Fauna crouched low beside Lamphrey, peering through the thick brush into the clearing beyond.

The voices of the humans carried sharp and cruel. The soldiers of Lucent stood in a lopsided circle beneath a crooked pine, shadows cast long in the fading light. Their cloaks were muddied, armor dented, many still streaked with blood and soot from the ruin of the battle at sea. Fauna recognized the insignia emblazoned on their breastplates—the double-eagle of Lucent's royal house. Once a symbol of pride. Now it looked rusted and hollow.

And in the center of their ring, bound and bleeding, stood a single figure.

A Greycloak.

He was broad-shouldered despite missing one arm, the other shackled tight to a snapped length of timber. His grey robes were torn, dragging in the mud, and blood oozed from a dozen cuts across his face and chest. Yet his chin remained lifted, his eyes fierce beneath a matted curtain of white hair.

"You can't be serious!" the Greycloak bellowed, straining against his bonds. "I bled for you bastards! I watched my Brothers fall at Sentinel Bay! We did what we had to do!"

One of the soldiers, a red-haired brute with a jagged scar across his lip, stepped forward. His hand gripped a coiled rope like it was a whip.

"You did what Kaedmon told you to," the man spat. "You let those monsters wipe us out. You turned those waters into a fucking graveyard."

More shouts erupted. A mix of grief, rage, and something darker—shame. Fauna saw it ripple through them like a wave: the weight of their failure twisted into a need for vengeance. They had lost. And now they needed someone to blame.

"Kaedmon don't give a damn about us!" another soldier cried. "Where was he when the Archon tore our ships to splinters? Where was Kaedmon when my brother drowned in fire?"

"You know the truth," the Greycloak growled, eyes wild with conviction. "If death must come for us, it must. The Lord does not shield us from sacrifice. He requires it."

"Then go ahead and make your sacrifice," the red-haired soldier snarled, tossing the rope over the lowest branch.

Fauna's breath caught in her throat. She watched, frozen, as two of the humans stepped forward and hauled the Greycloak toward the tree. He resisted, pushing back with his legs, but they kicked them out from under him. He hit the ground with a grunt. Mud caked his beard. Still he glared up at them, one arm twisted behind his back.

"We are your protectors," he spat. "We are humanity's sword!"

"You're rusty," the scarred soldier replied coldly.

The noose tightened around the Greycloak's throat.

Fauna's legs shifted, just a twitch, like her body was preparing to rise. But Lamphrey's hand touched her shoulder. A quiet, grounding weight.

"Wait," the Tialax whispered.

"No," Fauna breathed. Her heart was thudding. "This isn't—"

She stopped herself.

Because deep down, she remembered.

She remembered the smell of her family's fur burning. The screams of her kin in the snow. She remembered Greycloak blades soaked in Hopla blood. She remembered watching her father's head roll down a hillside while the soldiers of Kaedmon sang hymns.

And still… this wasn't right.

The humans surged forward. Boots pressed into the Greycloak's back. The rope was yanked tight.

He didn't beg. He didn't plead.

"I die as I lived," he growled. "In service to the true Lord of Argwyll..."

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And then they pulled.

Fauna winced.

The Greycloak kicked once. Twice. His feet scrabbled for purchase. But there was none. His face bloated. His one free hand clenched, trembling against the air.

And in those last moments, just before his strength gave out, his eyes locked with Fauna's.

She could swear he saw her.

And then he went still.

The humans let go of the rope. The body swayed gently in the forest breeze.

Fauna stared. Not moving. Not blinking.

All she could hear was the wind rustling through the pine needles, and the distant waves that still crashed against Sentinel Bay's broken shore.

Lamphrey was silent beside her.

The humans looked around as though they'd just woken up from some long-lasting enchantment. They stared, unmoving, at what they'd done. Some of them – out of maybe anger or indignation – walked up and spat on the corpse of the Greycloak as he lay there, crumpled and lifeless.

Then one of them – the eldest among them all – heaved a heavy sigh.

"Alright," he said. "Leave him. We're going home."

"Home?" one man scoffed. "There won't be a home soon, Markus. Best bet is to take our chances on the road and –"

"There won't be a road soon either, son," the elder said. "Soon there won't be nothin' at all. These are the End Times, don't you get it? Kaedmon's abandoned us. Couldn't even protect one of his own," he prodded the corpse of the Grey. "Best thing to do now is be with your loved ones. That's where I want to spend the last of my days, anyway."

The men looked to the elder and the man who argued against him, and then began quietly shuffling away, leaving their weapons in the dirt. It was almost as though they knew how useless they were.

Yet more of them quietly murmured that they couldn't just give up now. Some of them started weeping in the mud. Some of them said nothing at all, but stared blankly at the dead body that they'd produced.

"We must leave," Lamphrey whispered. "Some of these men may try to establish an outpost in Triant. They could pose a problem for the Lycae and Minxit."

The Tialax moved away but stopped when she saw Fauna not budging. She eyed the Hopla quizzically until a tiny whisper escaped her throat:

"…Why?" she asked. Her voice came out dry, cracked. "Why did you show me that?"

Lamphrey came close to her. Normally, she would have shied away from the piercing eyes of the Tialax. But now, after everything she'd seen, they just didn't seem so scary.

"Tell me what it is you saw, Fauna," she whispered.

Fauna didn't move an inch. "I saw fear. They weren't angry. They were afraid."

Lamphrey nodded. "I felt the same. Our powers – they draw us closer to others in this world. Even them."

She looked back towards the downtrodden soldiers, seeing them still sitting like children who's toys had been snatched away from them.

"There are two reasons for hatred," Lamphrey said. "Fear, and disgust. Once, the humans disgusted us. Now, they have reason to fear. But such fear turns them against themselves. It is their way."

"If Ethan saw this…" Fauna murmured. "He wouldn't want this."

"It is the first step on the road to rejuvenation," Lamphrey said. "For this world to be born anew, the relics of the old must fall. That is what the Archon is seeing to. That is where the path he has chosen is taking him."

Fauna spared another look back at the doomed men. She couldn't feel sorry for them. But neither could she bring herself to despise them as she once did.

"How does it all end, Lamphrey?" she asked, not really expecting a straight answer. "Does the whole world have to die just for us to come out on top?"

So when the Tialax actually gave her one, she whipped her head around and almost smacked herself with her own ears.

"Only one has to die."

Fauna sighed. "Keadmon."

"No."

The look Lamphrey was giving Fauna now was much more powerful than anything Fauna had ever felt. In fact, reading the timbre of the Tialax's voice, it was almost as though she were shaken, gripped by a sudden, inexplicable fear. As though someone might be listening.

Come to think of it, she'd exhibited the exact same sense of fear back when Fauna had come to see Ethan atop the Sentinel Lighthouse. At the time, Fauna had assumed that the fear was aimed at her.

But now she was beginning to see that Lamphrey had been like that before she'd even arrived…

"Only one being must die," she repeated. "And the Archon must kill it."

Fauna stepped forward, her lips quivering as the million-gold question spilled from her:

"Who?"

Upon the fiery beachhead that lined the Argwylian coastline, the survivors of what would soon be known in the annals of history as the Battle of Sentinel Bay crawled on their bellies.

Those who could still move – who were not charred or chewed or ripped or torn to ribbons by the Archons assault – did so slowly, staggering towards the cover of the Triant forest or trying to scratch their way out of the sand towards the King's Road that would take them back to Lucent.

Beyond the beach, the burning ships of the Lucent navy created a haze of smoke that blotted out the skies. Most men who had managed to keep their lives did not look back as they retreated.

But those who did saw the Archon rise at the very end of the battle – they saw the three-headed Chimera of Westerweald rise up from out of the ocean and beat its great paws upon the sands.

Those who beheld the sight couldn't even run. They just stared into the crimson eye of the hat in the middle of the beast.

And then, slowly, their gazes shifted to the broken skeleton that was currently being crunched between the Archon's lion-mouth.

Ethan spat out the remains of Ranok and surveyed the environment, watching as the warriors of humanity cried out for mercy. Not one of them dared raise their swords against him now.

And what the men saw him do next was something they would only speak of in hushed tones long after the battle was done.

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