they met the silver-gray ones.
Sèsinmè held his gaze.
Not as confrontation. As a momentary alignment of pieces.
"I only recommend caution," she continued. "On the board, the king only falls when everything is already over."
A minimal pause.
"The piece that decides the game… never remains to the end."
Then the smile appeared.
Slow.
Contained.
Not of agreement — of confirmation.
"Then…" Éreon said, his voice low, final, "we are observing the same center."
Neither of them added anything else.
In the east, the center had already yielded.
The courtyard was no longer a courtyard.
The stone had collapsed in multiple points, open craters like still-hot wounds, some exhaling thick steam where rain met the heat trapped beneath fractured ground.
Broken columns lay scattered at impossible angles, remnants of support that now only marked zones of death.
The stained glass no longer existed.
Only the mutilated arch remained, jagged edges dripping water mixed with blood — no one knew whose.
Between the craters, darkness thickened before light could even touch it.
Wolves.
They did not emerge.
They were already in motion.
Quadruped forms made of compressed shadow, too dense to be smoke, too unstable to be flesh.
Their contours rippled with each stride, as if the body had to reorganize itself to continue existing.
They did not howl.
They advanced.
Three broke from the left, tearing through the curtain of rain in long leaps, paws crushing puddles and loose stone in predatory cadence.
Two emerged from the rear, projecting directly from fissures in the ground, as if the ruin itself had expelled them.
The last remained motionless for an instant longer.
Observing.
Reading.
The figure did not retreat.
The base adjusted — feet too firm for the wet stone, knees flexed, center low.
The space around him readjusted.
The first wolf reached impact distance.
There was no collision.
The form struck an invisible containment — not a block, but an absolute refusal — and came apart under brutal compression, shadow crushed and dispersed like ink against nonexistent glass.
The second tried to correct.
Too late.
The figure rotated his torso with the step.
The diverted force twisted the creature's body midair. The paws lost alignment; the form collapsed before being hurled against an already broken column.
No sound.
Only absence.
The third came in low, jaws open.
It came close enough to try to bite.
It did not touch.
The space yielded against it.
The form was compressed, folded in on itself, until it lost coherence — shadow reduced to unstable fragments that dissipated before touching the ground.
Fragments of shadow still tried to remain.
Not as form — as residue.
Dark threads streamed through the heavy air, touching the figure for an instant too short to be read.
There was contact.
The shadows recoiled in the same breath they touched — drawn in, denied, or gathered back, impossible to tell.
Nothing remained on the ground.
No mark.No echo.
The two from the rear were already upon him.
Éon moved.
The katana stayed low, the blade nearly grazing the soaked stone, as he advanced in the exact interval in which the figure resettled his base.
The first movement did not seek a cut.
It sought position.
Short step.Closed angle.
Éon entered with the advance of the remaining wolves, using the creatures' bodies as a displacement mask.
The reading came too late — not of the attack, but of the overlap.
The figure lagged.
Not from incapacity — from excess of layers.
The blade appeared in the interval.
Short.Surgical — it did not dig deep.
It slid.
Steel grazing skin.
A precise line opened across the figure's neck.
Hot blood.Little.Enough.
The reaction came in the same breath.
The space around the figure contracted violently, crushing the remaining wolves until their forms collapsed into unstable fragments.
The counterattack came with it.
Direct.Final.
But Éon was no longer there.
In the instant the force was released, he switched places.
Where his head would have been, a broken column appeared.
The impact struck full on.
The stone exploded.
Fragments tore through the air, the ground giving way under concentrated pressure.
If it had been flesh — there would have been no second movement.
The rain swallowed the silence.
Éon reappeared a few meters away, different base.
Looser body.Lower posture.
The rhythm… different.
No longer containment.
Now, conscious predation.
The figure straightened slowly.
The space between them tightened.
Éon inhaled.
Short.Precise.
The blade rose — not into guard, not in threat.
A minimal arc.
He spoke.
Low.
Functional.
"Shadow marionette."
The figure lowered its gaze.
Black half-moons traced themselves on the skin — not as wounds, but as script.
A brief narrowing of the eyes.
Interest.
"Rupture."
The blade descended in a short arc, almost careless.
It did not seek flesh.
It cut threads.
Black threads invisible at distance, tensioned in the air like hidden ribs.
The space trembled at the exact point of the gesture.
The marks opened at the same time.
Blood ran under the rain.
The body yielded in several points.Not enough to fall.Enough to register.
The figure remained standing.
A second passed.
Then another.
No attempt to close.
Rain entered the open fissures.Vapor rose in low, creeping strands.
A short smile.Satisfied.
"So…" it murmured.
The first cut began to recompose.Slowly.As if the flesh had to be convinced.
"the wolves…"
Another closed.A muscle readjusted beneath the skin.
"were for this."
Silence.
The remaining wounds began to follow the rhythm.Not together.Not fast.
In sequence.
The body accepted.It did not erase.
The gaze changed.
Not surprise.Recognition.
A dry crack in the neck.
It scented the air.
Only then did it speak, voice low, compressed:
"Jörmungandr… was right."
Pause.
"Beast form… is wasted force."
Its gaze traveled over Éon.
Base.Tension.Rhythm.
"Too large.""Too slow."
Heavy silence.
"Mortal body… concentrates."
Another step.
"Enters where the beast does not.""Kills where mass fails."
The rain seemed to hesitate.
"This body… is better."
Nothing moved.
Not even the rain.
The droplets hung suspended in the air for an instant too short to be time,too long to be chance.
The weight did not come from the body.
It came from the decision.
The space answered before any word.
"You proved that."
The air grew heavy.
"Serve."
One step.
"Swear."
Another pause.
"Loyalty."
"To me."
One more instant.
"First son of Loki."
The name came last.
"Fenrir."
The space yielded.
"Do this…""and I do not break you."