The Valley of Winds had transformed the graveyard.
Where moments ago there had been grassland and rock, now there stood a labyrinth of ice.
Pillars thicker than ancient trees rose from the earth, their surfaces smooth as glass and cold as death.
They branched and twisted, creating a maze of crystalline passages that reflected lightning in a thousand different directions.
Kael moved through it like the predator he was—instinct guiding him where sight failed, his enhanced senses tracking minute changes in air pressure and temperature.
But everywhere he turned, there she was.
The princess walked among her creation as though it were a garden cultivated for her pleasure.
The Winter Robe flowed around her—not fabric but solidified cold given the appearance of cloth. It moved with her every gesture, an extension of her will.
Her rapier had changed too. The blade now glowed with inner light, frost crawling along its length in patterns that hurt to look at directly.
She pointed it at Kael, who crouched atop one of the ice pillars, lightning crackling around his body in protective arcs.
"This is beautiful, isn't it?" Her voice echoed strangely in the frozen forest. "My ancestors could create entire kingdoms of ice. Cities that lasted centuries." She traced one finger along the nearest pillar, and it grew taller in response. "I'm still learning. But this... this is a start."
Kael said nothing. Spoke would waste breath he needed for survival.
His body had changed with Un Fenrir. The wolf-spirit construct that surrounded him wasn't just for show—it was an extension of his will, his rage, his desperate need to protect those who had run.
Lightning flowed through his veins like a second bloodstream. His senses had sharpened to inhuman levels.
But he could feel it: the cost. The technique was burning through his lifespan like kindling. Every second in this form shaved years from his future.
He'd known the price when he pulled his own fang.
He didn't care.
"Your silence is disappointing," the princess continued conversationally. "I expected more defiance from the last great chieftain of the direwolves."
She began walking toward his pillar, rapier trailing beside her. "Tell me—do you regret staying to fight? You could have run with the others."
His response came not in words but action.
The wolf-construct lunged, crossing the distance in a blur. Lightning trailed from its jaws as they snapped toward the princess's throat—
Her rapier moved in a circle.
"(Frozen Circle.)"
A perfect ring of ice materialized in the construct's path.
When the lightning-wolf struck it, the impact sent shockwaves rippling through the entire forest.
Ice shattered.
Lightning arced wildly.
The princess stood untouched in the center, smiling.
"Crude," she observed. "Powerful, yes. But crude."
Kael landed in a crouch twenty paces away, reassessing. The construct reformed around him, slightly smaller than before. He was losing energy.
"(White Hunt,)" the princess said casually.
From a dozen different ice pillars, shapes emerged. Wolves made of solid ice, each the size of a horse.
Their eyes glowed with the same violet light as their creator's. They moved with uncanny fluidity for things made of frozen water.
They surrounded Kael in seconds.
He exploded outward with lightning, destroying three of them in one burst. But the others were already on him—ice fangs snapping, frost spreading from every point of contact.
One caught his leg. He felt the terrible cold seeping through even his enhanced form, felt his movements starting to slow—
Thunder roared as he unleashed everything he had left.
The pillar beneath him shattered. The ice wolves disintegrated. A wave of lightning and wind tore through the frozen forest, toppling pillars and clearing a hundred-foot circle around him.
When the dust settled, he stood breathing hard, blood dripping from a dozen shallow cuts where ice had found flesh.
The princess appeared from behind a pillar that had somehow survived intact. Her expression was thoughtful.
"You're dying," she observed clinically. "The technique is consuming you. I'd estimate... three more minutes before your heart gives out?"
Kael's teeth bared in something too savage to be called a smile. "Then I'd better make them count."
"Indeed." She raised her rapier in a formal salute. "I'll admit something, wolf. I respect your courage. It's foolish and suicidal, but courageous nonetheless."
"And I'll admit something, princess." His voice was rough, half-growl. "I don't care if I die here. As long as my people escape, I've won."
"Have you?" Her head tilted. "What makes you think I'll let them escape after I'm done with you?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Did you really believe one duel would save them?" She laughed—not cruelly, just... amused. "I have an army, wolf. Thousands of soldiers. Right now they're hunting down every fleeing tribesman they can find. Your sacrifice buys them time, yes. But time to what? Delayed death?"
Kael's fists clenched so hard his claws drew blood from his own palms.
"That anger," she continued. "Hold onto it. Channel it. Give me a proper final fight." Her rapier came up. "Let's end this with glory, at least. I'll remember you as worthy."
The lightning around Kael intensified until he stood at the center of a miniature storm. The wolf-construct grew larger, more defined, until it was almost solid.
"(MAGEI KARA UN FENRIR—)" His voice rose to a roar. "—FINAL FANG!)"
Everything he had left poured into one last technique. The wolf-construct became blinding light.
Lightning fell from the sky like rain. The wind itself screamed with released pressure.
Kael became the storm incarnate and hurled himself at the princess with all the desperate fury of someone protecting their last remaining family.
The princess met him with ice that could freeze time itself.
What happened next would be recorded in survivor testimony as the moment the valley itself died—when winter claimed dominion over a land that had known only wind.
***
Miles away, Violet stumbled and caught herself against a tree.
The mana signature in the distance had just peaked—then suddenly dropped by half.
One of the two powers was fading.
She didn't need to ask which one.
Vael felt it too. His stride faltered. His head turned south, toward the battle he couldn't see.
"Dad..." The word was barely a whisper.
Violet grabbed his arm before he could make a decision he'd regret. "I need to go back! If this goes on no one will survive...
"But—"
"I KNOW." She pulled him forward with strength she didn't know she still had. "I know it hurts.
I know you want to go back. But if you die too, then what was it for? What did he buy with his life?"
Vael's eyes were wet. Not crying—wolves don't cry—but wet nonetheless.
They kept running.
Behind them, in the Valley of Winds, frost began to claim everything in sight.
The battle had reached its end.
***