They fled at dawn.
Vivi hadn't slept. The images still clung to her skin Viper's voice in her head, the cursed name, the sigil in blood.
Now she rode behind Haken, wrapped in his cloak, the chill air biting at her face as the palace disappeared behind trees.
"Where are we going?" she whispered,
"Somewhere old," Haken said. "Somewhere even curses forget."
They stopped at a ruined garden, half-swallowed by ivy and cracked stone. Once royal land, now abandoned forgotten like him.
The sun cut through broken pillars. Birds didn't sing here.
Vivi walked ahead, her boots crunching over vines. In the center of the garden stood a statue—an angel burned at the wings. At its feet, old blood still stained the marble.
"What is this place?"
Haken stepped beside her.
"Where the first cursed werewolf was created."
She looked at him.
"You brought me to the source?"
"You said you wanted answers. This place remembers."
As they stood in the silence, a pulse passed through the air. Soft. Sad. Like a memory waking up.
And then the garden spoke.
Vines recoiled. The wind stirred. And words—not heard, but felt—rose from the soil:
Virelya… the flame must be kept burning. Or all will fall to shadow."
Vivi backed away, heart pounding.
That name again. Why does it keep finding me?"
Haken reached for her hand.
"Because it's you. The name before Vivi. The one the palace tried to erase."
"But why would they,
"Because if Viper breaks the seal," he said, voice low, "you die."
Suddenly, Vivi's body convulsed.
Visions slammed into her:
A great serpent coiled around a tower.
A girl burning from the inside out.
Haken, kneeling in ash, screaming her name.
She collapsed.
Haken caught her before she hit the stone. Her breath was ragged, eyes wide.
"I saw… the end. If he wins… it's not just the kingdom."
"It's everything."
He nodded.
"That's why I brought you here. To show you what we're fighting for."
That night, by a fire they built beneath the angel's wing, Vivi looked at him. Not with fear. Not with distance.
But with something real.
"You could leave. Be safe."
"I told you before," Haken said, voice almost a growl. "I'm not safe without you."
And then without ceremony, without need for anything perfect—
she kissed him.
A kiss not of romance, but of war.
Of shared fate.
Of fire.