Seven days had passed since Seris, and her vanguard marched beyond the border.
No messages.
No survivors.
No word.
Only silence.
At first, the palace clung to hope. Priests held nightly vigils in the cathedral. Citizens prayed in the streets, leaving offerings at the temple gates. The king gave speeches about faith and divine favour, and the nobles nodded along, eager to believe their gods would not abandon them.
But by the seventh dawn, even the torches in the palace halls seemed dimmer.
The air had grown heavier. Conversations were shorter. The servants moved quieter, as if afraid that making too much noise might break whatever fragile protection still lingered over Lydia.
Nhilly hadn't slept. Not properly. Every night he stared out his window, watching the unmoving stars. Sometimes, he swore they flickered in patterns not random, but deliberate. Like blinking eyes. Watching. Counting.
He'd heard Celeste crying once, two rooms down. He hadn't gone to her. He wouldn't have known what to say.
Kael trained obsessively, his sword clashing against phantom opponents until dawn.
Eli drank himself numb, cursing the gods, the war, and sometimes, himself.
The silence was killing them all in its own way.
On the eighth morning, a bell tolled deep, hollow, reverberating through the city.
It wasn't the alarm bell. It was the royal summons.
Celeste burst into Nhilly's room before he could even stand. Her eyes were wide, her voice trembling. "The council called us. They said— they said a message arrived from the marshlands."
Nhilly froze mid-motion. "A messenger?"
She nodded quickly. "They think it might be Seris. Or someone from her unit."
For the first time in days, something flickered behind Nhilly's eyes not hope, but the faintest, cruellest echo of it.
He didn't say a word. Just stood and followed.
The council chamber was brighter than he remembered.
The torches blazed high. The banners gleamed in gold and crimson. The councilmen whispered urgently among themselves. The king sat upright on his throne, his crown gleaming in the firelight, his expression taut but expectant.
Kael stood near the centre of the room, fists clenched behind his back. Eli leaned against a pillar, jaw set, eyes red from lack of sleep. Celeste hovered close to Nhilly, hands folded so tightly they trembled.
They'd all been summoned. All four remaining heroes.
Nhilly's heartbeat too loud in the quiet.
The door opened.
A palace attendant stepped in followed by a small figure walking slowly beside him.
A child.
Nhilly's stomach dropped.
The blind boy from the cathedral.
The one who'd tugged at his shirt.
His soft, bare feet padded against the marble, echoing too clearly in the silence. He walked unassisted now, though his eyes were still pale and empty. The attendant behind him looked frightened.
The king straightened. "You are the boy who serves the cathedral?"
The child bowed his head. "Yes, Your Majesty."
"Why are you here?" the king demanded.
"I bring word," the boy said softly, "from the Constellations."
The words cut through the room like a blade.
Celeste gasped, stepping forward. "From the Constellations? Then— then she's alive, isn't she?"
Kael's eyes flickered. "Speak, boy. What did they say?"
The boy hesitated. For a moment, he looked uncertain scared, even. His small hands twisted in the hem of his robe.
Then he raised his head, and his voice though still quiet seemed to echo unnaturally against the chamber walls.
"They said… Hero Seris is dead."
The silence that followed was unbearable.
The king didn't move. The councillors froze mid-breath.
Eli pushed away from the pillar, eyes wide. "What did you just say?"
The boy's lips quivered. "Dead," he repeated, the word trembling out of him. "They said she died… in light and shadow both."
Celeste shook her head violently. "No. No, that's— that's wrong."
"She's not dead," Eli said sharply, almost shouting. "She can't be. She wouldn't just— she's stronger than all of us!"
Kael's voice broke the noise, low and dangerous. "How do you know this, boy?"
"I heard them," he whispered. "The stars. They spoke through me. Their laughter filled the sky."
A chill swept through the chamber.
"What laughter?" Celeste whispered.
The boy tilted his head. "The laughter of gods."
Then it began.
The sound came not from him not from anywhere.
It came from inside them.
Laughter.
Deep. Cold. Overlapping.
Nhilly clutched his head as the voices invaded his mind.
"Ah, our brave little lights dim so beautifully."
"What a performance!"
"She burned so bright, only to die unseen."
"Encore! Encore!"
Eli screamed, throwing his chair across the room. Kael gritted his teeth, blood running from one nostril as he tried to block the sound. Celeste fell to her knees, sobbing, her hands clamped over her ears.
Nhilly felt something tear open in his chest. The laughter wasn't just noise. It was mockery. It was amusement.
He could see flashes Seris's light, the marsh, the blood, the teeth. The sound of the gods' mirth laced through it all.
The boy's small voice cut through the chaos. "They're watching," he said dreamily. "They never stopped watching."
His tone was wrong now stretched, too calm. His sightless eyes rolled back slightly as he smiled.
"The stars love a good tragedy," he whispered. "They say… the show must go on."
And then he laughed.
Not the laughter of a child.
A chorus. A symphony. A thousand divine echoes pouring out of one fragile throat.
The attendants fled the room. The councillors shouted. The king rose, pale and trembling.
The heroes stood frozen.
Celeste sobbed into her hands.
Kael turned away, eyes dark with fury.
Eli whispered, "I'll kill them. I'll kill every last one of them."
Nhilly didn't move. He just stared at the boy at the smile that wasn't his, at the empty eyes filled with something inhuman.
His voice came out quiet, almost detached.
"So this is what the gods find entertaining."
The laughter inside his skull twisted higher, shrieking, euphoric.
"Indeed."
"Dance, little lights."
"Dance until there's nothing left to burn."
Then silence.
The boy collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
Nhilly rose slowly from his chair. The firelight flickered across his face not anger, not grief, just a terrible, hollow calm.
He turned toward the throne.
"Your Majesty," he said quietly, "I think your gods are laughing at you."
The king's expression twisted half fury, half fear.
"Blasphemy!" one of the guards barked. "Seize him!"
Two palace guards rushed forward, spears levelled.
Nhilly didn't move didn't even flinch. Draco's Shroud appeared in his hand like shadow solidifying, the air bending around it.
One breath. One step.
Two heads hit the marble floor.
The sound was dull, final.
The guards' bodies fell after them, blood spreading across the gold-trimmed tiles.
Nhilly stood still, the blade hanging loosely at his side, dripping scarlet.
Maybe it was because he had killed before or maybe because he was too far gone to feel horror anymore but as he stared down at the corpses, something inside him shifted.
They weren't human. Not really.
He could tell.
The way their blood moved wrong, too dark, too slow. The way their faces twitched long after death.
They were never alive to begin with.
Nhilly's grip loosened. The sword faded from his hand.
And in that moment, surrounded by silence and shadows,
Nhilly realized he was broken.