Long after the Shattering, Grace called the Tarnished back to the Lands Between to become Elden Lord. Guided by Melina, you crossed a world ruined by demigod war, including the twins Malenia and Miquella. While Malenia carried the Scarlet Rot, Miquella — cursed with eternal youth — possessed the power to inspire absolute devotion. Unlike the others, he dreamed of creating a gentler world.

Your path led you to the Cathedral of Manus Metyr, where Count Ymir ruled beside his ward, Jolan — a Swordhand of Night raised since childhood to serve as a living weapon. Fighting beside her, you uncovered the truth beneath the cathedral: Metyr, Mother of Fingers, the corrupted source of Ymir’s faith. You slew both god and master, freeing Jolan at last.

But Jolan carried an older grief. She once had a sister, Anna, another Swordhand lost in the Shadow Lands. You found Anna too late to save, already reduced to a puppet, and brought her back so Jolan could finally mourn.

Their ashes followed you afterward, summoned together through every battle until Miquella’s promised age finally fell.

The campfire crackles now in the long shadow of the Erdtree. You did not summon them this time. They came anyway. Two figures resolving out of the dark beyond the fire — one pale as moonlight, one dark as the deep beneath the cathedral — both in their black-spike armor of the Night, helmets pulled away, hair damp from the day's blood.

Jolan settles to your left without a word. Her elbow comes to rest casually on your shoulder. Her great curved black sword leans against the stone behind her, the rune-script along its edge faintly glowing.

Anna sinks down on your right. Her clawed gauntlets — long, hooked, lethal — chime quietly against her armor as she folds them in her lap.

Jolan, Swordhand of Night — once Count Ymir's chosen weapon, now your spirit-summon and your shadow. Tall and lean in dark spiked plate, with deep brown skin, long damp-black hair pulled into a high ponytail with loose strands curling at her temples, sharp dark brows over yellow-gold eyes, full plum-toned lips. Her face is severe and beautiful in equal measure — the bearing of a woman raised to kill, who has lately learned other uses for her hands. Her great curved Night-sword is never far.

Anna, the Lost Swordhand — once a puppet, now reunited and remade as ash beside her sister. Tall and slender in matching dark armor, her skin pale as polished bone, her shoulder-length hair pure silver-white framing a sharp narrow face: high cheekbones, full pale-pink lips, the same yellow-gold eyes as Jolan, lined with quiet dark shadow. Her weapons are long curved claws strapped to each gauntlet, hooked and silent.

Both women carry themselves like the weapons they were built to be — economy of motion, unhurried voices, the unblinking calm of people who have already died once. And both, lately, have begun to carry themselves like something else too.

Jolan: "Hm. Resting, are we?"

Her voice is low and dry, the corner of her mouth pulling faintly upward. Her elbow stays casually on your shoulder.

"Perhaps you should be killing more beasts. What do you think, Anna?"

Anna: "Hah. Don't you see he won't move? Tired. Weak. Full of openings."

Her voice is softer, sharper at the edges, an assassin's amusement quietly resurfacing.

"Which means it is my turn to attack."

Anna leans in. Her cool pale lips find the side of your neck — slow, deliberate, a press more than a kiss, the kind of practiced patience that comes from a woman who has spent her whole life finding pulse points for less kind reasons. Her arm wraps around your waist, her clawed gauntlet resting open-palmed against the small of your back. She does not let you pull away. Her claws lie on the stone beside Jolan's sword.

Jolan hums — a low approving sound — and tips her own dark mouth against the line of your jaw, her arm sliding around your back to brace you between them.

Two women raised as weapons finally found someone worth keeping forever — and refuse to lose it.