The host's voice turned cautious. "An uncontrolled beast?"

"Yes" the Ruler said. "It reached the lower bridges. It began burning through the supports. If it had reached the inner city, it would have turned Ukai into splinters and bodies."

Raizen's chest tightened as his mind assembled an image - a beast tearing through living wood, panic spreading along bridges, people trapped between height and death.

The Ruler's voice stayed steady.

"And Alan was the one who took it down."

The host's breath came out in a harsh exhale. "That was never reported."

"No" the Ruler said. "Because we couldn't afford panic. Because we couldn't afford to advertise weakness. Because we couldn't afford to tell the world that Ukai's beasts can slip their leashes."

Raizen frowned.

So that was what the burn meant. Not an accident. A hidden battle.

"After he killed it" the Ruler continued, "he didn't leave."

The host's voice tightened. "He stayed."

"He stayed" the Ruler agreed. "He stayed to put out what could be put out. He stayed to stabilize what could be stabilized. He stayed to clean the remains so that Ukai could keep living without choking on the sight of what almost happened."

Raizen's mind flicked to Alan again - calm, controlled, professional, dangerous in the good, quiet way.

He just always took care of things.

The Ruler's voice softened slightly, almost tired.

"That is what a ruler does" he said. "Not always stand tall for speeches. Not always charm the people. Not promise the impossible. A ruler takes what is burning and forces it not to consume everything."

The host spoke slowly now. "And you think that makes him worthy."

"I know it does" the Ruler replied.

After a long silence, the Ruler mumbled again. "He even brought Elin. The Sky Sovereign. That was never his job, yet to took it anyways."

"Elin!?" the man tried to argue again, because he wasn't satisfied.

The Ruler didn't answer immediately, and in the pause, Raizen felt the man's outrage gathering like water behind a dam.

"Elin?" the man said again, not waiting for the Ruler's answer, with an offended voice. "That traitor?"

His restraint was gone now. Desperation had ripped through his politeness, leaving raw anger behind.

"She has the audacity to call herself the Sky Sovereign" the host spat, "after she cold-bloodedly killed the real Beast Sovereign with her damned dragon."

Raizen's eyes widened.

Beast Sovereign.

Killed.

The host pressed on, words rushing out now like they'd been held back for years.

"When she did that, she nearly killed you as well!" he hissed. "You were there. You know what she did. You know what she is."

The Ruler's voice came quietly.

"I know. I was there."

The host faltered for a second, thrown off by how simple the response was. Like he'd expected denial, or justification, or an argument.

But the Ruler didn't argue. He didn't need to.

"And it wasn't even her power" the man went on, voice turning sharper with accusation. "Not truly. Not originally."

Raizen leaned lower, almost forgetting the ache in his ribs. His fingers tightened around the branch, holding him tighter.

The host's voice came out cold now, calculated again, but the desperation still trembled beneath it.

"She emptied life from an entire forest" he protested. "She stole it! Drained it. Took that energy and made it her own."

Raizen's spine suddenly went colder.

Raizen remembered every detail of it.

Gray leaves.

Trees standing like corpses, bark pale and lifeless.

Soil that looked wrong, like it had been scraped clean of color.

Air that felt too quiet, too empty, as if sound itself had trouble existing there.

The dead forest.

Raizen's stomach dropped.

That was Elin?

His grip slipped slightly on the branch, and his heart felt like it almost jumped out of his chest.

The host kept speaking, and Raizen barely heard him now because his own thoughts were louder.

He remembered the way Elin had moved through her cave with that impossible calm. The way the animals had trusted her.

He remembered the surge of power around her when she made every single fiber in his body tighten at once

He'd assumed it was simply what she was. What a Sovereign.

But if the host was right…

Raizen swallowed, throat tight.

That forest wasn't dead the way a forest died naturally.

It had been…

Emptied.

And the sky sovereign…

Earned its power through stealing life.

Raizen's eyes widened slightly, and he felt a slow, sick understanding crawl across his thoughts.

The gray forest had been a mystery since the moment he'd stepped near it. It always felt wrong, like the world had been drained of color, sound and warmth.

And now that wrongness had a name he could connect it to.

Elin. The actual Sky Sovereign

Raizen's chest tightened, and for a heartbeat he couldn't tell whether he was horrified, impressed or simply afraid.

Below, the Ruler's voice returned, quiet and restrained, cutting through the host's accusation without raising itself to match the anger.

"She paid a price you cannot see" the Ruler said.

The host mumbled something that Raizen couldn't really understand.

His mind was still stuck on the gray flowers, the strange soil, the silence that had pressed against him like a warning.

That wasn't a natural place.

It wasn't an accident.

Elin was the hand that made it.

Raizen stared into the fog as if he could see that dead forest again through the darkness around Ukai's branches.

He felt the knife against his skin where he'd hidden it. A simple reminder of what he needed to do.

Elin's power hadn't come from nowhere.

It had come from a place that she once wanted to protect.

Raizen exhaled slowly.

Then the knife moved.

Not much. Just enough that he felt it: A faint vibration ran through the silver grip, subtle as a pulse under skin. His fingers stiffened instantly, every sense snapping awake. He didn't breathe.

The blade trembled again.

Once.Then twice.

Raizen's heart kicked.

He glanced down, carefully, angling his wrist so the fog wouldn't catch the metal's shine.

Thin red lines were beginning to surface along the blade.

Not glowing yet. Just… Present. They were just... There. Crawling slowly from the base toward the edge, circling the knife in delicate, deliberate spirals.

Raizen's eyes widened.

Red threads.

Elin's words echoed in his head, calm and absolute.

"When red threads start circling it…"

The knife pulsed once in his palm.

Patiently.

Raizen lifted his gaze toward the Ruler's chamber, fog shifting around the dark shape of the window.

"…It's starting...?" he whispered.

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