Some time had passed since the battle. Hestia stood staring at the enormous throne of the man who, in one way or another, had driven her to throw herself into this suicidal quest for the Elden Ring.
"Godfrey..." Hestia murmured, taking in the hall.
The wooden detailing. A throne clearly never meant for someone her size to sit in. Decorations that hinted at a mixture of eras. Had there been someone, or something, in this place before Godfrey? If so, it was nothing but rumor now — just like the First Elden Lord himself. And now, just like the deformed creature lying outside the throne room.
Melina had said they needed to leave. No doubt it was the right call. Staying here would mean more than just stalling — it would mean going on doubting. Defeat hurt worse than the burns, inside and out. The flask of Crimson Tears had surely worked wonders, but it was more than that. Hestia had felt a power stirring inside her ever since she woke up.
It had to be that dream. It had to be the fight beside Raider, on that vast, empty ground, against that impossible centaur. The thoughts kept coming, one after another. The scenes with Godrick. With Fulghor. And the look on Mitranis's face when she woke up. God, that look. But there was no time for that now.
A voice nearby kept insisting. She had to answer it.
"Hestia?" Melina's voice pressed, maybe for the tenth time. "We need to go. There's a—"
"Long road ahead, isn't there," Hestia cut in, then sighed. "All right. Let's go."
Hestia walked out of Stormveil Castle's throne room with a firm stride. Bodies were everywhere. She found Mitranis in a courtyard littered with palisades and the lifeless bodies of banished soldiers.
But he didn't look well. He was staring at his right hand, opening and closing it slowly. He had a conflict of his own, too. Something had woken up in him, no question. But the face he turned to her — it was the same one. No. It was new. And that was bad, because it made Hestia doubt her own resolve. Not out of weakness. It was something else. Something she thought she'd already lived through, back in her homeland, over another man.
Something had changed by then, without question — or maybe it had changed before. Hestia didn't even stop to ask herself when. What was certain was that the bitter taste was gone, that hesitation, that insecurity, that distrust she used to feel looking at Mitranis. And that, without a doubt, could turn out to be far more dangerous.
Even so, Hestia would walk that path. She walked toward Mitranis.
"Mitranis," the redhead said, her pace calm. "Thank you for waiting. I wanted to see the throne. To reaffirm my resolve, I suppose."
A short, pained laugh escaped her lips. She was beautiful. At least to Mitranis she was. The emotions of the battlefield tasted different now.
Like the coppery taste and smell of the blood still lingering. Of wet earth, of the smoldering ash from the fire the creature Godrick had fused with had unleashed during the battle. But for Mitranis, all of it was just this woman's scent. The one he'd already memorized.
"Don't worry about it," he answered, smiling as best he could.
Melina watched it all, though only in her faded form. Nepheli was there, and Melina didn't want to appear before anyone besides Mitranis.
"We should probably head to the Roundtable Hold," Nepheli said.
Hestia glanced sideways at the warrior, then at Mitranis. Something in his eyes was different. Hard to say what yet. A grim kind of seriousness. Not the one born of resolve that she'd come to know in him.
"I actually need to go somewhere else," he said, looking straight at Nepheli.
Why did that answer unsettle her so much? Hestia felt a burning, an urgency.
"Where do you have to go, Mitranis?" Hestia's voice came out sharper, tighter than she meant it to.
"I have to go... to the people I answer to," he said, his gaze hardening.
The recusants. Hestia knew about them. So did Gideon. But if Mitranis didn't want Nepheli to know yet, that was fair. So Hestia only nodded, closing her eyes for a moment.
Nepheli watched the scene. Something hung heavy between the two of them. Strong, resolute, both of them. Their purposes aligned, but what anchored them, clearly, did not. So she walked on ahead of them. She wouldn't listen in. It was better that way. They simply needed to get out of the castle and back to the Roundtable Hold — somewhere without the pressure of surviving soldiers and knights.
Torch-lit corridor after torch-lit corridor passed by. A few soldiers remained, but Nepheli seemed to be enough to handle them. One way or another, there was room to talk.
"So you have to go... carry out your duties," Hestia said, after a long silence.
"That's right," he said, nodding slowly.
She noticed him swallow hard. Memory had a way of betraying a person at moments like this — especially with questions like Hestia's. His duty... his duties were to kill people like her.
Of course, Hestia had no idea that someone had watched, more than once and from a distance, as she and the recusant made their way to Stormveil. Someone bold enough to slip past Margit — or even past Rogier without him ever noticing. And even during the stretches when Mitranis had been elsewhere, held back by the Omen, he'd still felt that presence.
"Do you want to tell me more?" she asked, almost timid.
All Mitranis could think was something like please don't look at me like that. He held her gaze for a moment. She deserved to know. Then he looked ahead, toward the end of another corridor, closer now to the castle's main gate.
"I have to go to Volcano Manor," he began. "I can't give you more than that. I answer to certain... beings, let's say. Powerful ones. Old ones. As old as the conflicts of this land."
"Is it far from here?" Hestia asked, worried.
"It is, but there are ways to get there fast." Mitranis looked at the Tarnished. "There's no shortage of shortcuts, ways to travel. The... Lord knows a great deal about magic. Too much, maybe."
The Lord. It sounded like someone powerful, no doubt about that. But the way Mitranis said it made him sound like more than someone. It made him sound like a something. Hestia chose not to press. She shook her head faintly, to clear the questions from her mind. To trust him.
"Will you tell me, when the time comes?" she asked, more serious now. "I just want to know if we're still going to see this journey through together."
"That's what I want," he answered, going still.
He turned slightly, just enough to face her. Close to her. It was, perhaps, the first truly intense look they had ever given each other. The first one that really counted. Maybe it shouldn't have happened like this — the taste of defeat, the helplessness, the goodbye. And even so, both of them wanted one thing understood: they would see each other again.
"I'll do what I have to do," Mitranis said, trying to smile. "And we'll see each other again. I just need... a month. All right?"
"A month..." Hestia kept looking at him.
She had to be resolute, then.
"All right. A month. We'll meet at the entrance of the Raya Lucaria Academy. I've read about it — my family kept old maps. I think I know how to get there."
"I see. That'll give you time to train. I take it you're already considering it, aren't you?"
Hestia nodded with determination. It was what she had to do. Not only because of the defeat. She would face her own contradictory nature. Or more than that. It wasn't only contradiction, not by a long way.
"I'll tell you about... my past too," she said, lowering her head for a moment.
She wanted to look at him. She wanted to keep looking at him a while longer. And that was no longer just companionship. And now, just when she wanted to look at him more, he was leaving. But that was good too, in its own way. She would grow stronger, no question. She just didn't know how yet.
Melina had said something to her once. "You won't get any further on the strength of your ancestors' tradition alone. Are you willing to use the power you've turned your back on, Hestia?" She hadn't known how to answer. Hadn't wanted to, really. That was before she'd even met Mitranis, back in Caelid. Before Redmane Castle.
Now the time had come to answer what had felt like a provocation a month ago. It was no longer optional. Hestia nodded.
"Come back stronger. I'll be stronger too, Mitranis, no question. You'll see," the woman said, resolve now plain on her face.
Mitranis smiled, let out a small laugh. That was the Hestia he knew. And seeing it eased something in him. The fear that she might lose her grace faded away, at least for now.
"That's the Hestia who—!" Mitranis caught himself. "The Hestia I know."
It had been an impulse, no question. A terrible one, a terrifying one. Impossible to deny. He couldn't let this grim moment end as anything more than the resolve of two traveling companions. He'd make Hestia feel like a burden, and he'd feel like one himself. Mitranis had to rein his feelings in. He couldn't tell Hestia that this was the woman he liked.
Fortunately, Hestia hadn't caught the slip. She only nodded, and the two of them kept walking.
Night had fallen. Come morning, each of them would go their own way. The small campfire had burned low. Leaves drifted down every now and then, whenever the wind stirred through the woods of Limgrave. A sign that Hestia and Mitranis were already well clear of Stormveil.
Nepheli had already gone her own way, as expected. She'd have to let Gideon know that everything was in order — that Godrick had fallen, and that the Tarnished girl had won. But Hestia hadn't finished claiming the Great Rune yet, and she had no interest in heading to the Roundtable Hold for an audience with the fingers either. Instead, Nepheli respected Hestia's choice: she wanted to grow strong. Not just carry out her task and be done with it, answering to someone else's orders.
Hestia was already asleep, and Mitranis was using a thin stick to stir the embers, keeping them from dying out. Melina was nearby. She had appeared not long before.
"You're going to keep playing dumb, aren't you?" she asked, her tone carrying a quiet insistence.
"I want him to back off a little," Mitranis answered. "But he won't. He's... I wish he were just persistent, that guy."
"Another recusant, I take it," Melina said, her voice drier now.
Mitranis closed his eyes, his face tightening. He got up quickly. He looked at Melina with a different expression. Dry. Grim. Almost hollow.
"I'll be back. Watch over Hestia."
He turned and walked off. He vanished behind a nearby tree, and after that, not a single footstep of his could be heard.
Yards and yards away, a thick tree branch groaned, close to cracking. Mitranis was already perched on it, as if he'd been there all along. His dagger, Tenebrae, driven precisely into the trunk. Beside the blade, a face with thin, elongated eyes, almost feline. A man about Mitranis's age, most likely. Long hair pulled back into a tail. A thin mustache. Light leather armor. A curved sword, the classic assassin's blade — long, with a faint serration along the edge.
He was the very picture of a hunting animal. An ambush predator. A fox, or a silent, relentless cat.
"What are you doing here, Archibald?" Mitranis asked, almost a whisper. "Did Lady Tanith send you? She must be worried. I thought I made it clear to Patches. I'd come back when I had to come back."
"Ha, ha..." Just a laugh.
"Talk, you idiot," Mitranis pressed, yanking Tenebrae free from the trunk.
"But you didn't count on Bernahl, friend."
Bernahl. The one who had trained Mitranis, and this other recusant too. That orphaned warrior — supposedly the son of a Tarnished who had wanted to use his own child as an ally. As a reserve, a decoy at best. Cannon fodder, or a sacrifice, really.
The father had died not long after arriving in the Lands Between, and not for his son's sake. His killer had simply decided it should be so. And one day Bernahl showed up at Volcano Manor with a child in tow. That child was Archibald. Once Mitranis's friend, his training companion — the two of them Bernahl's only disciples, in fact.
It was hard to say exactly when their paths, their interests, their personalities had diverged. All that was clear was that they no longer got along. And now it wasn't just discomfort, or indifference. To Mitranis, this sounded like risk. Like provocation.
"What does Bernahl have to do with this? He wouldn't tell you what I'm doing or not doing."
"That's exactly why I wanted to see for myself, friend." The emphasis on that last word was pure venom. "Do your job, Mitranis. Our Lord expects great things from us. So does Lady Tanith."
Mitranis felt the tension seize his whole body. But he couldn't allow himself that — he'd snap the branch they were both perched on, him crouched on the balls of his feet, Archibald seated where the branch met the trunk.
"Tell Lady Tanith I'm coming," Mitranis decided, sheathing his dagger. "And don't—"
"Don't touch her?" Archibald asked, mocking, his feline face twisted into a smirk. "I won't lay a finger on your little doll, dear."
If it weren't for the fact that they were allies, that they'd known each other since childhood, or that Lady Tanith wouldn't stand to lose a single recusant, Mitranis would have killed him on the spot. He might come to regret holding back, later. Something told him he would.
"Do your own job," Mitranis snapped, his voice low and cutting. "Weren't you going to recruit one of the Hoslows and turn him against the other? That was your grand plan. Go stick to that."
A second of silence. Or two, three, four. Mitranis wasn't counting. He glanced back for a moment. He thought of her. He looked at Archibald again. Something had risen in his eyes now.
It was the same thing the other recusant had seen at Stormveil Castle. That was the look he'd wanted to see. The proof. The prize. Both reward and challenge. Being the best recusant wasn't necessarily about killing more Tarnished — it was about doing it in grand fashion, growing stronger and stronger with every one. Take everything, Bernahl himself had said once. Not the Bernahl who had raised Mitranis, exactly — not all the time. The one Archibald had watched. The one who egged Tanith on, to forge the best, the strongest, the ones who'd earn their long-awaited audience with Rykard.
If Archibald fought whatever it was Mitranis now carried inside him, maybe he'd finally get there.
"I will, little friend. I want them both to suffer. To hate each other. To grow strong."
A psychotic smile. Mitranis couldn't quite place when it had happened — the exact moment Archibald had taken on that look. It didn't matter anymore.
Mitranis blinked. Without realizing it, his face felt strangely warm. He had no idea of the golden glow in his own eyes — the one Archibald had already seen.
"You've been warned. Farewell."
With that, Mitranis vanished, leaving nothing behind but the rustle of shifting leaves and the branch he'd stood on.
"I want them to suffer. That's my method. If I don't make what I take suffer... it's hard to call it mine, isn't it?" Archibald murmured to himself.
Sunlight crept through the foliage, brushing Hestia's face gently. A soft warmth that helped ease her awake. She sat up. Stretched fully. Looked around. The fire had gone out; her pack lay close by. But the other pack was missing. The other person.
"He left not long ago, Hestia," Melina said.
"He couldn't bring himself to say goodbye," Hestia said, staring emptily at the fire, at the spot where he should have been.
He usually was. More than Hestia liked to admit, given how little time they'd actually spent together. She closed her eyes, rubbed them to wake herself up properly. It was time to go.
"He probably had to leave at night, and he still stayed to keep watch anyway. As if I'd asked him to."
"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Melina asked, already knowing the answer.
"I suppose it means we'll see each other again."
With that answer settled, Hestia got ready to leave. She'd wash up at a nearby stream and set off. The road to Liurnia was long. A month remained until that meeting at Raya Lucaria.
She had to become at least as strong as she'd promised — to be the one to carry the Elden Ring. And, little by little, subtly, another idea drew nearer too. But that was still a month away.