Warning may include lots of death so beware of what you're reading so just a heads up
—Ashes in the Wind:
Three years later, after the personal journey of Astraeus.
Astraeus now 18 birthday December 25. Of the year 1134.
The wind carried with it the bitter scent of
ash. Not fresh—the Kind that clings to
your throat and chokes your lungs—but the older, heavier Kind, soaked into stone and soil until it becomes part of the land itself. Astraeus pulled his cloak tighter as he walked the desolate path. Behind him lay months of war, betrayal, and loss. Ahead, only uncertainty.
He had left without fanfare. No companions trailing after him this time, no banners of loyalty. For the first time since Venice's shadows had begun to spread across the borderlands, Astraeus walked alone.
"Alone again," he muttered under his breath. His voice was steady, but in the hollow quiet, even whispers sounded heavy.
The trail wound through skeletal remains of villages, their charred beams leaning at awkward angles, like broken ribs jutting from the earth. The silence was unnatural. No birds. No cicadas. Not even the buzzing of flies. As if life itself had abandoned the place.
He crouched near the ruins of a burned house, running his hand along the blackened wood. His palm came away streaked with soot.
That was when he saw it—small, fragile, and impossibly out of place. A child's doll, half- buried in the dirt. Its once-bright fabric was reduced to scraps, but one button eye still gleamed faintly in the low sunlight. Astraeus picked it up carefully, holding it like it might break apart at any moment. His chest tightened.
The world was burning faster than he could save it.
—Return of Mai:
A flicker of movement caught his eye.
A figure, cloaked in dark red, moved between the ruins with a strange familiarity, as though she belonged to the wasteland itself. Her steps were soundless, calculated, yet unhurried.
Instinct kicked in. Astraeus slid the doll into his cloak and shifted into a stance, his energy pooling at his fingertips, ready to ignite.
The figure stopped, tilting her head slightly, and then—she laughed. Softly. Bitter.
"I should've known it was you."
The voice hit him harder than any enemy's strike.
"…Mai?"
She lowered her hood. Auburn hair spilled down, streaked with soot and years of hardship, her once-bright eyes now carrying a guarded sharpness. She looked older than he remembered, but beneath the hardened expression was the same girl who had once pulled him out of the dirt when he was ten.
"Astraeus." She said his name like testing it against her tongue, half expecting it to shatter.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The ruins whispered around them with every passing gust, filling the silence with ghosts.
"You…" Astraeus began, but his voice caught. He tried again. "You're alive."
"Alive." She almost laughed again, but the sound came out bitter. "Exiled. Hunted. Accused. But yes, alive."
Her gaze hardened as it met his. "And what about you? Still playing the hero in a world that eats heroes alive?"
Astraeus wanted to smile, but the weight in her words crushed it before it could form. He had dreamed, back then, that one day he might find her again—still hopeful, still kind.
Instead, he found a woman carved by fire and betrayal.
"What happened, Mai?"
The question hung in the air. He had heard whispers, rumors scattered in taverns and border towns. That she had betrayed her people. That she had burned the Flame Temple to the ground in an attempt to seize control. That the Court of the Four Houses had condemned her name.
But hearing it from her mattered.
Mai's eyes narrowed. "What happened?" She gestured to the ruins around them, "The world happened. Lies happened. The Court needed a villain to unite against, so they made one. And I was the easiest choice. I was clever, ambitious, too curious for their comfort. When the temple fell, it was simple to pin it all on me."
Her voice cracked, just for a moment, before she forced it steady again. "I never touched that temple, Astraeus. But the moment They attacked, the story had already been written. The people believed it. And so—exile."
Astraeus clenched his fists. He remembered how, as a boy, she had defended him against cruel elders, how she had risked food and shelter to keep him alive. This wasn't the face of a traitor.
"They were wrong," he said, firmly.
Mai scoffed, folding her arms. "Truth doesn't matter. Stories do. And the story of Mai the Betrayer is far more useful to them than the truth of Mai the outcast."
The bitterness in her words was sharp, but Astraeus could hear the pain buried beneath.
—Venice the man of death and sin:
For a moment, silence. Then Astraeus asked, "And now? What have you been doing all these years?"
Mai's lips curved into a humorless smile. " Surviving. Learning. The world has many teachers when you're desperate enough to listen. I've studied forbidden arts, read scrolls I was never meant to touch, and walked paths the Court prays no one ever finds. The clans cling to their power, but outside their walls… there's more. Much more."
Something in her eyes flickered—both pride and warning.
Before Astraeus could press further, the air shifted. Cold. Heavy.
A sound drifted through the ruins. Not footsteps. Not breathing. A faint, rattling clack. Like bone striking bone.
Mai's posture stiffened immediately. "We need to leave."
Astraeus scanned the horizon, fire already licking at his palms. "What is it?"
Her voice dropped, almost to a whisper. "A name whispered in border towns. A shadow in the ash. Venice."
The name sent a shiver crawling up Astraeus's spine, though he didn't Know why.
Mai's expression darkened. "He's death in human skin. He doesn't fight battles—he ends them. Entire villages vanished when he passes. Bones left behind like… like trophies."
The rattling grew louder. Not from one direction, but from many. Echoing through the hollow houses.
Mai grabbed Astraeus's wrist. "If you fight him now, you'll die. Worse—you'll kill others with you. That's his curse. If Venice bleeds, a thousand innocents bleed with him,"
Astraeus froze. The idea sounded impossible—absurd. But something in Mai's eyes told him she believed every word.
The sound swelled, the rattling bones turning into a chorus that seemed to rise from the ground itself.
And then, in the distance, a silhouette.
A tall figure, draped in black, standing impossibly still amid the ash. The wind tugged at his cloak, but he did not sway, did not breathe. His head tilted slightly, as though curious.
Even from afar, Astraeus felt the weight of that gaze.
The figure raised a hand, A soldier's corpse, long dead, clawed its way upright from the earth, bones Knitting together until it stood as a twisted mockery of life.
The figure's voice carried across the ruins, deep and cold, cutting through the air like a blade.
"Flesh decays. Bones endure."
Astraeus's fire flickered in his hands, but for the first time in years, he hesitated to strike.
Mai's grip tightened. "We run. Now."
The skeletal soldier's jaw clattered open, but no sound came—only the echo of the countless more rising from the earth.
As Astraeus and Mai fled into the ash-stained horizon, the figure's words followed them like a curse.
"You cannot fight me without killing what
you seek to protect. Run, little sparks. Run, until the bones catch you."
The sound of rattling bones did not fade,
even as they disappeared into the distance.
And for the first time since he had begun his journey, Astraeus felt true dread.