2026-10-26 19:02:14I looked up.
Above the ridge, the clouds had split open like a wound. A black banner hung there, rippling without any wind, and beneath it a woman stood on nothing at all, as if the air itself were a floor under her feet.
She wore violet armor trimmed with silver, and her long hair was the color of dusk. Two curled horns rose from her head, and a thin veil of black silk covered the lower half of her face. Her golden eyes looked down at the battlefield as if it were a badly staged play. Chase's memories whispered her name, and my stomach tightened.
[Lyssara, the Violet Siren. Commander of the Demon Lord's Right Wing.]
The second of the Demon Lord's great generals. The only one in his whole army who stood at the same rank as Vexa.
Then the window in front of my eyes flickered again.
[Heartbound Resonance detected.]
[Condition: The beloved soul is nearby.]
[Effect: All stats increased by 100%.]
I froze.
My numbers rose once more. The warmth in my chest, which had belonged to Vexa alone a moment ago, flared up a second time, as if another fire had been lit beside the first one.
"Again?" I whispered. "That is not possible."
It was a strange feeling, like hearing a second heartbeat in a room where I had believed I was alone. I should have been glad. Instead, a chill ran down my spine. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
"Well, well," the woman above us said, and I stopped breathing.
Her voice was soft and sweet, like warm honey. I knew that voice. I had heard it every morning for thirty years, humming in the kitchen, scolding me for forgetting my boots, whispering to me in the dark when the nights were long.
It was Selene's voice.
"Lyssara!" Vexa shouted beside me, pulling at her golden chains. "Do not just stand there! Get me out of this!"
I turned my head slowly and looked at Vexa, then back at the woman in the sky. Two women. Two faces. One voice I had been dreaming of since the day the world ended. My head started to spin.
Lyssara laughed. It was a bright, silvery laugh, and it was not kind.
"Look at you. The great Crimson Executioner, chained like a dog by a human knight. Who would ever believe it?"
"This is not the time for jokes!" Vexa snapped. "Free me! He is... he is stronger than he looks!"
"I can see that." Lyssara's golden eyes drifted across the ridge, over the broken ogres and the ashes of the archers, and finally settled on me. For a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of curiosity in them. Nothing more. There was no recognition at all. "Interesting. A human who destroys the Left Wing in a matter of minutes. Perhaps I should thank him."
"Thank him?!" Vexa's face went pale. "Lyssara, I am your equal! I am your comrade!"
"My comrade," Lyssara repeated, as if she were tasting the word. "No, dear. You are my competition. Do you know how many years I have waited for you to make a mistake?" She tilted her head. "You lost your entire wing on a pointless ridge, and then you let yourself be captured. The Demon Lord will never forgive that. Why should I help someone who deserves this?"
Vexa's mouth opened, but no words came out. Her hands trembled in the chains of light. I had seen her cruel, and cold, and furious. I had never seen her look hurt until now.
"With you gone," Lyssara continued cheerfully, "I will be the Demon Lord's favorite. One less rival to worry about. How very convenient."
She raised one hand, and violet flames began to swirl around her feet.
"Wait!" I shouted. My voice cracked. "Wait! Who are you?"
Lyssara glanced down at me with mild boredom. "Names are only for people I intend to remember, knight. Enjoy your little victory. It will not last."
She smiled behind her veil. Then the flames swallowed her whole, the sky closed, and the black banner dissolved into smoke. The warmth in my chest faded back to a single flame. The second resonance was gone.
I stood there for a long time with my sword hanging from my hand.
"She left me," Vexa said at last, in a small voice. "She actually left me."
I did not know what to say. I lowered the sword and knelt beside her. She turned her face away.
"Kill me or release me," she said. "A commander abandoned by her own side is worth nothing. It makes no difference to me."
"I will do neither," I said quietly.
She looked at me with surprise and suspicion. "Why?"
I could not tell her. I could not tell her that I had just heard the voice of the woman I loved coming from a stranger's mouth, or that I did not understand what the gods had done. I only knew one thing for certain.
Selene was not gone.
And I was going to find her, no matter how many demons stood in my way.
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Chapter 11- Oath Under Sun
The oath ceremony was held the next morning in the courtyard of the Radiant Temple. A huge white sun was carved into the stone floor, and hundreds of knights stood in lines around it, all of them staring at Vexa with cold eyes. I stood beside her, and I could feel her shoulder shaking a little against my arm."Do not look at them," I said quietly. "Look at me.""I am not afraid," she said that with her chin raised. "I am only... cold."The Grand Master walked to the center of the white sun, holding a long silver staff. He called Vexa's name, and she walked forward slowly and knelt on the stone. It must have been hard for the Crimson Executioner to kneel in front of the people she had fought for years."Vexa of the Left Wing," the Grand Master said, and his voice echoed across the courtyard. "Do you swear, before the white sun, that you will not raise your hand against the innocent people of this land?""I swear," Vexa said. Her voice was steady, though I could hear the effort in it."
Chapter 10- Saint
The whole Great Hall went silent after Saint Elara said that. Nobody moved, and nobody said a word. I think even the banners on the walls stopped swaying.I tried to speak, but my throat was too tight. My mind was still full of her voice, the one that had sung me to sleep so many times in my first life. It was the same voice. I was sure of it, no matter how many times I told myself to be careful."Saint Elara," the Grand Master said slowly as he leaned forward on his white stone seat. "What do you mean by that? Do you know this knight?""I do not know him," Elara said. Tears were still running down her cheeks, and she wiped them with her sleeve like a child. "I have never seen him before today. But I have dreamed of him for as long as I can remember."The nobles began to whisper loudly. Duke Marren stood up again and shouted, "This is a trick! The demon has bewitched the Saint as well!""Silence, Your Grace," the Grand Master said coldly. Then he raised one hand. "This trial is suspen
Chapter 9- Trial of Ardent
Solhaven was bigger than I had imagined. The white walls of the capital stood against the sky like mountains, and the golden sun banners flew on every tower. When our group entered the city, thousands of people came out to the streets, but they were not cheering. They were shouting."Demon!""Kill her!""Why is a knight protecting that monster?"Someone threw a rotten tomato, and it hit Vexa on the shoulder. She did not flinch. She only kept her chin up and walked beside me with a blank face. I put a hand on her back and glared at the crowd, and Commander Hale ordered the knights to push them back."Do not mind them," I said quietly to Vexa."I do not," she said. But I could hear her voice shaking a little.Before the trial, we were taken to a small waiting room beside the Great Hall. Vexa sat on a stone bench and kept straightening her cloak again and again, even though it was already straight."You are nervous," I said."I am not," she said immediately. Then she sighed. "Maybe a lit
Chapter 8- Solhaven
I did not think. I pulled Vexa behind me and raised my left hand toward the spear."Chains of Oath!"Golden chains burst from the ground and wrapped around Lyssara's spear and both of her arms. She screamed in anger and pulled with all her strength, but the chains did not break. At the same time, I called out another skill with the last of my strength."Sacred Judgment!"A pillar of light came down from the sky and hit the ground a few steps away from her, right in front of the demon soldiers. It did not touch her, but the shockwave threw dozens of them to the ground, and the burning flames around the camp went out at once.Lyssara fell to one knee, breathing heavily. The chains slowly faded, because I had no more power to hold them. I fell to my knees too, with Vexa bleeding in my arms."You... human..." Lyssara looked up at me, and her eyes were full of anger and confusion. "What are you? Why does my chest hurt like this?"I did not know how to answer her. Behind me, Commander Hale
Chapter 7- Violet Flames
The ceiling cracked and dust fell on top of our heads. Outside, I could hear screaming, the ringing of alarm bells, and the sound of steel clashing."They are attacking the camp!" Vexa shouted. "Lyssara has come with the whole Right Wing!"I ran to the iron door and pulled at it, but the suppression shackles on my wrists made me too weak. Vexa tried to help, but she had the same problem. We were both trapped in the middle of a battle.Then I heard footsteps hurrying down the corridor, and the door opened. It was Commander Hale. He had blood on his face, and one of his arms was bleeding."Ardent," he said, breathing hard. "I do not like this, but I need every sword I can get. Can you fight?""Take these shackles off, and I will," I said.He hesitated for a second, and then he took out a key and unlocked my wrists. Then he looked at Vexa. "And her?""She will fight too," I said. "Not for you. For me."Hale looked at Vexa for a long moment. She stared back at him without blinking. "If sh
Chapter 6- The Cell
The cell in the lower camp was small, cold, and smelled of old straw. There was only one window with iron bars, one wooden bench, and one bucket of water. Commander Hale had said that he did not have a second cell for Vexa, and I knew that was only half true. The other half was that we could not be separated, and he had seen that with his own eyes.Vexa sat on the bench with her knees pulled up, and I sat on the floor on the other side of the cell. We did not talk for a long time. The only sound was the guards walking outside in the corridor.A guard opened the small window of the door and pushed two bowls of soup inside. He did not say anything and walked away quickly, as if he was afraid to look at Vexa for too long.I picked up my bowl and started eating. The soup was thin and the bread was hard, but I was hungry, so I did not complain. Vexa only stared at hers."Are you not going to eat?" I asked."Humans put poison in the food of prisoners," she said that with a suspicious look.
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