The moment the Bridge Without End vanished into the mist behind them, Allen felt a strange mixture of relief and resentment. His legs still trembled from the crossing, his mind replaying the planks collapsing under him, the ash dissolving in his hands.
"This," he muttered under his breath, "was insane."
Ravik glanced at him, brow raised. "You made it."
"That's not the point," Allen snapped. "We could have taken any other route. There had to be something less suicidal."
Ravik stopped walking, turning fully toward him. "You don't understand. From now on, the way we travel will always be like this dangerous. The bridge was only the beginning. Any normal route roads, ships, portals will get us caught. You think the kings' killers don't know what we're after? Every gate, every port is being watched."
Allen opened his mouth to argue, but the look in Ravik's eyes silenced him. This wasn't exaggeration; it was certainty.
So they kept moving.
The next two weeks blurred into a constant game of shadows. They hid in abandoned barns, ruined watchtowers, and once, a half-collapsed windmill that groaned in the night like something alive. They never lit fires. They spoke in whispers, even when they were sure no one could hear.
And everywhere they passed, Allen saw the same thing: a land fraying at the edges.
Markets stood half-empty. Crops rotted in the fields for lack of hands to harvest them. Villages lived in fear of passing patrols not soldiers of a united realm, but armed men loyal only to whatever noble fed them.
Without a king, the continent had no spine.
Allen remembered the day his brother had left for the capital. He'd thought then that the crown was just a symbol gold and ceremony. But now, watching a farmer sell his last bag of grain for a handful of dull coins, or a mother trade her wedding band for a loaf of bread, he began to understand.
A king wasn't just a ruler. A king was the thing that held all the threads together. Without him, the cloth came apart.
More than once, Allen found himself gripping his cloak tighter, guilt pressing at his ribs. His brother had carried that weight. And Allen… had been blind to it.
One night, as they camped in the hollow of a dead tree, he felt the pull of Mira's presence. He didn't hear her footsteps she was never so obvious but her voice came as if whispered directly into his mind.
Allen… trust your heart.
The words were simple, but they sank deep. He wanted to ask her trust it for what? For finding the Key? For knowing who to kill and who to spare? But the presence faded, leaving only the echo of her voice.
Ravik saw his expression. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Allen said, though the words clung to him like burrs.
They pressed on.
It was on the twelfth day that Allen saw it.
They had been following the edges of a pine forest, moving toward a low hill where Ravik suspected the First Key's location might be hidden. But the sound of chanting reached them low, rhythmic, wrong. Allen slowed, peering through the trees.
A clearing opened below, lit by torches stuck into the ground. At its center stood a wide stone platform, ringed with armored men. Behind them, richly dressed nobles lounged on cushioned chairs, their faces pale in the firelight.
On the platform knelt a dozen villagers poorly clothed, hands bound, heads bowed.
A noble knight stepped forward, lifting a silver staff tipped with a black crystal. He spoke in a language Allen didn't know, and the air grew heavy. The bound villagers began to shake not from fear, but from something deeper, as if something inside them was being torn away.
Allen's breath caught. Serra energy the raw essence of soul and emotion was spilling from their bodies like smoke, curling toward the crystal. The villagers' eyes dulled.
He had seen Serra before, in moments of death or powerful magic, but never like this. This was deliberate. This was harvesting.
Ravik's hand gripped his arm. "Don't. It's not our fight."
Allen's jaw tightened. "They're killing them."
"They're killing everyone, Allen. But if you rush in, you'll die with them and the Key dies with you."
Allen forced himself to turn away, but the chanting continued, clawing at his ears.
He might have kept walking, but then the knight spoke again, his voice carrying across the clearing.
"What is the greater suffering?" he called to the gathered nobles. "To end a life… or to break it until it begs for death?"
There were murmurs of approval.
The knight gestured, and two servants dragged a struggling man onto the platform. Behind him, his wife and daughter were pulled forward, both screaming.
Allen froze.
The knight smiled coldly. "Treat them as you wish," he told his men. "Let their Serra come willingly to my crystal."
The guards moved in. The woman cried out as a gauntleted hand struck her. The child's wail cut through the night.
Something inside Allen snapped.
The next moment, he was in motion chains whispering at his sides, boots silent in the grass. He hit the first guard like a hammer, his blade sliding between armor plates. A second fell before he could raise his spear. The third managed a shout before Allen's chain wrapped his throat and yanked him backward into the shadows.
The villagers stared, wide-eyed, as the guards fell one by one.
When Allen stepped onto the platform, the knight's smile faltered.
Steel clashed in the torchlight. Allen moved like a storm, chains biting into armor, spear striking low to unbalance his foes. The crystal staff's bearer tried to retreat, but Allen closed the distance, cutting down the last guard.
The knight fell to his knees suddenly, tears streaking his face. "Ohhh… my god… forgive me… forgive me…"
Allen hesitated, spear poised. This was not the arrogance of a man who feared death it was the pleading of someone who believed in something else entirely.
"What are you"
He didn't finish. The hesitation cost him.
In a blink, the knight's demeanor changed. His tears vanished, replaced by a smile too sharp to be human. The black crystal flared, and Allen's body convulsed. His chains always ready to answer his call hung limp, unresponsive.
"What how" His knees hit the stone. The strength bled from his limbs.
The knight loomed over him. "You dare spill blood on consecrated ground? You dare defy the will of our god?"
Allen's vision blurred.
"You will pay for this," the knight said softly. "Every soul you saved tonight will curse your name."
The last thing Allen saw was the black crystal pulsing above him, drawing in the torchlight, the Serra, even the air from his lungs until everything went dark.