"I failed…"
The words fell from her lips. She felt it again, that same hollow weight.
Like the throne room.
Like the war.
Like the moment Aucteros destroyed everything.
Memories flickered to the ballroom massacre. Rhenvar's unhinged power.
Then Viir's unchecked cruelty.
Willow taken through a portal.
Too late. Too weak. Again, and again.
She sat in the dirt, black clothes dirtied, slight blood on her hands.
"Why did you… accept me?" She asked softly, eyes locked on Fenrus.
The great spirit wolf stood still, his gaze calm as the stars.
"It's not because you're not a good leader. You were here. You tried. You failed yes but you are no coward," he said. "I'd never accept anyone like that. But no offense Alpha, although it was outside your power, you have much to learn."
Sinephilim flinched. A pain of shame.
Then-
"I chose you because you carry the essence of someone special. The spark of something greater. You haven't truly shined yet… but I want to see it when you do."
Fenrus leaned in.
"Please, we're bonded. Remember who you are."
Then she remembered. The war that led to the genocide of her people.
****
Flashback: Cursed encounter.
What looked like snow now fell.
It was not snow but black ash and soot from the burning village.
The sky was cracked with red light from their moon. Lightning forked over the mountains. Aucteros' army was nowhere to be seen.
Sinephilim stood on a shattered plateau; armor scorched, crown discarded.
All around her, the small folk trembled.
Humans. Elves. Dwarves. Lizardfolk. Beastmen.
Children no taller than her knee.
All bleeding. All terrified.
All looking at her. As if she was a savior.
One man did this. One evil man.
"Your Majesty!" Someone cried. "The village is collapsing from the fire! We need to fall back; the cursed knight could still be here!"
She looked down the ridge. A village still burned, screaming children; mothers trapped under rubble. No reinforcements. No time.
Her brothers stood beside her.
Five of them. Her kin. Her true blood family.
Karn, the strongest, stepped forward. "Give the order, Sister."
She hesitated.
Her chest ached.
She looked to the child in the valley below, limping, carrying another child through the fire.
She looked at her soldiers, hungry, tired, but waited for her to speak.
And she looked to her brothers.
"I need three of you to go," she said.
Karn smiled, no hesitation. "We knew you'd command, my queen."
The others embraced her without words.
They leapt from the cliff like true heroes, blades drawn, as if Gods given form.
She watched them land in the heart of the chaos. Heard their roar war cries. Cries not for war, but to save.
She watched one of her brothers save an old woman instantly.
Another shielded an unconscious child from the flames.
Another screamed her name before running into a burning building.
And at that moment, she did not break. Their valor was moving.
She turned to the army. Her voice rose over the thunder from the mountains.
"This is not about kingdoms anymore! Not gold, race, or blood. This is about who we are when death comes to us and if we are worth living in coexistence."
Her hands glowed with demonic lightning. "And death came for those here, for us! The same who share this world! Follow me, and our future will be bright. We will be together!"
And they did.
The screams came first.
Then the black mist of shadows silenced them.
Sinephilim's head snapped toward the northern ridge, where a shadow, tall as a giant and draped in flowing darkness, ascended like a herald of the end.
The cursed knight had arrived.
Rhenvar the great hero. The immortal cursed knight of the shadow fortress.
Behind the helm, his eyes were two pits of the abyss. His armor was so black you'd mistake him for a shadow, and Souleater, his blade, glowed with a sick, hungry crimson. The ground withered beneath his steps. The wind recoiled. The air trembled with his presence.
"Father preserve us," whispered a demon cleric.
"He's here," said another. "The knight who cannot die."
One of the smallfolk sobbed, clutching their child.
But Sinephilim didn't look away. She did not flinch.
"Save anyone you can!" She commanded and then-
She stepped forward, away from the army.
Her soldiers called out, some reaching for her; others begging her to fall back.
She couldn't.
She walked alone.
Toward him.
The cursed knight stopped just ahead. The fires of this war silhouetted his shape in crimson. Behind him lay the corpses of an entire scouting party, burned, torn, ripped apart.
"Rhenvar…" she whispered.
But he didn't react.
There was no recognition. No pause. No mercy.
He raised Souleater with his left hand, a challenge issued for her.
And then.
He charged.
Faster than any human knight had a right to move.
Sinephilim met him head-on.
She raised her hands and willed the demonic black lightning to bend, to shield, to destroy. Rhenvar's sword came down with full force.
BOOM.
She dodged back but she stayed on her feet.
Rhenvar hissed, no words, no rage. Just… disappointment.
He lunged again. Like a weapon.
This time she sidestepped, and her magic curved into a radiant barrier, sparing the smallfolk behind her.
"Get them out!" She screamed. "Everyone run! I will hold him!"
"Your Majesty!"
"That's an order!"
The cursed knight turned toward the fleeing survivors.
She saw it.
His body moved toward them.
"No," she whispered and charged.
She tackled him with a blast of sheer will, pushing him back, forcing him to face her.
"You don't get to take them," she snarled. "Not them."
He swung again, cleaving through houses, fire, and even air. He missed her. Then his fist landed on her face. She fell back.
"Sister!" Karn came running up. War hammer in hand. He met Rhenvar head on. Like a true King.
Karn tried to block the cursed knight's blade but-
As if the blade itself was a ghost. Cleaved through his hammer, his armor and her brother Karn turned into dust. War hammer fell, still intact.
"K- Karn…" Sinephilim stood her ground, holding back her tears.
She was bleeding. Her shoulder ached. Her magic flickered.
But she did not fall. She would not let Karn's death take her emotions.
Not when a mother cradled her child behind her.
Not when an old human limped beside a wounded demon.
Not when a small child looked up at her and said, "Please… I don't want to die." She screamed and pushed back, her magic surging.
She looked down at the child. She gritted her teeth.
"I am SINEPHILIM!" She cried. "And you… You are a monster; I will not let you win!"
For a moment, just a flicker, his blade paused.
His head tilted.
Recognition?
Regret?
She couldn't tell.
And then, he vanished into the shadows.
Gone.
The cursed knight fled into the burning night, leaving only silence and scorched land behind. And her brother who died protecting her. His dust lay next to his hammer.
By dawn, the people she shielded had lived.
She stood watching over her brothers' grave. An echo of what he once was. A funeral of pain.
And the world whispered her name as something more than queen.
A protector.
A shield.
A true leader.
A savior.
By nightfall, another village was destroyed, but its people were saved.
Her army stood burnt, but unbroken. And her brother Karn…
…was no longer part of the world, he didn't even get to be buried. Thanks to the cursed knight.
****
Present.
The memory faded.
Sinephilim opened her eyes. Tears clung to her lashes but did not fall.
She looked at Fenrus, who watched her in silence.
"I used to be someone that was looked at," she whispered. "Trusted with the weight of a whole kingdom."
"You still are," the wolf said. "But you've been beaten and then forgotten, a leader of a dead world."
She stood.
Her fingers curled into fists. Light, faint, but passion, glimmered in her palms.
"Then it's time I remembered. And the others won't forget."
We're going to get you back, Willow.