An icy blade jutted clean through his stomach.
Right through him—
Right through the box. The intended target.
"I knew it."
A voice. Deep. Furious. Familiar.
Winter.
He lifted Fall on his sword and flung him against the nearest stall. Ghosts scattered, shrieking in the distance.
The entire place went still.
As if the world itself held its breath.
He turned to Spring, expression unreadable.
"Good to see you again, Spring. I see you kept yourself busy."
The words sounded somewhat polite, but his face was grim. She'd never seen him like that.
Guilt crept in. She couldn't meet his eyes.
But it didn't last.
The Veil's memory stirred. Not visions—just the way it felt.
Very close to a form of betrayal.
"Winter."
Her tone was steady.
It made him falter. Barely, but it was there.
Then—
Fall appeared out of thin air between them, eyes locked on Winter.
"Winter. It's been a while," he smirked. "You still have an oddly rude way of greeting people."
He tried to sound like himself, but his breath betrayed him—unsteady, laboured.
Winter looked down. A long pause.
"Spring…"
At the sound of her name, she jolted.
The way he said it—direct, broken.
Winter stepped back slowly, sword still crackling with icy shards.
"You let him walk you through the Veil?"
His voice was a blade slipping under flesh.
"You let him in again. After everything he did."
He saw it. Her hesitation. Her uncertainty.
To him, it was plain as day.
A flicker of pain cracked Winter's perfect composure. It vanished in a blink.
Fall chuckled.
Dangerous.
"I must admit, Winter. Spring says my audacity is incredible, but you… you're in a league of your own."
Winter's jaw clenched.
"Did you tell her, Fall?"
He spat the name like poison.
Fall's smile vanished.
He lunged. Shadows burst from his back, ripping through the space between them.
But Winter didn't flinch.
He parried every blow with elegance, barely shifting his stance.
It was like a dance—
If the dance was made to kill.
Fall's wound slowed him. It pulsed, and Winter's magic held him back.
Spring froze, breath quivering.
She didn't understand.
What were they talking about?
A burst of air exploded from Winter's right sword, slicing through shadow and slamming into Fall's chest.
Chains of frost snapped across his body, locking him in place.
Fall gasped.
Shadows curled across him in defense—but the ice held.
He stood trapped. Upright. Defiant.
Unmoving.
"This was your plan all along, wasn't it?"
Winter's voice was low.
"Slither back, hoping she'll forgive you. Believe your half-truths. Your pretty excuses."
His gaze slid to Spring.
"And it almost worked, didn't it?"
Fall laughed. Quiet.
But dangerous.
"Damn, Winter. Been a while since you looked in a mirror, huh?"
Then, lower—venom in every word.
"You took everything from me."
Winter'e eyes narrowed.
"I brought you back."
Spring's voice trembled out, barely audible.
"What…"
Her gaze jumped between them.
She didn't even know who she was asking.
Winter's eyes softened.
"You want to know why there were no Royals when the trial started, Spring?"
Fall's eyes widened.
He snapped to Winter, shadows flaring so hard the frost cracked.
He lunged—again.
Winter parried.
"Don't—!" Fall shouted, desperate.
"Don't you dare—"
Winter's grin grew.
"Why not?"
Their blades locked.
"Afraid she'll see you for what you really are?"
Darkness and frost burst through the clearing—blades and claws flashing.
Still, Winter danced around every strike.
Poised. Precise. Pristine.
They paused.
Staring.
Then Winter turned to Spring, voice like a dagger wrapped in silk.
"He's dangerous, Spring."
"DON'T—!" Fall roared, voice broken. He lunged again.
Winter stepped aside with effortless grace. Eyes still on her.
"He killed them. All of them."
Silence.
"Everyone who looked up to him. To us."
Fall flinched. Breath hitched. Shoulders sank.
His shadows dimmed.
"Everyone we trained with. Talked with. Gone. In one night."
He looked at Spring.
She wasn't looking back.
Just—
Still.
Silent.
That silence…
It was too familiar.
It felt like rejection.
Like an accusation.
Like the end—again.
Fall's arms dropped. His breath ragged.
That was all Winter needed.
He struck.
Fingers twisted in Fall's hair.
Dragged him down.
His knees hit the earth.
A blade to his throat.
Fall didn't resist.
Didn't move.
Didn't fight.
The shadows hissed.
His breath slowed.
The last flicker of defiance… gone.
She knows.
It was too much to hope for.
But at least—
The Veil.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
It was more than he deserved.
It was enough.
He knelt, trembling.
One heartbeat from nothing.
Winter turned to Spring, his voice almost gentle.
"I didn't want you to know, Spring. I didn't want you hurt again because of him. Your heartbreak was bad enough."
He paused. His face hardened.
"But this… this is too much. You know it. This is what he chose after the ascension. Blood and betrayal."
She couldn't breathe.
Her thoughts barely formed.
Winter stepped closer. Blade tight against Fall's throat.
"Let's just end this now," he whispered.
"And go home, love."
Love…
It hit her like a spear.
Straight through every wall.
Through every carefully buried crack.
Straight into the memories she swore she forgot.
Love.
Images.
His fingers brushing her skin.
The soft way he touched her.
Her heart clenched.
The questions—
Do you love me?
His voice—soft, coaxing.
Words like velvet, edged with steel.
The cage.
Beautiful.
Golden.
A nightmare gilded in warmth.
The way he reached through the bars.
Fed her.
Kissed her.
That kiss.
So soft.
So deliberate.
So wrong.
Something is wrong.
God, I want to kill them both—
Something inside her cracked.
Winter made a move—
But before it reached Fall,
Spring raised her hand in front of her.
The air split.
Her arcane burst out like a blade—
A wild, vicious slice of wind.
It was raw, uncontrolled.
But targeted.
Winter flew backward, ripped from his stance, crashing into the dirt.
Fall gasped. Body slumped forward.
Spring ran.
In a blink, she took Winter's hand and pointed it to Fall.
A ripple cracked beneath him—he vanished right through it.
"Spring, what are you—"
She moved his hand again and pointed at her feet.
She dropped through another ripple.
Leaving Winter behind.
She dropped.
And dropped.
Through sky.
Falling like a dying star.
Just before hitting the ground—
Her arcane caught her.
She hovered—
And then dropped like a stone.
Face-first into the grass.
She found herself kneeling in a clearing, surrounded by trees. A deep mist was settling over the world around.
Filled with stillness.
Silence.
She looked at the sky. The moon was with her.
Just the moon.
It was over.
She got up.
Her body too heavy for her feet.
Not from weight—
But from everything boiling within.
"Fall?" she called, barely a whisper. Her voice cracked.
She turned once.
Twice.
No answer.
"Fall!"
Louder now.
It echoed.
Nothing replied.
Her chest tightened.
She took a step back—then another.
Her breath hitched. "What… am I doing?"
It hit her.
Harder than anything physical.
The confusion.
The desperation.
The need in her voice when she said his name.
She staggered and dropped to her knees, hands trembling as they clawed into her hair.
What is happening to me?
Why had she called for him like that?
Why had it felt like she was… lost without him?
The memory of the illusion surged back again—Winter's voice.
The cruelty disguised as love.
The conversation between them.
You took everything from me.
She let out a ragged breath, clutching her head tighter.
It didn't make sense.
None of it made sense.
She had always trusted her instincts.
But now?
Her feelings were a mess.
Maybe the worst part was—
She dropped her guard with Fall.
Somewhere in that soft blue light, in the ghost music, in the quiet of his voice beside her—
She hadlet him in again. It was just as Winter said.
He wanted her to see… his version of that night.
And she didn't know if that was healing… or just another kind of trap.
But it wasn't just that.
Nothing made sense anymore. Starting from the beginning.
The images from that night began to crawl back.
Slow at first.
Then relentless.
The betrayal.
The way he'd looked at her.
The moment she lost her powers.
Something didn't add up anymore.
Was Fall really that good at lying?
Because for days now, he had done nothing but save her.
Over and over again.
He shielded her without hesitation.
He teased her.
He let her hate him—without once pushing her away.
He never pretended to be something he wasn't.
Actually, the worst of all was—
He was true to his feelings.
And it was painfully obvious that...
…he wanted her back.
Was that just another lie?
Could he have bent the Veil to his will—twisted the truth about Winter—just to confuse her? Just to hurt her more?
It didn't feel right.
The Veil didn't lie.
Did it?
Still…
She had felt safe beside him.
Not because he made her feel it.
But because shedid.
She closed her eyes.
Let the forest breathe around her.
Then, finally, she got up.
And moved.
Her steps were slow.
Unsteady at first—
Then stronger.
The moss felt cool beneath her boots.
The air was damp, laced faintly with magic… and memory.
She was walking.
For the first time in what felt like years—
She was walking alone.
The forest stretched endlessly.
The trees towered above, their branches curled like watchful fingers.
They didn't feel menacing.
Just… quiet.
Listening.
She wrapped her arms around herself.
A small, soothing gesture.
One she used to ground herself in her body while her thoughts chipped away at her.
The mist thickened as she walked, curling low and dense around her.
She couldn't hear anything anymore.
Just her heartbeat.
Just her breath.
But then—
A sound.
Soft.
Fragile.
A sob.
She stopped cold.
It was faint, coming from behind a curtain of low branches. Instinct moved her faster than thought. She pushed the foliage aside and stepped into a small glade, where moonlight pooled across the grass.
And there—curled up at the base of a tree—was a child.
A boy. Small. Barefoot. Dirt on his cheeks and knees, dressed in tattered black clothes too big for his frame. He was trying to stay quiet, but he couldn't help the soft hiccups breaking through his sobs.
Spring's heart twisted.
"Hey," she called gently, kneeling down a short distance away. "Are you hurt?"
The boy looked up.
Big eyes. One dark, the other a vivid, unnatural gold.
Her breath caught in her throat.
"…Fall?" she whispered, before she could stop herself.
But the child didn't respond to the name. He just looked at her, blinking through tears, unsure if she was real.
"Someone broke it," he murmured, voice small and broken. "It wasn't me. I swear!"
"Broke what? Who did that?" she asked softly, inching closer.
He opened his hand.
"I…I don't remember," he whispered.
A shattered trinket lay in his palm. A monocle.
Spring's throat tightened.
She reached for it slowly. "May I?"
The boy hesitated, then placed it in her hand—his fingers lingering a moment longer than they needed to, afraid to let it go.
She turned the monocle over carefully. It was small, clearly made for someone much older, but worn smooth at the edges, as if it had been clutched too tightly for too long. The crack ran straight through the center of the lens. Not enough to ruin it completely—but enough to distort everything.
Spring closed her hands around it. Her magic sparked faintly beneath her skin—still unstable, still tender from what she had endured—but present.
She exhaled slowly.
She focused.
And then, light bloomed softly between her palms.
The crack faded slowly.
The glass sealed.
She opened her hands and held it out to him.
The boy stared at it in awe.
"You fixed it," he breathed.
"I just … helped it back together, that's all" she said softly.
He took it carefully, like it might shatter again at any moment. Then he smiled—bright, genuine, so full of gratitude it almost hurt to see.
"You're kind," he said. "I remember that now."
Spring blinked, but before she could say anything, he reached into the collar of his too-big shirt.
From a cord around his neck, he pulled a small, round black stone—, etched with an ancient golden mark. A charm.
"I was saving this," he said, untying it. "For something important."
Her breath caught, her heart pulling tight in her chest.
She knew this very wells.
She had made it years ago—long before everything.
The charm.
The gift she gave Fall to let him know when she missed him. The very first charm she ever made.
And now it was here, in … child Fall's hand.
Her voice barely made it past her lips. "Where did you get this?"
He looked at her. "I used to wear it as a necklace. Close to my heart. Always."
Her hands shook as she took it from him, gently.
"Can I… reach you with this?"
The boy's gaze softened, smiled. His voice was so small now, it was barely more than air.
"I never stopped wearing it. Even when it didn't glow anymore."
The world around them seemed to shimmer faintly.
Spring looked up—the aura was changing. The trees were growing transparent.
The child was fading.
"No, wait—" she reached for him.
He smiled.
Then, just like smoke, he vanished.
Spring was left kneeling.
The hush of the forest wrapped around her again.
She looked down.
The charm sat warm in her palm, glowing faintly.
She turned her hand slowly, curious—
Wanting to understand how it would help her.
Then, suddenly—
A blast of light.
Blinding. Brief.
And then—
It dimmed in another direction.
It was pointing.
Just like a compass.
Spring couldn't help but think about it.
Someone broke… his monocle…