Rasha felt it like a punch straight through her heart — not metaphorical, not distant. Real. Cracking her from the inside out.
The only person who had stood beside her since exile now lay still on the battlefield, blood pooling beneath him and there were too many bodies — too many threats — between them.
She couldn't even run to him. Couldn't reach him.
Overwhelmed, she collapsed.
Her knees hit the earth as the weight in her chest became too much to bear.
I lost him.
The words echoed in her mind, hollow and unbearable.
Then — pain. Real pain.
Her heart burned. Her ribs burned. Her very soul burned.
She screamed — a raw, terrible sound that didn't just tear through the clearing, it silenced it.
And as if the sky itself had flinched from her grief, the light faltered. The sun dimmed. The battlefield darkened.
Something ancient had been stirred.
The marks on her skin weren't just glowing — they were burning. Sizzling. Smoke rose in thin wisps from her arms, her shoulders, her back. The pain only fueled her scream, louder now, shrill enough to make even the birds fall silent in the canopy above.
She threw her head back — and the mark on her forehead ignited.
What had once looked like a small ember now flared outward. Trails of fire licked up the sides of her face from the base of the original symbol. They danced like wild, jagged wings — searing, branding, claiming her.
It was no longer a mark.
It was a crown of fire.
A brand carved in soul.
She shrieked again — louder, higher — as the burning reached its peak.
And then, all at once… the fire stopped.
Still trembling, she stood.
The clearing was silent.
She kept her gaze fixed on the sky a moment longer, then slowly… lowered her head.
Her eyes locked directly on Brone.
And everything about her was different.
Without taking her eyes off him, she lifted both hands into the air.
Blue flames sparked into existence — one after another — flickering to life like summoned specters. One, then two, then three, then four…
They kept coming.
Five… nine… thirteen…
Seventeen.
Each flame hovered in the air above her, glowing with an eerie, soul-deep intensity. They did not flicker like normal fire. They pulsed — steady and waiting, like eyes wide open. One for every soul still alive on the battlefield.
They lingered there, suspended in silence.
Watching.
Awaiting a command.
The battlefield froze — not in silence, but in something deeper. A spiritual recoil. The air thickened, heavy with the scent of scorched soul. Even Sybil stared upward, wordless, caught in the moment between power and consequence.
Then came the screams.
Brone's eyes widened.
No… it couldn't be.
But it was.
"She's summoning the Onibi," he breathed, voice hollow with horror.
The blue flames hovered like hungry stars above her hands — silent, pulsing, waiting.
Around him, the other mercenaries shifted, uncertain.
One of them scoffed. "It's just two girls and a mutt."
"Yeah," another chimed in, gripping his weapon tighter. "There's more of us. We'll take her down before she even blinks."
Brone didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
Instead, he said, almost to himself, "I'm so sorry… I've truly led us all to our deaths."
Then he turned.
And ran.
Each of the flames moved as one.
They shot forward — silent, precise — and pierced the hearts of their intended targets.
One for each soul.
They didn't burn. They sank — phased into the chest, vanishing beneath flesh and armor.
Then came the screams.
Sixteen cries erupted all at once, each one laced with a sound that didn't belong to the body — a sound ripped from the soul itself. These weren't screams of pain. They were wails of separation, of spirits being torn from flesh too quickly.
Then, seconds later, a seventeenth cry rang out in the distance — Brone's.
And then it happened.
The souls tore free, bursting out through the backs of their chests in streaks of blue flame.
They danced above the battlefield, flickering with desperate, furious energy — untethered, seeking something… anything.
Rasha, still glowing with grief and rage, lowered the Yang from her side.
And then she reached for the other blade.
The Yin.
The darker of the two.
Without a word, she lifted it high.
The blue spirits turned.
Drawn to the darkness, one by one, they streamed toward her and vanished into the blade — absorbed, devoured, claimed.
Finally, Yin began to glow.
Before a moment could pass, Rasha felt a tug on her arm.
She turned — and saw Sybil.
"Put that away. Not that one. Get the light one," Sybil said, pointing urgently to Yang. "Take it and let's go save Daddy. You have to hurry. The pictures are fading."
Those words jolted something in Rasha. She was still caught in the haze of power, but Sybil's voice cut through it. Not fully grounded, but clear enough to move, she let herself be pulled.
She didn't question.
She followed as Sybil dragged her over to Talo.
And when they reached him, Rasha collapsed again — but this time beside him. Her knees gave out, and she dropped, tears pouring silently as she clutched his side. He looked so still. So far away.
Sybil knelt beside her, eyes wide and pleading.
"Now do what you did with the blue flames. With the white flame. And give it to Daddy."
Rasha looked up at her, her voice trembling. "What white flames?"
"What am I supposed to do with it?" she asked again, her tone desperate.
Sybil's reply was soft but sure. "I don't know. But you can do it. I saw it. I believe in you."
"That's all I have."
Her voice trembled, just once.
"But you're the only one who can."
Rasha looked down at Talo, and something inside her stirred. She thought long and hard about him — their time training, his awkward little jokes, the way he always stood between her and danger without hesitation. The way he looked at her by the fire.
Memories flowed, vivid and overwhelming.
She lifted Yang, holding it gently over his chest — and slowly, reverently, she placed it against his wound.
She closed her eyes and reached inward, remembering how it felt to heat stone during soul forging. She had nothing else to guide her but memory and instinct.
Then it began.
A white light flared to life at the center of her chest, right over a new mark — the shape of a broken flame.
The light traveled down her dominant arm, weaving through her etched markings, down to her hand — and then into the blade.
It surged through Yang, into Talo's body.
His chest arched. His body jerked, then fell still.
But the light didn't stop.
Like mist, it spilled outward, seeping across the ground until it formed a wide circle — a casting ring. It encircled them both — Rasha, Talo, Sybil, and Snuggles-Fang.
Then, all at once, the light within that circle erupted straight into the sky in a pillar of brilliance.
She focused — on him. On loss. On love.
It gave him life.
And Rasha could feel it in that moment — it wasn't just the light. She felt her life essence reach out — as if the flame wasn't merely healing, but sharing. Not just reviving him, but binding him to her in a way no words had ever dared.
At first, the fire had belonged to the spirits. But now...
Her flame — once cast out, once left to flicker alone in the ash — now burned within him.
Not a dying light in the dark…
But a vow.
Unspoken, but eternal.
A quiet confession sealed in fire.
Her life — her purpose, her fire, her heart.
All of it, for him.