The White Tower smelled of two things: sanctified incense and fresh blood.
To the priests of the Luminia Kingdom, the scent of lavender incense was the breath of the Gods. To Alaric, it was merely a perfume used to mask the stench of rotting corpses buried beneath the floorboards.
Clang.
Alaric's steel boot crushed a fragment of stained glass on the marble floor. Outside, the storm raged, hammering against the high windows like a thousand fists demanding entry. Lightning flashed, illuminating the carnage in the hallway. Twelve Royal Guards lay broken, their golden armor now painted in the crimson viscosity of their own lifeblood.
Alaric didn't look back at them. She wiped her greatsword, Oathbreaker, on the velvet curtains adorning the hallway. The black steel of the blade hummed, hungry for more.
"Traitor," a dying guard wheezed from the floor, clutching his severed stomach. "You... are the Empire's... dog..."
Alaric paused. She looked down, her amber eyes devoid of warmth.
"I was never a dog," she said, her voice a low rasp that sounded like gravel grinding together. "I was a butcher. And you were just meat on the block."
She stepped over him and kicked open the heavy oak doors of the Inner Sanctum.
The room was vast, circular, and suffocating. In the center, suspended above a pit of swirling abyssal mana, was a cage of light. And inside that cage sat the girl the world called a savior.
Elara.
She was smaller than Alaric remembered. Her platinum hair, once lustrous enough to be woven into ballads, now hung limp and tangled around her thin shoulders. She wore a ceremonial dress of pure white silk, but it hung off her frame like a shroud. Her wrists and ankles were bound not by iron, but by jagged crystals that pulsed with a parasitic light, draining her mana—her very life force—to power the defensive barrier of the city.
The "Canary" of the Empire. Singing her life away to keep the monsters at bay.
Alaric walked forward, the heavy thud of her armor echoing in the silence. Elara slowly lifted her head. Her eyes, the color of a morning sky, were dull and hollow. There was no fear in them. Only exhaustion.
The Saintess looked at the blood-soaked knight—a demon in human skin, scarred and terrifying.
"They sent you," Elara whispered, her voice cracking. "Finally."
Alaric stopped at the edge of the ritual circle. "They say the barrier is failing. They say the Saintess has outlived her usefulness."
"I know," Elara let out a breath that sounded like a sob. She didn't beg for mercy. She didn't scream. She simply closed her eyes and tilted her neck, exposing the pale, fragile skin of her throat. "Do it, then. I have waited too long for this silence."
Alaric's grip on her sword tightened. The leather of her gloves creaked.
The Empire wanted a dead Saintess to blame for the coming war. The Church wanted a martyr to inspire the masses. Everyone wanted this girl dead.
Everyone except me.
"Open your eyes, Elara," Alaric commanded.
The Saintess blinked, confused.
Alaric didn't aim for her neck. With a roar that shook the stone walls, she swung the massive black blade downward.
CRACK!
Sparks flew like fireworks. The blade didn't strike flesh; it struck the crystal anchor binding Elara to the ritual circle. The magic exploded. A shockwave of pure energy slammed into Alaric, tearing at her armor, burning her skin, but she didn't falter. She swung again. And again.
"What... what are you doing?" Elara gasped, shielding her face from the debris.
"Resigning from my post!" Alaric gritted her teeth, delivering a final, devastating blow.
The cage of light shattered.
Elara collapsed forward, falling from the dais. Alaric dropped her sword and caught the girl before she hit the ground.
Skin touched skin.
Gasp.
The moment Alaric's hand brushed Elara's bare arm, the world turned white. A searing pain, like a branding iron, burned into Alaric's left wrist. It wasn't just physical pain; it was a flood of emotion. Loneliness. Fear. Cold. Despair.
It was Elara's soul.
And in return, Alaric felt a warm, golden current rush into her own battered body. The deep gash on her shoulder, earned from the earlier fight, began to knit together. The fatigue vanished.
The Resonance.
Alaric looked down. A glowing golden seal was etching itself onto her wrist, pulsing in rhythm with Elara's heartbeat.
"You..." Elara trembled, staring at the knight who held her. She looked at the blood on Alaric's face, then at the gentle way the knight held her. "You are the Butcher of Veridia. Why?"
Alaric ignored the question. She could hear the bells tolling outside. The alarm had been raised. The Paladins would be here soon.
She scooped Elara up into her arms, the Saintess weighing no more than a feather. Alaric picked up Oathbreaker with one hand, the heavy sword feeling strangely light now, fueled by the golden energy coursing through her veins.
"The world wants you dead, little bird," Alaric said, her voice rough but steady, a shield against the storm. She looked straight into Elara's wide, tear-filled eyes. "But from this moment on, your life belongs to me."
She kicked the debris aside and walked toward the balcony, where the storm awaited them.
"Let's go. We have an Empire to burn."