The tent felt too small for his thoughts. Raiyen paced from one canvas wall to the other, boots grinding into the dirt floor, jaw clenched so tight he tasted blood. Outside, the camp whispered with unease—murmurs, distant coughing, the ragged shuffle of wounded men. His rebellion was cracking. Supplies gone. Allies silent. Scouts missing.

We won’t survive this…

He stopped, breath trembling. Then the air shifted.

Cold crept along his spine like fingers.

When he turned, she was already there.

Serythia did not enter so much as manifest. Shadows bent around her, folding inward, birthing her shape as if the night itself had sharpened into a woman. She stood still, upright, chin lifted with an old, effortless confidence. Her pale skin gleamed faintly, almost silver. Her long, dark hair draped over her shoulders in loose waves, framing her face like a curtain of midnight.

Her eyes—those impossible, glowing white eyes—latched onto him, stripping away his composure in an instant.

Her lips, burgundy and coldly amused, curved into a slow smirk.

“Well,” she purred, voice warm enough to be mocking. “My brave little rebel looks like he’s about to fall apart.”

She tilted her head, ebony horns catching the faint lamplight. The tribal tattoos across her chest and shoulders seemed to pulse subtly, as if alive beneath her skin.

Raiyen forced his voice steady. “I didn’t call you.”

“You didn’t have to.” She stepped closer. The canvas walls shivered as though afraid of her. “Desperation calls louder than any ritual.”

He swallowed hard and hated how she noticed.

Her gaze drifted around the tent—the scattered maps, the bloodstained bandages, the abandoned reports. “Your rebellion is rotting,” she said softly, almost kindly. “You’re three days from collapse. Two, if the king’s men move faster than expected.”

He flinched despite himself.

She smiled wider.

“You need help again.”

He said nothing. Couldn’t. His heartbeat was too loud.

Her fingers traced the air near him, never touching, though the cold radiating from her made his breath fog. “I can tip the scales for you,” she murmured. “As I did before. Storms. Supplies. Fear in your enemies’ hearts.” Her glowing eyes narrowed. “I could grant you victory.”

Raiyen’s fists shook. “At what cost?”

“Ah.” She laughed under her breath—soft, cruel, musical. “You know better than to ask questions you fear the answer to.”

She stepped even closer, until her breath brushed his throat. “But since you insist…” Her voice dropped to a whisper, intimate and chilling. “A piece of you. Something you still value. I already have your soul, Raiyen.” A fingertip hovered over his chest. “But you have so many other things left to lose.”

Heat and dread churned in his stomach.

“My people will die without your help,” he breathed.