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“And why is it me who has to babysit?” exclaimed Astaroth from the back of the procession, his voice echoing between the rocky walls.
“I thought you were the one who absolutely wanted to come with us?” replied Idris with a barely hidden smile, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Fine, but how did that mean I was the one who had to carry the egg, exactly?” grumbled the demon, casting a disenchanted glance at the oval object he was holding carefully against his chest.
“Fenja needs both hands to shoot her bow. The egg could throw off her aim,” explained Idris in a calm tone. “Aisling is still too weakened by the seed to carry it… And we’re not going to ask Uriel to weigh himself down while flying.”
Astaroth raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. “And you?”
“I supervise,” answered Idris with mock seriousness. “Besides, someone has to lead the way. Now, keep it warm!”
Aisling couldn’t help but let out a quiet, amused breath as she observed their strange little group. Fenja and Idris were carefully leading the way, while Uriel flew ahead as a scout, circling back in wide arcs. After War had joined his brothers to rescue Fury, Uriel had refused to remain behind. The idea that the egg might have strategic importance hadn’t left him indifferent.
As for Astaroth, he had joined the expedition almost out of defiance, leaving his men in the Twilight Realm. Their strange little army was taking shape, uniting talents from all corners. The Mad Smith, obsessed with the endemic metal of the realm, the same that formed Aisling’s ring, was trying to forge it into weapons and armor. The red-haired Maker woman who had protected Aisling, Alya, a blacksmith, had studied the structure of the realm and discovered that one of her kind had built it as a stronghold. With the help of her brother Valus, she was working on activating the defense systems, their forge set up near the Tree of Life and Death, deep in the castle’s underground halls.
This unlikely alliance of humans, angels, demons, Watchers, and Makers was in itself a sign of the times. A strange harmony reigned among them, born of a shared weariness toward an endless conflict. This spontaneous synergy echoed the whispers of a fragile and unexpected peace, the dream of Varakh and Seraphel brought to life despite everything.
Aisling, for her part, had felt a deep bitterness when leaving the Twilight Realm this time. No excitement, no rush… just a vast emptiness. No matter how many times she would return, Ren would never be there to greet her again. And that left a hollow ache inside her chest.
Muria had advised her to consult the memory globe Ren had left her, but she hadn’t yet found the courage. The lessons with the Maker had been intense and ruthless, even more than those with War. Yet, in a short time, she had learned to channel her intuitions, even while awake. As for her other gift, which Idris jokingly called her “green hand,” it did seem that she was able to direct life force through plants. This allowed her to soothe, if only slightly, the devouring hunger of the seed in her chest and to channel the growth of its roots.
So many unanswered questions in so little time would have driven anyone insane… but Aisling had to admit that she was almost starting to get used to it. Or maybe she was already mad.
Still, something else tightened her chest as they crossed once again through the portal to Earth, guarded by Ulthane alongside Azrael, watching over the essences of Fire and Air. She hadn’t stopped thinking about Death, about that look he had given her that day. What mark had it left on the Horseman’s soul?
Every time she tried to convince herself that Death had faced far worse during his long existence, the weight of injustice and guilt came back to crush her, heavier still. At least, she had a little time to prepare her apologies…
Fenja had quickly guided them to the entrance of the immense natural caves, some so vast and deep that even Naamah’s tower could have fit inside them with ease. Uriel could fly there without fear of hitting the ceiling. Now, they were moving in single file, passing from gigantic caverns to narrow tunnels, the light of their torches dancing on the jagged walls.
Aisling kept a measured pace, silently observing Fenja’s slender silhouette ahead of her. She moved with that almost animal precision she had always had — alert, focused, all senses sharp. But Aisling wasn’t blind to the subtle changes in her friend — the tension in her shoulders, the sharper gestures, that heavy silence that was no longer just vigilance.
So many things have changed… she thought, heart tightening. And so have we. All of us.
Fenja was no longer quite the same as the one Aisling had known on Nimrach. She had always been fiercely independent, instinctively rejecting anything that could chain her to a cause too big, too abstract, especially if it involved the reconquest of Earth and stepping into war.
She didn’t trust collective momentum, too convinced that everyone had to learn to survive alone. Aisling knew it wasn’t just a strategy — it was armor. And she also knew that beneath this carapace, something was struggling, even more today than yesterday.
Taking a breath, Aisling quickened her steps to catch up with the young huntress. For a few moments, they walked side by side without saying a word.
“Are you alright?” Aisling asked softly, her eyes on her friend’s tense profile.
“I should be asking you that…”
“I miss Ren… I can’t… I don’t want to… Fen, we’re talking about you, not me.”
Fenja didn’t look away from the rocky passage she was scanning, but her jaw tightened slightly.
“I’m worried about Fury. I know it’s ridiculous. She’s more capable than all of us. Probably more resourceful than the other Horsemen too. But… I don’t know. And then… we’re wasting time. You’re wasting time.”
“I’m fine.”
“Of course you’re not fine,” she shot back immediately, her tone sharp, but not harsh, just too sincere to be softened. “And I get it. We think we can take it, because we have to. Because everyone else is already collapsing around us. But if you keep holding it all inside…”
She broke off, as if she had said too much. After several minutes, while their footsteps echoed faintly on the damp rock, Fenja finally broke the silence in a low voice,
“I’m not used to… caring about this many people. You two, yes, you’re my family. But an entire people? The fate of the world? All these people who keep joining our fight… I…”
Her throat tightened, and she briefly turned her gaze away, ashamed.
“I feel overwhelmed. Like I’m playing a role that isn’t mine. I don’t know how to do this, Aisling. I don’t know how to lead, protect, inspire… I know how to survive. That’s all.”
Aisling gave her a soft look, forcing a smile.
“That already sounds like a good start, doesn’t it?”
Fenja finally met Aisling’s gaze. A faint smile passed between them, until a familiar caw broke their exchange. A raven. Aisling narrowed her eyes, uncertain.
“Is that… Dust?”
“Who?”
“Death’s crow… What is it doing here?”
The bird circled above them for a moment, then suddenly dove and seemed to vanish behind a rocky ledge.
“What’s that thing?” called Astaroth from the back of the group.
The demon was staring at a narrow tunnel branching off from their path, an almost hidden crack in the rock wall. A strange bluish glow emanated from the end of the corridor, swaying faintly.
“We didn’t see this entrance on the way in,” said Fenja, frowning, tense.
Uriel descended in a single beat of her wings, landing near them. Astaroth stepped forward, observing the fissure in the stone.
“I can go in, take a look, and come back. I’m the fastest one here, right?” he offered, his tone almost nonchalant.
“Out of the question,” Uriel cut him off, raising her hand in a sharp gesture. “We don’t split up.”
A mocking smile spread across the demon’s lips, revealing a row of white fangs.
“Are you worried about me, champion?”
Having once served Varakh and Seraphel’s project, Astaroth and his demons had shown an unexpected ability to cooperate with the angels — something that still amused him greatly, especially seeing how the latter still struggled to loosen their mistrust.
Uriel, however, didn’t even grant him a glance. She calmly folded her wings, strode past him with steady steps, and entered the tunnel ahead, following Dust.
“Don’t flatter yourself and stay focused, demon,” was all she threw over her shoulder.
Astaroth followed with a quiet chuckle, closely trailed by Aisling, Fenja, Idris, and then Nimue. All their senses were on alert, the blue light seeming to pulse more strongly as they drew closer.
The narrow corridor suddenly opened onto a vast natural cavity, where an ancient ceiling collapse had carved a monumental vault above their heads. The rock was glistening with moisture, and thin trails of phosphorescent crystals traced luminous veins along the walls. Dust was circling there, cawing as if to lure them further in.
At the center of the cave, winding slowly between the fallen boulders, flowed an underground river. Its water glowed with an unnatural blue radiance, soft yet profoundly wrong. Uriel froze, her eyes narrowing with an ancient doubt. Astaroth, beside her, arched a brow, his voice trembling with a mix of surprise and contained fear.
“This can’t be…” He knelt by the current, his fingers brushing the surface without daring to touch it. “This is a branch of the Styx. It shouldn’t… it can’t flow here.”
Uriel stepped forward as well, her expression grave.
“The Styx belongs to the realm of the dead… It crosses the boundaries of oblivion. But not those of Earth.” She looked around, shadows of unease crossing her face. “Unless the boundaries themselves have become… porous.”
Astaroth nodded, his gaze following the rippling blue waters.
“Without a Tree of Life to anchor the living, nor a Tree of Death to seal the departed… perhaps the ancient rivers now follow different currents.”
While they spoke, Fenja, Idris, Aisling, and Nimue had leaned over the bank, observing the strange water with a mixture of fascination and unease. A shiver crawled up Aisling’s spine.
Beneath the clear surface, shapes flickered — fleeting, blurred, distorted. Faces. Some tormented, others frozen in silent anguish. Ghostly silhouettes swept along by the current.
“Those are… souls?” Idris stepped back, pale.
Nimue slowly nodded, absorbed.
“Or the echoes of what’s left of them.”
But Aisling was no longer listening.
Her attention had drifted from the group, pulled by something else. In the distance, where the river widened into a vast underground lake shrouded in cold, bluish mist, something called to her. A strange vibration rose from the water — not a sound, but a frequency, a deep pulse that resonated in her skull like a heartbeat from elsewhere.
She stepped forward slowly, her gaze fixed on the shadowy shore. Then she saw it.
A white, bone-like gleam broke the surface. It wasn’t floating — it was glowing, submerged, as if suspended in the water without sinking. Moments later, a second gleam appeared beside it, deeper and more intense: a blue so dark it was almost black, thrumming with an energy that made the air tremble.
Aisling felt her breath catch. A wave of dizziness hit her, and for an instant the cavern seemed to twist around her, as though the world itself was folding inward. She wasn’t entirely present anymore — or maybe she was too present. Whispers rose all around, faint, elusive, but disturbingly familiar. She had felt something like this before.
An irresistible need seeped into her, an overwhelming compulsion: she had to step into the water. She took a step, then another, drawn forward, fascinated, lost in that silent trance. Something was sleeping within that lake. Or watching. Something immense and terrifying, an ancient consciousness, whose faintest touch sent a shiver of ice down her spine.
She stopped, swaying on the bank, her foot hovering over the water. Part of her wanted to scream and run. Another voice whispered that it was already too late.
“Aisling!”
“Step back, what are you doing?!”
But her friends’ shouts were barely audible through the roaring in her temples. Her feet were already carrying her forward, slow but resolute, as though her will had been stripped away and replaced with a single command: she had to retrieve those submerged fragments.
Her boots sank into the lake’s edge with a muffled splash, swallowed by the blue water rising to her ankles, then to her knees. An intense, unnatural cold gripped her instantly — not the chill of icy currents, but the damp void of absence, the stagnant touch of death.
Suddenly, she felt hands.
Dozens of them. Maybe more. They clung to her with desperate strength — not to pull her down, but to climb toward the surface, as though she were an inverted anchor. Gaunt, transparent fingers, some only half-formed, slid across her arms, her back, her face. A tide of souls.
But she ignored them.
She ignored their pleas as well as the frantic cries of her companions behind her. Something was wrong. A crushing wave of dread slammed into her, slicing through her focus like an icy blade. Heart pounding, she began to run through the water, fighting against the current’s resistance and the invisible weight of all those hands. Each step pushed her deeper, further.
Above her, Uriel’s white wings cut through the air in a frantic beat.
“Come back, Aisling! Don’t stay in there!”
On the shore, Nimue had rushed after her.
“What are you doing?!”
Aisling turned slightly, the water already up to her chest.
“There’s something… down there.”
But all around her, the water now pulsed with a living urgency, a tension impossible to ignore. Something was moving in the depths. And it was coming straight for her
“What are you talking about?! Get back here now!” Nimue’s voice was breaking with panic.
On the shore, Fenja and Idris rushed toward the water, but Astaroth blocked them with an outstretched arm, his expression dark.
“Don’t move! If the Styx is truly at work here, it would kill you in just a few steps. She… she’s connected to the seed. That might be what’s protecting her…”
Nimue’s eyes suddenly widened in horror.
“AISLING! THE ROOTS!”
“What?!”
The seed. By plunging into that water saturated with death, memory, and spectral energy, she was inadvertently feeding the vegetal fragment nestled deep within her being. Already, she felt the insidious tendrils spreading, boiling under her skin, as though the Styx was nourishing them far faster than it should. A spike of pain exploded in her chest. She closed her eyes, summoning every drop of life force Muria had taught her to channel, in a desperate attempt to contain the roots, to calm them.
But the danger didn’t end there. The thing was coming. A colossal pressure surged from the abyss, an entity whose mere consciousness felt capable of crushing hers. The ground trembled. The water quivered. A gigantic, indistinct silhouette began to take form in the depths.
Without hesitation, Aisling took a deep breath, stepped forward, and let herself sink. She plunged, swallowed by the liquid darkness, until her world shrank to swirling blue currents and distorted faces. She reached out blindly, searching for the two fragments she had seen from the shore.
Her fingers brushed the white bone. Then the blue shard. She clutched them to her chest — just as the ground, or whatever passed for a floor beneath this impossible lake, seemed to give way. She tried to swim back up. But the hands would not let her go. They pulled her down, toward the thing. The weight of the dead was unbearable. The water burned. Her chest screamed for air, her lungs on fire.
Then, in a last desperate effort, she pushed back with everything she had. She stretched out her hand, and another hand caught it. Then another. Uriel and Nimue. Together, they dragged her toward the surface, tearing her free from the desperate hands, from the whispers and the creature lurking in the abyss.
Aisling burst out of the water in a spray of blue, gasping, the two objects still clutched to her chest, her eyes wide with mingled fear and relief. The moment her knees hit solid ground, a storm of voices erupted around her. The shouts, this time, were no longer distant but deafening, laden with panic, anger, and brutal relief.
“Are you completely insane?!” Fenja yelled, her face trembling with both rage and worry.
“You could have died in there, you know that, right?!” added Idris, his hands buried in his hair, his gaze still fixed on the water.
Uriel, breathing hard, stepped back. She seemed furious, but kept it in check, her jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful.
Even Astaroth was frowning, looking unusually serious.
“If you ever get an idea like that again, at least warn us so we have time to dig your grave.”
Nimue didn’t shout. She crouched beside Aisling at once, placing a hand on her shoulder. But her gaze, though gentle, burned with an intensity none of them had seen before. Aisling coughed violently, dark, heavy water spilling from her mouth. Each cough rattled her ribs, and under her skin, she already felt the rampant chaos stirring.
The roots had awakened. She felt their tendrils growing, twisting inside her, spreading through her belly, her chest, her neck… For an instant, she even thought she felt them pushing into her cheeks, brushing her eyelids.
With a fierce act of will, she gathered the energy Muria had taught her to channel: the sap, the vital surge, the mastery of life itself. She pulled on the roots, forcing them to retreat. She wasn’t destroying them — that was impossible — but she contained them. Gradually, the pain dulled. The suffocating sensation eased. Her heartbeat slowed.
Her hair, dripping, clung to her forehead, and her lips were pale. Yet, despite it all, she managed a faint, almost conspiratorial smile.
“Sorry…” she whispered, still breathless. “I had to get this.”
In one hand, a stone amulet with jagged contours, set with a deep blue crystal, as though a living light still pulsed inside. In the other… a mask. White. Smooth. Made of a material that looked like polished bone, almost alive.
A skull-faced mask.