---
"Sekhmet," she whispered. "Your mouth… there was blood… and the sounds… what happened to my guards."
Sekhmet's jaw clenched. He kept his eyes forward. His voice came out low, controlled, but not cold.
"They are alive," he said.
Lily swallowed hard.
"They sounded… not human," she whispered.
Sekhmet's chest tightened. "I will tell you everything later," he said.
"Not now. Not in purgatory. Not while kobols still hunted." But he did not say those words out loud.
He only added, quieter, almost like a promise to himself.
"When we reach the city."
Lily stared at him, searching his face. Fear and trust wrestled inside her eyes.
Then she nodded once, because she had no choice but to believe him.
Sekhmet ran until his lungs burned again.
He ran until the terrain shifted into thicker dead woods, where twisted trees formed a maze and moonlight broke into fragments.
Tap Tap Tap…
Behind them, the kobols' howls grew distant.
Not gone.
But distant.
