The path stretched ahead of Sikakama, bordered on both sides by wide stretches of greenery. The soft rustling of leaves followed her as she walked, occasionally interrupted by the chirping of birds hidden among the nearby branches. Above her, the sky stretched endlessly, clear and bright beneath the afternoon sun.
Suddenly, a black crow descended from above and landed neatly on top of her head.
She slowly tilted her head back, trying unsuccessfully to see the bird perched above her. After a moment, she sighed and looked forward again. "Will you accompany me again?"
As though it had understood her question, the crow fluttered down from her head and settled gently onto her shoulder.
Sikakama glanced at it from the corner of her eye, unable to suppress a small smile. The crow hopped from her shoulder onto her arm, settling quietly against her elbow. Sikakama looked at it.
"Isn't it wonderful to have wings?" she murmured. "You could go anywhere you wanted, and no one could stop you."
The crow tilted its head from side to side, watching her with quiet curiosity.
Sikakama then lifted her gaze toward the endless sky stretching above the treetops. For a moment, she simply watched it, her expression growing distant.
"I wish I had wings too."
What drives a person to walk such a path in the first place?
What makes someone struggle so desperately for something? What are people truly trying to prove when they devote themselves so completely to a single pursuit?
Is it the need to prove that their existence has value, to find something that can give meaning to a life that might otherwise feel empty? Or is it something simpler, more desperate—a mere desire to survive against a beast that devours existence itself?
Perhaps the difference is not as great as it seems.
As she continued walking, the vegetation grew denser and stranger. The trees stood closer together, their branches intertwining overhead, while the sunlight gradually weakened, as though something unseen had begun to swallow it.
The Raven Tower stood in the southern part of Pendralice, in a district known as Eltham. It was a somewhat isolated and undeveloped area, though it still lay along the main road, far enough from the heart of the city to feel removed from its bustle. The Blackwood Forest itself was only a twenty-minute walk away. Where the paved road finally came to an end, the forest began, its towering trees rising like an endless wall of dark green.
The deeper she ventured into the forest, the more it seemed to separate itself from the outside world. The sounds of the birds faded into the distance, and even the wind seemed to have fallen completely silent.
She remembered Mirelle's explanation . The veils were deliberately placed to conceal certain places from the general public. They were not merely meant to hide a location from people's eyes. They separated what lay beyond them from the ordinary world itself.
She had seen something like this before.
Now, standing before another one of those veils, Sikakama finally understood why it was there.
She slowly raised her hand, following the coordinates Mirelle had given her.
"It should be here."
The veil trembled faintly beneath her fingertips.
It shimmered almost imperceptibly between the trees, as though an invisible curtain had been suspended there.
There was no reason to turn back. She had already come this far, and whatever lay beyond the veil, she had crossed too much ground to simply walk away now.
She took a step forward.
The moment she crossed the invisible boundary, the world seemed to shudder.
It felt as though she had passed through a curtain woven from the colors of a rainbow. Ethereal hues rippled around her body, shimmering for a brief instant before dissolving into the air behind her. The strange sensation vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Sikakama steadied herself and looked ahead.
There stood an enormous tower of dark stone beneath a strange, dim sky. Darkness gathered around its upper reaches, as though the tower itself were drawing the light from the heavens.
Only moments ago, the afternoon sun had been shining brightly over the path she had followed. Yet here, above the tower, the sky was drowned in darkness.
"Wasn't it just afternoon?"
The tower seemed to exist outside the natural world, as though it had been cut away from everything surrounding it.
And somewhere within it was the very thing she had come here to find.
The Guardian's spirit.
Not long ago, Sikakama had known nothing about any of this. She had never heard of the Guardian's spirit, nor had she imagined that creatures from ancient legends could actually exist, or that there were places where time itself could behave so strangely.
Her eyes remained fixed upon the tower.
She had wanted to understand why she could draw the sword when no one else could. She had wanted to prove that it had not been a meaningless coincidence.
She tightened her grip around the edge of her cloak and continued toward the tower.
The crow that had been perched on her shoulder took flight as she stopped before the tower, soaring upward toward its summit. Her eyes followed it, lifting toward the towering structure above her.
Whatever awaited her inside, she could hardly imagine it being worse than what she had already endured.
---
The servant carried a velvet envelope sealed with red wax upon an engraved silver tray, making his way through one of the wide corridors lined with crimson velvet toward the chamber where Alistair was seated.
Writing instruments were neatly arranged across the surface of the dark wooden desk. Beside the silver inkwell, decorated with delicate engravings, several quill pens lay carefully arranged, while stacks of paper reserved for letters were piled on the other side.
The quill pen between Alistair's fingers moved steadily across the paper. As it continued its graceful strokes, the words took shape in an elegant, flowing hand, each curve bearing the mark of a refined noble education.
"They have appeared again, and this time they did not emerge from the darkness, nor did they attempt to conceal themselves. They appeared in broad daylight. Humanity no longer waits for its souls to become corrupted; they willingly offer themselves to corruption and seek it out. More have allied themselves with the Order of the Black Womb, and the corruption continues to spread, little by little. I fear that the one we have been waiting for may not appear in time.
Solaria needs someone who can lend others his strength and wisdom, someone capable of saving this world from the corruption slowly consuming it—a man like you, Commander Lucian Valtz. If you are still receiving my letters, then know that I am—"
Alistair's quill pen came to a stop.
For a moment, the only sound in the chamber was the faint dripping of ink from the quill pen's nib. His gaze remained fixed upon the unfinished sentence, as though the final words demanded more thought than everything he had written before them.
His thoughts began to scatter, and the longer he remained there, the more he felt a strange sense of suffocation settling within him, tightening around his chest. The steady ticking of an old wall clock was the only thing breaking the silence around him, its pendulum swinging back and forth in an unceasing, measured rhythm.
Then the dark ink began to move.
At first, the movement was barely noticeable—a faint tremor spreading through the words he had just written. Then the ink began to ripple and rise in thin, wavering strands, lifting away from the page before twisting and writhing through the air in restless agitation, as though it had suddenly acquired a life of its own.
Alistair abruptly forced his thoughts back into focus, and the ink immediately collapsed back onto the page.
It splattered across the letter, smearing and ruining the lines he had written.
The sight of the other unfinished, ruined letters scattered across the desk made it clear that this was far from the first letter he had written.
Alistair stared at the ruined page for a moment, then set the quill pen aside and leaned back in his chair with a quiet sigh, as though he had finally accepted that resisting this strange nuisance would not make it disappear. He leaned forward again and rested one hand against his face, his fingers settling between his brows before slowly sliding down toward his cheek. His other hand remained on the desk, and then his index finger moved in a quick, absent-minded motion.
Slowly, the spilled ink began to gather once more, rising from the page in a thin, twisting column. The dark mass condensed, gradually taking on a definite shape until it formed the figure of a tiny creature no taller than a finger.
It resembled a miniature humanoid, though there was something distinctly animalistic about its appearance. Two pointed ears stood atop its head, resembling those of a feline, while a thin tail swayed behind it as it stood upright on two feet.
The little creature made its way toward the quill pen in small, unsteady steps. It grasped it with both hands and struggled to carry it back to its place in the inkwell.
Alistair watched in silence, lightly tapping a finger against his face.
Once the creature had returned the quill pen to the inkwell, it stood there for a moment with quiet pride, as though it had accomplished some great and important task.
Knock. Knock.
Alistair's hand dropped swiftly toward the creature, and it immediately collapsed into ink.
Alistair turned toward the door at once, his expression settling back into its usual calm.
"Come in."
Not long afterward, hurried footsteps echoed through the corridor as the servant followed Alistair toward the room where Sikakama had been staying. With every word that left Alistair's mouth, the irritation that had been building within him over the recent events seemed to deepen. Yet even in his anger, he maintained the composure of a mature man accustomed to keeping his emotions under control. When he finally spoke, his voice carried its usual condescending edge, sharpened by unmistakable annoyance.
"I cannot believe this. How can someone so small and foolish cause such a commotion? The world has no need for more fools."
The servant remained at his side with the same mild, respectful expression he always wore, having spent enough years at Alistair's side to recognize the difference between his genuine anger and the particular tone he adopted whenever matters began slipping beyond his control. He answered with measured calm. "My lord, this is not something that could have remained hidden for long. Even when news comes late, it arrives in its time. And Lady Grace is not a woman who abandons a decision once she has made it. No matter how complicated matters become, she will not be deterred from doing what she believes is right."
There was a practical calmness in the servant's words, the kind of wisdom that surfaced only when there was a need to accommodate his master's temper. He knew when to let him vent his anger without interruption, when to remind him of what he had overlooked, and even how to warn him about certain people without making it sound as though he were questioning his decisions. In a way, he possessed the patience of a man who had spent years raising a difficult child, until he had learned every one of his moods by heart—and, more importantly, how to handle them.
At last, they reached Sikakama's door.
Alistair entered first, only to find the room completely empty. He stopped in the doorway, slowly straightening as he surveyed the chamber. One hand rested over the other before his chest, and his usual arrogant composure had already returned.
"It seems the little creature has finally realized her foolishness and left after all."
The servant, however, had already moved toward the wooden desk. His gaze fell upon the sword lying across its surface, beside a single sheet of paper. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands, studying the unsteady handwriting before looking back at Alistair.
"My lord."
He extended the paper toward him.
The words had been written in an unsteady hand, the uneven strokes revealing the limits of Sikakama's education:
"I know that the great are not born... but fate can be stolen by those who dare to strive for it."
Alistair's eyes lingered on the sentence for a moment before he continued reading. At the bottom of the page, Sikakama had written the place she had gone.
Alistair read the name of the place once.
This time, every trace of amusement vanished from his face.
---
Her footsteps echoed along the winding staircase, each step returning to her from somewhere above and somewhere far below. The higher she climbed, the colder and damper the air became, carrying with it the scent of ancient stone, like the earthy smell of ground soaked by rain.
Near the bottom of the staircase, she found an old oil lamp abandoned on one of the steps. She picked it up and lit it, allowing its weak flame to cast just enough light for her to see the steps ahead.
Sikakama raised the oil lamp toward the wall, holding it closer as she examined the stone.
A strange image covered the wall, depicting what at first appeared to be some primitive reptilian creature covered in scales. But beneath the wavering light, she could clearly make out the unmistakable shape of an enormous serpent, its body covered in wounds.
Dark streams of blood flowed from its body toward a strange vessel beneath it. Around the scene stood eight primitive figures. Seven of them bore pairs of wings, while the eighth stood among them without any. Their forms were crude and indistinct, their features impossible to make out in the dim light.
Sikakama moved the lamp slowly across the image, studying every detail she could make out before continuing upward.
A few steps higher, the image stretched farther along the wall beside her, revealing an enormous tree with a broad trunk. Its roots branched and spread as they descended, covering part of the wall like a network of living veins. At the top of the tree, behind its tangled branches, was the circular disk of the sun, surrounded by a thin ring of light.
She moved the lamp along the wall again.
Farther ahead, a strange bird soared through the air with enormous wings engulfed in flames. It was flying away from both scenes, disappearing toward the far end of the wall.
Sikakama followed it with the light of her lamp for a moment, trying to understand how the three images were connected. Yet whatever story they were meant to tell remained beyond her.
She lowered the lamp and continued climbing.
By the time she finally reached the top, the staircase opened into a hall, much of which was swallowed by shadows. At the far end stood a pair of enormous doors, carved entirely from stone.
Sikakama set the oil lamp down beside the staircase before approaching the enormous stone doors. She examined the intricate details carved across their surface, her eyes eventually settling upon the image of a winged creature.
It appeared to be descending upon a serpent, its beak clamped tightly around the serpent. Beneath them was a strange vessel.
Sikakama remembered the first image. There was only one thing she could make of it: sacrifice.
She reached out and traced the serpent's body with her fingertips, following the delicate lines carved between its scales until her fingers reached one of its exposed fangs. She pressed against it.
A sharp sting pierced her skin.
A bead of blood gathered at the tip of the fang before slipping down into the narrow grooves carved across the stone. It flowed along the intricate lines like crimson veins, traveling toward the winged creature. As it reached the carving beneath the creature, those lines began to glow with the same deep crimson light, guiding the blood downward toward the final symbol—the strange vessel carved beneath them.
Within moments, the three separate images seemed to merge into a single design.
A grotesque tableau, painted in blood.
A faint click came from somewhere behind the stone doors, followed by another, deeper sound—the heavy grinding of ancient mechanisms awakening within the depths of the tower. The two doors began to open on their own.
Sikakama hesitated for only a moment before placing both hands against them and pushing. The stone doors opened with a long, mournful groan, releasing a cloud of dust into the air.
Beyond them was a vast chamber.
And at the far end stood an enormous stone statue.
The creature was the same one she had seen carved upon the doors. Yet it did not stand proudly with its wings spread as she had imagined. Instead, its immense body was curled tightly around itself, its great wings folded over its form as though it had withdrawn into a deep, ancient hibernation. Its enormous head rested upon one of its forelegs, while part of its beak disappeared beneath layers of folded stone feathers.
It did not look like a monument to a creature that had died.
It looked like a monument built around a creature that had chosen to sleep.
Sikakama approached cautiously, raising her head toward it. Wonder and confusion mingled in her quiet voice as she said, "So... this is what they meant by the Guardian's spirit. A statue?"
On either side of the chamber stood rows of armored knights, perfectly motionless. Ancient armor covered their bodies from head to toe, while their helmets concealed their faces. Each held a weapon in their hands, the blades pointed toward the ground, as though they had stood there for generations, waiting for someone to enter.
Sikakama slowly turned, taking in the strange chamber once more before her eyes returned to the sleeping creature. This time, she gathered her resolve, drawing upon everything she had endured to reach this moment. She took another step forward and stopped before the statue. Then she remembered the last thing Mirelle had told her—that when the chosen one stood before the Guardian, she was meant to speak these words:
"The sword that divides blood from fire, carving its path toward the summit. It shall bring peace to the kingdoms above the earth and beyond. Awaken, and protect your master upon his path. Vael Iris tharyn."
Sikakama remained standing before it, waiting.
Yet the creature remained completely still, indistinguishable from an ordinary stone statue. Slowly, tension tightened across Sikakama's features as doubt began to creep into her heart.
She glanced around the chamber before looking back at the sleeping creature. Her voice came quietly this time, hesitant and uncertain.
"Does this mean... you rejected me?"
Then she turned away.
Perhaps she had misunderstood everything. Perhaps the Guardian's spirit had never awakened at all because she was not the one meant to find it. Perhaps Alistair had been right from the beginning.
Then the voice came from behind her.
"What a foolish little human you are. I see you crossed the barrier meant to keep intruders away."
The voice was deep and rough, carrying such weight that the very stone beneath her seemed to tremble.
Sikakama spun around.
A force struck her with such violence that her head was thrown backward. Her body lifted from the ground as though an invisible hand had seized it, and the world disappeared beneath her.
When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in a place that resembled an endless void.
There was no ground beneath her feet, no ceiling above her, only an immeasurable darkness stretching in every direction.
And within that darkness, two enormous eyes stared down at her, their irises glowing a deep crimson, their pupils narrowed into the slits of a predator.
"What am I supposed to do with the humanity that has disturbed my slumber?"The same voice spoke again, dripping with contempt.