Elizabeth was no longer fighting something.
She was the thing.
The fury did not come in waves. It came in ancient layers, compacted like stone beneath lunar pressure. Each step she took across the frozen ground split the earth with a dry crack. She did not run. She advanced. And everything in her path learned the difference between existing and remaining.
A wolf tried to flank her. Primary error.
She seized him by the muzzle, twisted with almost gentle precision, and the snap of his neck echoed like green wood breaking. The body fell before the brain had time to understand it was already dead.
Another came from behind. Elizabeth's claws tore the air and tore flesh with it. It was not a strike. It was a sentence. Hot blood vaporized in the night cold, staining the snow a red that did not apologize.
Safira burned inside her.
Not as a blessing.
As a cruel inheritance.
Each kick fractured bones forged to withstand human steel. Ribs split like old ceramic. Jaws were crushed against stone. She did not roar. Did not scream. Absolute silence, interrupted only by the wet sound of destruction.
Elizabeth did not need to announce herself.
The Moon did that for her.
Beside her, Leónia moved in another language. The sword carved wide arcs, drinking blood as if from an ancient thirst. Each enemy who fell at the knight's feet made the ground slick, an improvised altar where death repeated without ceremony.
— Do not fall back! — someone shouted. — She's only one!
Pathetic lie.
Elizabeth lifted her face.
Her eyes reflected the moon now fully exposed, breaking through heavy clouds like a deity tired of waiting. Silver light met the red on her skin and created something wrong… too beautiful to be natural.
She advanced.
The wolves came in weight, like a desperate tide. Teeth. Claws. Bodies. Strategy does not survive when the target is no longer a creature but a concept.
She cut through them like a blade through smoke.
Arms torn free. Throats opened. Spines shattered beneath the impact of her moving body. One was lifted from the ground and hurled into two others, breaking all three at once. Economy of motion. Brutal efficiency.
Leónia shouted something lost in the chaos. Elizabeth did not hear. She did not need to.
The moon climbed higher.
And then—
the world felt it.
Because this was not only Renesmee Elizabeth, heir of sacred lands, daughter of night, blood of ancient sorcerers.
She was the sister.
And someone had dared to touch what was hers.
At the crest of the valley, between pillars of black stone still stained from recent executions, Arabella watched.
Unmoving. Silent.
Executioner recognizes executioner.
— She has arrived — someone murmured.
Arabella closed her eyes for a moment.
Not in prayer.
In respect.
When Elizabeth finished—
no one would be left to tell the story wrong.
— Majesty, they're swarming like vermin!
Elizabeth circled a larger wolf who lunged and seized her by the neck.
— Soft skin, heir!
He roared, nearly laughing.
She answered with a low breath, folding her body against his arm, locking her legs around his bicep, driving her claws into his flesh. With a brutal backward thrust she tore his arm free. The wolf dropped to his knees.
Elizabeth sprang upward, landing on his shoulders, and twisted his head aside. The neck broke.
She hit the ground as the body toppled forward.
A magical arrow tipped with pure iron sliced through the air.
— Liz! Watch out!
Safira's warning cut through her mind. Elizabeth turned toward the path of the weapon.
— Leónia!
She moved on instinct, intercepting the arrow mid-flight.
— Majesty!
She threw it aside without looking.
Then she resumed.
Bodies fell in rapid succession. Cuts. Splintered bones. Torn throats. Viscera spilling across frozen earth. The battlefield became red scripture.
And then—
Safira vanished.
Not pain.
Absence.
The claws withdrew. The transformation collapsed. She was returning to human form.
— Safira!
Nothing answered.
Fear flashed across her face, brief and sharp. No time.
She activated the seal at the valley of her breasts.
Runes ignited instantly. The air thickened. Pressure mounted. Roots burst from cracks in earth and ice, black and violent.
She spun, releasing a cutting gale that hurled ten wolves at once toward the precipice.
Their screams ended in darkness.
— Majesty, they don't stop!
They were never going to.
The larger wolf had still been smiling when he died. Classic error. Trusting size. Trusting dominance. Elizabeth removed both along with his arm. The sound was wet. Final.
The arrow had come like betrayal does. Fast. Silent. Deliberate.
Safira's warning had been enough.
Elizabeth caught it bare-handed.
Iron burned her palm.
She discarded it like refuse.
— Continue — she ordered Leónia.
And she returned to killing.
Blows became reflex. Reflex became corpses. The field steamed with heat and blood.
Until Safira's silence deepened.
The claws were gone.
She drew her sword.
It did not sing. It growled. Forged with a dragon's heart, the blade pulsed red beneath moonlight. Blessed iron smoked along its edge.
Without Safira.
Without claws.
Just her.
The first wolf miscalculated.
The blade descended. It did not cut. It erased. The dragon-heart heat burned from within while the blessed iron denied regeneration.
— Do not rise — she said quietly. — This blade allows no second chances.
They rushed together.
Collective mistake.
She moved with ruthless precision. Every strike efficient. Every motion final. Where the blade touched, flesh boiled. Where it pierced, the curse died.
One lunged from behind.
She planted the blade and pulled him into it.
Another leapt.
She thrust upward, the steel exiting through his skull.
The field became red-lit slaughter.
Leónia fought not far away, disciplined and lethal. Elizabeth was something else entirely.
When the last wolf fell, silence followed.
Not relief.
Respect forced into existence.
She grounded the blade and breathed.
Safira did not answer.
But she stood.
— Leónia, give me a field report.
She felt it then. The land recoiling beneath the bloodshed. The seal in her chest burned.
— Sacred griffin!
Golden hooves struck through blood as the creature approached.
— Good boy.
She stroked its head after sheathing the sword.
— Take me to our king.
No answer from Safira.
— Safira… speak to me.
Nothing.
She pressed her forehead to the griffin briefly.
— Leónia. Mount up. We ride to Mount Solari.
She mounted in one smooth motion.
— Burn everything. Leave no body to tell the tale. Erase every piece. Every scrap. Every inch of rotten flesh.
She guided the griffin toward clean ice.
— Easy, boy.
Leónia approached.
— Field report — the knight said evenly. — Coordinated ambush. Three attack fronts. Mercenaries, not feral pack. Impure iron mixed with containment magic. They meant to delay. To test response time.
She gestured to the corpses.
— Disposable assets.
Elizabeth's jaw tightened.
— How many escaped?
— None. Which means this was a message.
Leónia began dragging remains into a heap.
— May the Goddess condemn them twice.
— In your time, Leónia.
The griffin shifted, restless.
— Safira is silent — Elizabeth said quietly. — Something is wrong beyond what we see.
— Then we are not riding to rescue a king — Leónia replied. — We are entering ground already profaned.
Elizabeth pulled the reins.
The griffin launched forward.
The dead were left behind, rejected by the earth itself.
Snow began to fall again.
And in the space between hoofbeats, Safira's silence weighed heavier than any wound.
When nature grows quiet, it is not fear.
It is preparation.
And whatever was coming would demand blood in return.