{Sansir Promise.}
It was irritating. All of it was.
My army surged forward in a single brutal wave, steel colliding with steel as the front lines met, yet the sound felt distant to me, like surf crashing far below a cliff.
I forced myself to watch.
Every shift, every hesitation, every pattern the enemy revealed was etched into my awareness, because war was never won by strength alone.
It was won by understanding, and understanding required patience even when blood was already being spilled.
Fertical had hidden monsters among its ranks.
I had anticipated that, and already dispatched a separate force to hunt them down before they could surface and collapse our lines from within.
Even so, Malachi's division was struggling, grinding forward inch by inch against a defense that refused to break cleanly.
After meeting Jennifer and ordering her south to save Nicole, I forced Malachi's remaining forces to follow the advance.
There would be no retreat here.
Everything rested on this battlefield, and that weight settled naturally on me.
I spread my power across my soldiers again and again, reinforcing bodies and wills alike, even as my vision blurred and a dull ringing crept into my skull.
The war was not going smoothly.
The only reason most of us still lived was luck, fragile and thinning with every passing moment.
Malachi especially.
Rosen would never allow him to live without purpose, and purpose, in Rosen's hands, always meant something worse was coming.
Mirabel and Nicholas were occupied with training, which meant they were safe for now.
That left only one conclusion.
Rosen intended to end us all at once.
As the clash dragged on, I noticed the enemy lines beginning to withdraw.
Not in panic, and not in defeat, but with intention.
My forces pressed forward instinctively, eager to capitalize, yet something in the motion unsettled me.
They were not retreating.
They were making space.
I pushed more power into my soldiers, ignoring the growing pressure behind my eyes, and that was when I felt it.
A presence.
It was not sharp, nor explosive, nor aggressive in the way most elites announced themselves.
It was vast.
A pressure that did not crush, but drowned, bending the air and dulling thought as if the world itself were being submerged.
It rivaled Mirabel.
No.
It surpassed her, not in violence, but in certainty.
Only one being in all of Fertical could feel like that.
The King in Yellow.
Horia.
A man spoken of only in whispers, his name carried with the same caution one used near deep water.
His Regalia was unknown, not because it was hidden, but because no one who had witnessed it survived long enough to describe it.
Even his appearance was uncertain.
The only thing ever said with confidence was this.
He wore a yellow cloak.
And when he arrived, the stars followed.
I looked up.
It was still day, yet the sky had filled with stars, massive and burning, each one glowing yellow like a distant, unblinking eye.
They hung unnaturally close, not falling, not moving, simply waiting.
When I looked back to the battlefield, everything was dead.
Enemy and ally alike lay scattered across the ground, bodies emptied without struggle, without lingering power, without even the dignity of resistance.
It was as if life itself had been gently turned off, like a lantern extinguished by steady fingers.
I reached for my sword.
My hand refused to obey.
My fingers trembled uselessly as a dull yellow mist crept across the earth, slow and deliberate, rolling forward like a tide that did not care what stood before it.
Then it began to rain red.
Blood fell from the sky, thick and warm, soaking the ground evenly, without malice or haste.
Friend and foe dissolved together beneath it.
My teeth chattered as I finally saw him.
Horia approached without urgency, his yellow cloak flowing softly in a wind that did not exist.
He did not rush.
He did not threaten.
He simply advanced, and the world made room.
Beneath the shadow of his hood burned two eyes, twin suns set deep and steady, their gaze warm in the way heat becomes unbearable.
As he walked, music followed.
Trumpets sounded in slow, reverent tones.
Drums beat evenly, each strike aligned perfectly with his steps, not to inspire fear, but to establish rhythm.
It was not a march meant to intimidate.
It was a procession, inevitable and serene.
The aura that accompanied it was worse.
Dread not as panic, but as acceptance.
Suffocation not of breath, but of possibility.
Agony not as pain, but as the quiet realization that resistance was meaningless.
The world dulled as he drew closer, colors thinning, sounds receding, meaning draining away until only he remained substantial.
Everything else felt small.
Temporary.
Already over.
He stopped before me.
A hand emerged from his sleeve, wrapped in yellow silk, gentle and precise, like a priest offering blessing rather than judgment.
It pressed flat against my chest.
In that moment, the sound of his arrival became complete.
A rhythm settled into my bones, deep and smooth, endless as the ocean beneath a calm surface.
It reminded me of a child's laughter, careless and unburdened, untroubled by the destruction it caused simply by existing.
Then he spoke.
"Breathe," he said softly. "Don't you have a promise to keep?"
My vision fractured into light as memory surged forward, uninvited and unstoppable.
[Date: 4/26/1030. A danceless day, four years ago.]
I hurried through the halls of my home, gripping a bucket of hot water, towels draped carefully over its rim.
My pace balanced urgency with restraint so the water would not spill.
The corridors were warm, lined with velvet carpet and black brick, their silence broken only by my breathing and the soft slosh of water.
I reached her door.
The doors were massive, built like iron gates, yet they opened beneath my hands as though they recognized me.
Inside, the room was ruin.
A large bed stood at its center, surrounded by broken shackles, shattered glass, and discarded clothing, the air heavy with neglect and restrained suffering.
And yet, within that devastation, there was light.
She lay on the bed, her long brown hair spread beneath her, tangled but still beautiful.
Her skin was dark and soft, her lips full, her curls defiant even now.
Her eyes were shut tight, but I remembered their blue, remembered the exhaustion that lived behind them.
I washed her carefully.
She was naked, sick, and frighteningly thin, her body bearing the unmistakable marks of starvation and neglect.
This was Veronica.
The woman I was meant to marry, and the friend I had loved long before I understood what love demanded.
She was cursed.
Madness had taken her, along with despair so deep I had once mistaken it for survivable.
How foolish that belief had been.
The memory shifted.
Her hair was shorter now, torn away, blood streaking her skin where teeth, knives, and nails had found her.
One eye was nearly destroyed.
My hands did not stop.
I kept washing her, clinging to the illusion that gentleness alone could repair what the world had broken.
I remembered when she danced.
When she danced, the world truly paused.
Now she lay trapped in stillness, and the world had continued without her, unchanged and unashamed.
Still, I had made a promise.
"I will heal you," I whispered. "I promise."
[Date: 4/26/1034. A danceless day, present.]
The memory faded without mercy.
Horia stood before me, smiling faintly.
His teeth were impossibly white, untouched by shadow or imperfection, like something that had never known erosion.
That perfection terrified me most.
"So," he asked gently, "when you die here, will you lament?"
His gaze did not waver. "That promise you made, will it hurt you?"
He leaned closer, voice soft as a tide drawing back.
"Tell me, Sansir. When the end comes, will you forsake your vows?"