Mirielle’s precision lasted exactly as long as her patience did.

Which was roughly until she saw blood on Drelan’s fingers.

After that, something let go in her and she stopped caring about economy.

White mana flooded along her blade and she moved through the nearest Dranox before its claws came down, split the one behind it from shoulder to hip before it could press forward, carved a path across the road with the kind of speed that comes when rage stops asking for permission.

She fought that way for longer than she should have been able to.

Then the mana ran out.

One moment the white light was there and the next it simply wasn’t, and her blade landed wrong and her arm buckled trying to compensate.

She shoved the Dranox back on muscle alone and landed beside Drelan breathing in short, ragged pulls.

"Can you still stand, Dad—"

"Watch out!"

She turned and caught the incoming strike with both hands, the impact hammering straight through her arms and driving her back two scraping steps.

It pushed harder. She pushed back, boots dragging against the dirt, no mana left behind the blade now.

She forced it off and reset her footing, chest heaving.

"I’m out." She said it flat. Then louder, like saying it clearly would somehow help. "I’m completely drained."

Behind her, Drelan had his sword tip planted in the dirt and was trying to push himself upright.

He made it halfway. Pain dropped him back to one knee, his hand pressing hard over the shoulder wound, blood moving steadily between his fingers.

"Should’ve read the terrain before we stopped. This is all because of me," he said quietly. Not to Mirielle. Not to anyone in particular. "Walked my family straight into a trap."

"Don’t." Mirielle’s voice came out sharper than she meant it to. "It’s not your fault, Dad."

He didn’t answer.

The Dranox closed in from every direction. Taking their time now, because why wouldn’t they.

The circle tightened. The layered growling dropped into a low constant frequency that Aries felt through the carriage frame at his back.

Suddenly, he felt a weight drop onto his shoulder.

He looked up.

Althea’s arms were still around him, tighter than before. She was simply staring at Drelan’s blood on the road, at Mirielle’s shaking sword arm, and the ring of glowing eyes closing in step by step.

Tears tracked down her face in steady silence as she watched her family come apart, completely powerless to stop it.

Aries had never seen anything that made him feel so utterly useless.

On the road, Mirielle had dropped to one knee. Her sword was still in her grip out of pure habit. Her arm was shaking and she knew it.

She looked at the ring of Dranox. At her father with his hand pressed over a wound that hadn’t stopped. At the road still thick with shapes that showed no sign of running out.

Something went quiet inside her.

"...Is this really where it ends?" She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. "After everything—"

"NO — Aries, wait—" Althea grabbed at nothing.

He’d already slipped through.

His feet hit the road and his heart slammed against his ribs and he was scared — genuinely, completely scared.

But something underneath the fear had apparently decided it wasn’t interested in waiting for permission.

He raised his hand.

He reached inward the same way he had on the floor of the rented room, searching for that faint warmth, and this time it came fast.

The sphere that erupted from his palm was nothing like before. Large and golden and spinning violently, already way past what he could control, already bigger than anything he’d intended. Aries stared at it for exactly half a second.

Then he pointed it at the Dranox and let go.

The impact swallowed the front of the circle whole. Blinding gold light, the ground shaking hard beneath his feet, shockwave ripping outward in every direction at once.

Dranox at the front vanished into it.

Others flew, spinning backward through the air, trees at the road’s edge bending hard with the force, the ring that had been closing around his family torn apart in every direction simultaneously.

The light died. Smoke rolled in.

Mirielle was coughing through the haze with one hand over her mouth, forcing herself upright on legs that weren’t sure about cooperating.

She looked at the road. At the broken shapes scattered across the dirt. At the gap where the circle used to be.

"What—" She turned sharp. "Dad, was that your doin—"

"No." Drelan’s voice came out slow. He was staring through the settling smoke, sword still planted in the dirt, completely still. "But whatever it was just opened us an escape route."

The dust settled.

A figure stood on the road ahead, back turned toward them.

A golden sphere spun above one outstretched hand, throwing pale shifting light across the ground. The figure’s shoulders rose and fell with heavy unsteady breathing.

But their feet weren’t moving back.

"A... Aries?" Althea’s hand came up over her mouth.

’They’re not actually my family,’ Aries thought, staring forward while his heartbeat filled his ears. ’None of this was supposed to be mine. This body, this name, this world. None of it belongs to me.’

His fingers curled tighter. The sphere spun faster.

’But I’ll be damned if I stand here and watch them die in front of me.’

He didn’t look back. Drelan behind him, bleeding but breathing; Mirielle on her knees, drained but still holding her sword; Althea near the carriage doorway. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

He stepped forward and raised his hand a little higher, putting himself between all of them and whatever came next.

The boy who had come into this world with nothing stood as the wall standing between his family and what was still coming.