The village of Glaethe’s Reach burned slow beneath a curtain of mist and ash. Its defenders—few and mortal—had already fallen, their cries swallowed by the necrotic haze that oozed across the stone walls like a living sickness. What was once a quiet trading outpost now bowed under the black banner of the Brotherhood of the Undead, and at its center stood the flame that hollowed the world.

Malrec.

Unmoving. Cloaked in bone and silk, with hollowflame curling off his gauntlets like smoke from a funeral pyre, he watched as memory-wraiths clawed their way from the cobblestones, pulling ghost-echoes of old warriors into his command.

He barely blinked.

“There is no defiance here,” he murmured aloud, voice like cold wind through a crypt. “Only delay.”

Then the sky cracked.

A jagged spear of lightning tore the clouds open, and with it came the sound of thunder and wings—not one pair, but two.

From the rift above, a surge of pressure shattered the calm. Wind shrieked down like a vengeful god, scattering the undead formation. And through the broken storm descended a vision of fury and light.

Syreli Karsus.

Her silver hair whipped behind her like a war banner, eyes glowing with stormlight, runes alive beneath her skin. She stood astride the back of a midnight-scaled stormdrake, its wings sparking with electric arcs, and just behind her circled a second—smaller, faster—dragon, firelight licking at its jaws.

He looked up. Slowly.

There she was.

Not Circe.

Her daughter.

The lightning in his chest surged in answer. Not fear—no. Fascination. Her presence scorched the very world. Magic poured from her like an open wound in the weave of the realm. Stable. Living. Uncorrupted. Perfect.

“How generous,” he murmured, smiling faintly. “To bring me the very thing I seek.”

She struck first.

A bolt of draconic lightning exploded near his flank, ripping through half his vanguard. Her dragons roared, scattering his wraiths. His skeletal battalion fell in heaps of smoking bone.

But Malrec didn’t flinch.

He lifted a single hand, and the air warped. With a whisper, shadowrifts burst open in a ring around Syreli’s landing point. The ground cracked. Chains forged from memory and death surged upward, dragging toward her with unnatural speed.

Her dragons screamed, veering off as the spell exploded beneath her. The smaller one—Sygra—was thrown back, wounded.

Syreli raised her hands to cast, lips forming a counterspell—

But too late.

“Now,” Malrec whispered. “Come undone.”

The magic twisted mid-air. Her spell—reflected. He had seen it once before. That was all he needed.

Energy rebounded, striking her in a burst of corrupted static. She stumbled, weakened, magic flickering for a heartbeat too long.

Chains closed around her.

Crackling, cursed, they bound her arms and legs, dragging her to her knees in the mud and ash, stormlight leaking from her aura like smoke from a dying torch.

Malrec approached, silent, even as her dragons roared overhead, unable to break the barrier surrounding her.

He stood before her at last. This was no illusion. No echo. She was real.

And she was his now.

“Forgive me, daughter of storm and spell,” he said softly, kneeling to meet her eyes. “But I will not let you die free. Not when your magic might save me.”

His hand reached forward, fingers brushing her jaw with cold reverence.

“You are no longer a threat, Syreli Karsus. You are a key.”

And the storm burned on above them.