By morning, Velmire was no longer just a city.
It was a cage.
Black Watch banners unfurled across rooftops. Ironclad soldiers patrolled every street, dragging suspects from their homes, searching for "magical contraband," interrogating anyone who coughed near a rebel's shadow.
And above them, cutting through the cloud-choked sky like blades of steel and fire—
Floating warships.
Three of them.
Engines humming like thunder. Bearing the seal of the Sky Citadel. The king was no longer watching from afar.
He was descending.
---
In the rebel cachehouse, hidden beneath the shattered shrine, Kira slammed a scroll down on the table. "He's not just hunting us," she growled. "He's making a statement. These ships don't leave Drelthane unless there's a war to start—or a Veilborn to destroy."
Syaoran stood nearby, his jaw tight, arms crossed. The mark of the Eye still shimmered faintly beneath the collar of his shirt.
"I can fight them," he said. "I've done it before."
"You survived," Kira snapped. "Barely. The Voidspeaker was a priest. These? These are the king's elite. Battle-forged mages and blight-forged monsters. You don't win by charging lightning at the sky."
He turned to her, his voice steady. "Then what do we do? Run? Let them torch the city while we hide underground?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Because she was considering it.
---
In a back room, Rinna lay still, her breathing thin. Teren sat beside her, clutching the stolen parchment in his hands. He'd finally reawakened—but something in him had shifted.
"It's opening," he said quietly as Syaoran entered.
"The map?"
Teren nodded. "Now that the first Seal has been awakened, the others are… reacting. It's not a map anymore. It's a path. Changing as we move."
He unrolled the parchment. The Eye of Ilarum, once centered, had shifted—joined now by a second symbol, flickering like flame over a distant region.
Kira leaned over. "That's the Mourning Marsh. South of the shattered border. No one goes there."
"They do now," Syaoran said.
---
By nightfall, the decision was made.
Velmire was lost—for now. The resistance would scatter, blend, wait for a better storm. But Syaoran, Teren, and Kira would head south, through the frozen spine of Grael's Pass, toward the next Seal.
They would chase the path of Ilarum before the Cult could reach it.
And the kingdom?
It would burn or survive in their absence.
---
Before leaving, Syaoran returned to the bakery once more. Just for a moment.
He stood in the kitchen, where the scent of bread had once been warm and full of life.
Now, it smelled of ash.
He lit a single candle, placed it on the counter, and whispered, "I'll come back. I swear it."
---
In the skies above Velmire, aboard the largest of the king's warships, King Valcheiros stood before a mirror of black water
In it, he saw Syaoran's face
The mark.
The lightning
The defiance
And he smiled
"Let the boy run," he said "The longer the hunt, the sweeter the kill"