Azrael lingered on the outskirts of the Holy City, moving through the forests, roads, and winding paths that led to its gates. He kept himself hidden, his presence no more than a whisper.

Marcellus had wanted more from him. A greater role. A heavier hand.

Azrael refused.

He was still the headmaster of a prestigious academy. He wanted to help, but his involvement in all this had to remain limited. Anything more would invite questions he wasn’t prepared to answer.

This was enough.

Every traveler trying to reach the Holy City for the pilgrimage found the road blocked. Walls of ice rose without warning. Bitter winter storms swallowed every route. One by one, they turned back, their hopes of witnessing a miracle crushed by the cold.

The Holy City was now completely cut off from the rest of the world.

THUD.

Azrael had been walking along the city ramparts when his heart suddenly lurched. A violent surge of magical energy swept through the air, and every instinct in him screamed at him to run.

He turned toward its source.

And then he saw it.

A vast gray mass crept across the cathedral district, and wherever it passed, time itself seemed to lock in place. Colors drained into ash. Movement ceased. The whole world went still, like a photograph taken in the heartbeat before disaster.

"Is that... Arden’s magic?" 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"The one and only."

The voice came from beside him, sudden but calm. Azrael didn’t flinch. He didn’t even turn.

"Lord Vredemann." It wasn’t a question. "You’re here too."

"I’m just looking after my daughter. This ritual concerns me as well."

"You knew about it? Then why didn’t you intervene?"

"I was going to. But I wanted the kids to have their fun." A brief pause, almost thoughtful. "Don’t you think children should get to experience their first attempt at stopping a mass apocalypse before they grow up?"

Azrael let out a slow breath.

"Well," he said, "I can’t argue with that."

The two men stood in silence for a while, watching the gray tide spread through the cathedral district. Below them, the last of the travelers who had ignored the winter storms finally turned back, their horses struggling through snow that had appeared from nowhere.

"She’s grown," Vredemann said at last. His voice was quiet, almost gentle, nothing like the cold, calculating tone Azrael had heard from him at academy functions.

"Evelina?"

"My daughter. All of them, really." Vredemann’s eyes followed the gray mass as it climbed the cathedral walls. "When I first heard about this scheme, I considered crushing it myself. A word to the right people. A few disappearances. The church would have found someone else to blame, and the ritual would have died quietly."

"Why didn’t you?"

"Because she asked me not to." He smiled, thin and rueful. "She wanted to prove herself. Wanted to show that she could protect what was hers without her father’s shadow hanging over everything."

Azrael nodded slowly. "And Cael?"

"What about him?"

"He’s the reason she’s changed, isn’t he?"

Vredemann was silent for a moment. The gray below them pulsed once, twice, then settled into stillness. The cathedral district had gone completely quiet now, the kind of silence that pressed against the ears and made the world feel hollow.

"Cael Arden," he said at last, "is the most dangerous thing that has ever happened to my daughter. Not because he’s powerful, though he is. Not because he’s clever, though he’s that too."

"Then why?"

Vredemann turned to look at him, and for a moment, Azrael saw something in the older man’s eyes he never would have expected.

Worry.

"Because she loves him," Vredemann said. "Completely. Unconditionally. The way I loved her mother."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"It is when the person she loves has a habit of painting a target on his own back."

Below them, the gray stirred again, and a flicker of golden light appeared at the edge of the cathedral roof, pushing against the tide. The battle in the sanctum had begun.

"I didn’t expect the legendary sadist and the one they call the Jester to be so... sentimental."

Azrael’s voice carried no mockery, only weary observation. He kept his eyes on the gray tide spreading through the cathedral district, watching it swallow street after street.

"Don’t get used to it."

Vredemann’s reply was flat, almost dismissive. His hand had not left his sword hilt. His gaze remained fixed on the cathedral spires.

"Sentiment is a liability," he added after a moment. "I merely recognize that my daughter is old enough to make her own mistakes."

"And if this mistake kills her?"

Vredemann said nothing for a long moment.

Then, quietly: "Then I’ll burn this city to ash and salt the earth where it stood."

Azrael glanced at him, searching for the lie. He found none.

"You really do love her."

It wasn’t really a question. Azrael could see it in the way Vredemann’s hand hovered near his sword, in the tension running through his shoulders, in the way his eyes never left the cathedral where his daughter was fighting.

Vredemann’s jaw tightened. "Yes."

"But?"

The Duke was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its edge.

"But she doesn’t believe that. Not after what happened to her mother."

Azrael studied him. The legendary Duke D’Arclight, the empire’s most feared noble, standing on a frozen rampart with his heart laid bare. It felt almost wrong to witness.

"So the legendary Duke has fears of his own after all."

"Everyone does." Vredemann’s gaze never wavered from the distant cathedral. "The difference is whether you let them rule you."

The gray tide shifted again, and this time a beam of golden light pierced through it, lancing skyward. The cathedral’s foundations groaned. Stone cracked.

"The sanctum’s defenses are breaking," Azrael observed.

"Or they’re breaking through." Vredemann’s hand tightened around his sword hilt. "Either way, the end is coming."

"Care for some tea, Lord Vredemann?"

He laughed. "Sure, why not?"