The anomaly was easy to miss.
Not because it was small—but because it was quiet.
The wind died the moment they crossed into the Blackridge ruins, as if the mountain itself had decided to stop breathing. No birds circled overhead. No insects buzzed in the cracks of stone. Even the usual scrape of boots on gravel sounded muffled, swallowed by a thick, oppressive stillness.
Something ancient was awake.
Animals had known it first. They always did. The forest below the ruins had emptied days ago—no tracks, no nests, no signs of life. Just abandonment.
Lyra felt it crawl up her spine.
"Something's wrong," she murmured, fingers already drawing an arrow halfway back on the string.
Drake barely glanced at her. His eyes were fixed on the shattered fortress ahead, bright with that familiar gleam—the one that always meant numbers were spinning in his head.
Reward money. Reputation. A tale worth retelling at the Guild bar.
"Altitude," he said dismissively. "You're imagining it."
They should have turned back.
They should have returned to Kelmar, filed an anomaly report, waited for specialists. That was protocol. That was survival.
But protocol didn't make legends.
"Let's take a look," Drake said, grinning as he stepped forward.
No one argued.
They found her in the courtyard.
She wasn't attacking. Wasn't chanting, summoning, or preparing anything at all.
She was just… there.
Arms crossed. Midnight-black hair drifting in a breeze that didn't exist, streaked through with veins of deep crimson, like embers beneath ash. Her eyes—wine-red and impossibly old—shifted lazily toward them.
The way a wolf might look at mice that had wandered too far into its den.
The pressure hit them all at once.
It was like the air itself doubled in weight.
"What the—" Marcus began.
"Demon," Selene whispered, horror bleeding into her voice. Her hands were already glowing with spellcraft. "That's a demon. A high-ranking one."
"How high?" Lyra asked.
Selene didn't answer.
Drake drew his sword anyway.
Because Drake was Drake. Because glory was glory. And because sometimes the math in your head forgets to account for things that can erase you.
"Formation!" he barked. "Selene, full offense! Marcus, barriers! Lyra, flank!"
The Demon Queen—Velzarith, though none of them knew her name—watched them scatter with mild amusement.
"Oh," she said softly. "How adorable."
The fight lasted forty-seven seconds.
Selene struck first.
Fire lances screamed through the air. Lightning followed, then a concentrated beam of compressed heat—magic powerful enough to melt steel from thirty paces.
Velzarith didn't move.
Shadows surged from the ground like living things, swallowing the attacks whole. Fire vanished without smoke. Lightning died without sound.
Drake charged.
He put everything into that strike—enhancements, momentum, raw will. His sword should have cleaved through stone.
Velzarith caught the blade between two fingers.
And squeezed.
Steel folded like wet paper.
Lyra's arrows flew next—three shots in the space of a single heartbeat, all perfectly aimed, all coated in paralytic venom.
They bounced off her skin.
Marcus slammed his holy symbol down, blood bursting from his nose as he forced a barrier into existence. A wall of shimmering light snapped up between them and the demon.
Velzarith glanced at it.
Then at Marcus.
Then she flicked her wrist.
The barrier shattered.
The silence afterward was unbearable.
Velzarith hadn't moved from her spot. Hadn't uncrossed her arms. She didn't look winded, or annoyed—just mildly inconvenienced.
Kin's sword felt suddenly ridiculous in his hand.
Drake's eyes flicked sideways. Met Selene's.
A decision passed between them—instant and wordless.
Drake grabbed Selene's arm and ran.
Not regrouped. Not planned.
Ran.
Marcus staggered after them, clutching his face, muttering frantic calculations under his breath.
Lyra hesitated.
Just one second.
Her eyes met Kin's—and there was something there. Guilt, maybe. Or apology.
Then she turned and fled.
No explanations.
No last words.
They were gone.
Kin stood alone in the courtyard.
The space where his party had been—where his friends had been—felt louder than any battle. Four people he'd bled with. Fought beside. Shared meals and nights and victories with for two years.
Gone.
Not because he was weakest.
Because he was expendable.
He turned back to the demon.
Velzarith was watching him now, interest sharp in her gaze, head tilted slightly.
The boredom was gone.
"Well," she said. "They left you."
Kin tightened his grip on his sword.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "They did."