She raised her hand. With a slow, deliberate motion, a scroll appeared in the air. Unfurling as it shimmered with faint power. The thick air around them shifted, stirred by something unseen. A breeze circled her feet, at first no more than a whisper against the stone. Then it grew, soft and insistent, coiling upward in a steady rhythm.
The wind lifted her.
Her ascent was silent, the scroll pulsing with quiet energy in her grasp. Cloak, dark and worn, rippled behind her. Threads at its edge fraying like storm clouds peeling from the horizon. Her hair, once still, now floated around her head. Silver streaks dancing with strands of storm-gray. Her eyes flickered with an emerald glow. Dim at first, then brightening like distant lightning stirring in the deep sky.
Below her, the Titan remained frozen, held in place not by shackles, but by sheer force of will. His size, his weapon, his power. None of it mattered. Time denied him even the dignity of resistance.
Her gaze never wavered from his. The scroll glowed brighter, casting angled shadows across her face.
"This is the prize that drives your destruction."
The chamber seemed to tilt, space itself bending around her.
Without pause, she extended her arm. Then pressed the scroll into the narrow gap between the Titan's chest plates. Her fingers brushed the cold armor briefly, then tapped his massive shoulder.
"This will stop you from pushing things further," she said. Her tone wasn't cruel. It was final. The certainty of someone who knew there would be no challenge.
His eyes moved, not much. Just enough to betray a flicker of something... awareness. The arrogance etched into his face eased. The tight line of his mouth giving way to something more subdued.
Not regret.
Not fear.
Something simpler.
Recognition.
She began her descent. The wind softened around her, lowering her slowly, as if reluctant to let her go. Her boots touched floor without a sound.
A moment passed. Then another.
She turned, ready to let silence speak, but halfway through her step, she stopped. Something shifted in her expression.
A flicker.
A thought.
She looked back.
"One last thing," she said, firmer now. Her voice no longer rumbled.
"Let this be the last time you act without consequence. Next time, even Atlas will not save you."
The air strained. Kael felt it immediately, his breath hitching. The pressure was back, subtle but crushing, like standing at the center of a gathering storm. His skin prickled. The castle held its breath again.
"Am I understood?"
The Titan, still frozen in place, said nothing. But his eyes, the slight dimming of them. The set of his brow carried the only answer she required. A flicker of fear where once was fury. The defiance now dulled into uneasy understanding.
And then…
A voice, faint but clear, drifted from the stillness.
"I may be furious, but I'm not foolish enough to test the Stormbringer's patience."
A silence followed, but not empty. More reverent. Her title had been spoken aloud, and with it, the last tension in the air fractured.
She turned.
And faded.
But before the last trace of her disappeared, she looked back once at Kael.
Her voice returned, quiet as dusk wind, but it struck with weight.
"The same goes for you, Kael."
He met her gaze, but couldn't hold it.
"Remember why you sit upon that throne. You are a king, but do not mistake your crown for invulnerability."
The words lanced through him. No rebuke. No anger. Just truth, and it hit harder than any blade.
The surrounding wind curled once, gently, almost mournful. Her form now a fading outline, she spoke once more.
"The other Heralds will not sit idle once they learn of my intervention."
"They are watching, and if provoked, their wrath could reshape this kingdom far beyond what even you can imagine."
With that, she vanished. What remained was not silence, but stillness. The kind that follows a storm.
Then a deep groan rolled through the castle walls. Stone remembering it had been cracked. Dust floated downward again, spiraling softly in the air. Murmurs rose from the corners of the hall, voices waking from the grip of frozen time.
Kael blinked.
His hands still gripped his blades, but the urgency was gone. He lowered them slowly, deliberately. The weight remained, not in steel, but in thought. The words she left behind echoed louder than the clash of weapons.
Beside him, the Aurora Paladin drew a long breath. Her shield lowered. Magic no longer flared at her fingertips, but shimmered faintly in retreat. Her griffin nudged her leg, low and cautious.
The council stirred behind them, faces pale, eyes wide. Confusion flared in murmurs.
And then,
A sneer cracked through the noise.
The Titan moved.
His fingers curled around the scroll embedded in his chest, intent on removing it. But something stopped him. Not an obstacle. A presence.
A weight.
At first, it was faint. A pressure, not against his armor, but in it. Inside. Blooming at his shoulder.
His sneer faltered.
The weight grew. It sank inward, into bone, into breath. Not pain. Not even touch. His instincts screamed, but there was nowhere to run.
Boom!
Invisible.
Immense.
It hit like the hand of a god. The Titan's body snapped sideward, ripped from his stance like paper in a gale.
He flew.
Stone cracked beneath him. Walls split open. A thunderclap echoed through the grand hall as his massive form crashed through the outer wall, shards of stone exploding outward, raining across the chamber.
Outside, he tumbled, his frame a blur of armor and force. He struck the ground with a boom that rattled the windows.
Rolled.
Skidded.
Dust billowed into the air.
Then, stillness.
He did not rise.
The weight that had filled the chamber now dispersed.
Inside, the council stood silent, stunned. They watched the breach in the wall with wide eyes. The air was lighter, yes, but no one relaxed.
Near the back, Elois steadied herself with one hand on the table. Her eyes flicked between the ruin of the wall, Kael, and the Paladin.
Kael said nothing. His chest rose and fell slowly. The swords in his hands now felt heavier for a different reason. He stared through the breach, the image of the Titan lying broken in the dirt far below burned into his mind.
And the wind... the wind had returned. It slipped through the gap in the wall, brushing past him with a whisper.
Familiar.
It carried no words.
But the weight of her warning lingered in every breath.