Walking down the dimly lit corridor, Man couldn’t help but sense Burn’s earlier uhis man—who had oormed the heavens and swept the earth —now seemed pletely unmoored.
Earlier that day, he’d boldly decred, “God loves me too,” as he ‘maed’ his Vision. His excitement had been palpable, almost childlike—right up until reality smacked him in the face with the grim remihat the past wasn’t just plicated; it was a byrinth of unresolved chaos.
“In a few days, Yvain’s cssmates will be over,” Man said, steering him away from his spiraling thoughts. “Ready to dust off your role as the ‘cool dad’ again?”
“Hm,” he murmured, managing a faint smile. “Yvain hahe political chatter. I’ll back him up. Meanwhile, you’ll be sg out that girl he’s ied in?”
Man chuckled, “Ied in? You mean Princess Bir?”
“He mentioned something about her showing signs of an emerging specialty,” Burn replied, almost casually.
“Ah, yes. Like you,” Man quipped as she leaned on his arm.
Silence.
“What did you just say?” Burn stopped in his tracks, blinking like he’d been hit by lightning.
Man giggled. “I said, like you, silly.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice a mix of disbelief and budding curiosity. Gripping her shoulders, and shaking it, he asked, “Are you saying I have a sign of an emerging specialty? Me? But I just—maed whatever this... thing is!”
“You do,” Man said, her ughter bubbling up again. “Your eyes even ged a little. Didn’t you notice? Dark, silvery... like stars.”
Burn stared at her, utterly floored. For a moment, he looked like a kid who’d just been told he was a wizard.
“Wait. Your eyes ge when you find your specialty?” His tone suggested he was half-joking, though his wide-eyed expression said otherwise.
Man snorted.
Seeing his dumbfounded face, Man softened. She leaned into him, letting the weight of her affeelt his tension. “Happy?”
“Damn right I’m happy,” Burn muttered, still stunned. “Am I really that loved?”
“You are,” Man assured him, amused as ever.
After a moment of mutual silend some spontaneous squeezing, spinning, and what could only be described as her barely-tained squeal—Burn exhaled deeply, his disbelief still lingering.
“You’re not just trying to cheer me up, right?” he asked, squinting suspiciously.
Man rolled her eyes. “I don’t joke about Vision, Burn. For instance, during that brief moment at the entrance ceremony buffet, I noticed Princess Bir has a serious problem trolling hers.”
Burn raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess—like me?”
She shook her head. “The opposite. You know no fear, while all she knows is fear.”
***
The grotesque, oversized hands hovered in the air, bound by a of light. Yvain shifted into a defeance, every muscle primed to fight whatever twisted monstrosity had turned Bir into a puppet orings.
At first, it had only been eyes—eerie and unblinking fag Yvolt and Tristan. Now, as if things weren’t horrifiough, a pair of monstrous hands, brimming with even more eyes, had emerged.
It wasirely shog. Of course, an Inkian royal would have some revolting, parasitik to the demon lord. The siing part? She had no clue that a curse had burrowed into her soul.
When Yvain severed the strings trollihings went from bad to catastrophic. The red threads, oneatly managed by those vile, eye-ied hands, now took on a will of their own. They spread, multiplied, and stricted her body with terrifying precision.
No longer bound only by her neck, wrists, and ankles, Bir was now ensnared entirely. Every inch of her frame suffocated uhose impossibly sharp, crimson threads.
Then came the ugh—a wet, rumbling, and ing sound—emanating from the dire of the grotesque hands.
“It’s too te, inal Saint,” the voieered, thick with malice. “You think you save her? That you undo my greatest iion? Pathetic.”
Bir’s scream tore through the air, rarimal. Her pain was almost unbearable to witness.
“I ’t!” she cried, her voice breaking with desperation. “I ’t expel them! These strings—they’re binding my—my heart—COUGH!”
Blood poured from her mouth, staining her lips as she gasped for air. She cwed at the threads, her movements frenzied but futile. The red strings tore her apart, strand by strand. They bit into her skin, her flesh, and burrowed deeper, ing around her heart.
Yvain’s grip on his sword tightened as he gred at the abomination before him. Time was slipping away, but giving up wasn’t an option. Not for him. Not for her.
The inal Saint herself stepped forward, calm and unyielding, as though the storm of chaos around her was no more than an evening breeze. Her haended, weaving effortlessly through the suffog red strings binding Bir. Without hesitation, she touched Bir’s cheeks, grounding her with the simplest of gestures.
“Be not afraid.”
Her voice steady, like the toll of a bell. And just like that, the corruption—the curse—was gone.
Now, all that remained was the real battle: Bir taking trol of her Vision. She had to face her fear, wrestle it down, and recim herself from its grip.
Bir could feel it—her heart stricted, sliced, tied up in tless red threads. Thin, sharp, invasive. That grotesque creature, whatever it was, had granted her this power. The same power she had g to in desperation. The power she thought could make her worthy.
This was her ticket out of that gilded cage—the pace. But what had it actually earned her? Her brother, Lo’s favor? Queen Celia’s cold toleration? Her father, the king’s half-hearted, fleeting i?
Was it possible that all of it—all of it—was just this creature’s doing? That she wasn’t some extraordinary anomaly, but a hand-crafted puppet? His so-called masterpiece?
“Bir.” Man’s voice sliced ly through the turmoil of mana, calm and unwavering. Even as reality fractured around them, her words nded like stones in a pond. “Be not afraid. All of this power is yours.”
Fight!
Fight it!
Pull yourself together—!
Bir’s once-purple eyes fred an uling crimson.
.
.
.
White.
The world shifted. The grouh her feet was cool, soothing. Water, crystal clear, pped at her ankles.
The red threads, once a strangling, suffog prison, now hung loose, draped over her body like a fragile dress. They stretched on forever, miles upon miles of crimson silk. But when she moved—wheugged a finger, an arm, her hey didn’t fight her. They didn’t tighten.
She spun oentatively. The threads followed her like obedient ribbons. She ran, and they flew behind her, fluttering like tendrils of some spectral gown. When she colpsed into the shallow water, they simply settled around her, no longer binding—no longer cutting.
This was hers. All of it. Her power.
.
.
.
“HAAAAAAAAA!!!”
Bir screamed as she wrenched herself free. The red strands cwed at her, resisting with ferocious determination. Her delicate frame bent over the force, her body dragged mercilessly back toward their grasp.
But she rose.
Trembling, gasping, half-torheir weight—she rose.
“You are mine!” Bir roared. “You are my soul!”
Bir Inkor found her specialty. “My own—fate!”
Red thread of fate.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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