Tyron's breath caught the moment the arrows struck Lenko. For a heartbeat, the world seemed to still. He thought that was it, that everything was over. His heart plummeted to the pit of his stomach as the image burned into his mind. Lenko jerking back, the sudden burst of red, the sound of his body hitting the ground.

He couldn't even breathe.

But before despair could root itself fully, his world jolted again. A force shoved him sideways as her highness suddenly gasped, a strangled sound of shock, pain, and grief all at once. He turned to her, wide-eyed, just as the runes on the fabric began to flicker and dim, their steady light faltering.

The runes holding the archer down was unraveling.

"Olga… this can't be…" Her Highness's voice cracked, trembling at the edges. Tyron had never heard her like that before. It was something raw, breaking. Tears trembled unshed in her eyes, but her focus wavered, her hand trembling above the half-faded runes.

"Your Highness!" Tyron reached out, gripping her arm before she could lose her concentration completely. His own throat felt tight, his chest burning with panic and grief, but he forced his voice steady. "You can't stop now!"

Her arm tensed beneath his hand, the muscles straining as she tried to steady herself. The light of the runes surged faintly again, responding to her will. Her highness bit back a sob, biting her lip until it bled, and gathered the remaining marked carpets scattered around her.

With a shaky breath, she spread them out again, desperate, furious, refusing to collapse. Threads of light flared once more as she clenched her teeth, pushing her mana back into the runes.

The carpets shot out like serpents, fighting against the man who had wrenched Lenko's sister free, the same mercenary the tenth prince himself had sworn was dead.

And yet there he was, moving, struggling, grinning through blood and dirt.

For a fleeting moment, something shimmered at the edge of his vision.

A faint glow, like threads of light, drifted along, weaving through the haze and smoke that filled the ruined hall. They looked familiar, painfully so, the kind of light he'd seen once before, floating motes that glimmered softly like bugs.

He blinked hard, trying to focus through the sting in his eyes. The lights were flowing from below, rising in slow, deliberate streams, drawn toward somewhere. He had only a few seconds to take it in before the moment was shattered,

A sound. A stumble.

Someone burst in through the corner of the hall, the very entrance that had been left open, when the people had fled in panic. His heart lurched, for a split second, he thought it might be another enemy.

But then he saw them.

And all the air in his chest escaped at once. His heart didn't just drop, it broke.

Tears burned his eyes before he even realized he was crying.

The princess stepped through the haze, her dark hair whipping in the wind of her own mana surge. Twin blades gleamed in her hands, already blazing with light so fierce it cut through the gloom like sunrise through storm clouds.

She didn't even glance his way as she passed, leaping straight into the crater without hesitation, her gaze locked on those glittering threads of light that seemed to answer her presence.

He knew her instantly.

Everyone who survived Hinnom would.

She was the one who had kept the village alive after the old mage governing their village had died, the one who stood between them and total collapse when all order crumbled.

For days, while the village outside burned and the corruption spread inside, she held the boundary intact, her will alone keeping the darkness from swallowing them whole.

Her and Diego, Iris's father.

The old man who had anchored Hinnom for years, not against the beasts of Sheol, but against something far worse... the greed and decay of the capital's men who had taken over their forgotten village. The man who'd fought corruption not of monsters, but of men.

And now, seeing her again, seeing that same light that had once shielded them all, he felt something deep inside him stir, hope.

Or maybe it was just the ache of remembering what they had already lost.

"H-how did you, when did you---?" Tyron's words stumbled out, barely coherent, as his mind struggled to catch up with what his eyes were seeing.

Diego didn't answer right away. He simply glanced down from where Princess Yona had just leapt into the crater, his expression unreadable beneath the settling dust and dim glow of mana.

The Saint, turned toward them briefly, her eyes sharp despite the exhaustion that weighed in her movements.

"Are you the 'help' Muzio mentioned?" she asked, her voice low, almost distracted, as if her attention was already split between the one below and the two of them above.

Tyron's mouth opened, then closed again. He looked between them, between the calm steadiness of Diego and the quiet, commanding aura of the Saint, unsure if he should speak or even breathe.

Diego gave a single, firm nod. His hand was already on the weapon slung across his back. With a smooth motion, he drew the claymore free, the metallic scrape ringing sharp through the hollow air.

"Then get to help," the Saint muttered, her tone strained but carrying the weight of authority she had just gotten back after faltering for a moment.

Tyron's eyes widened. He saw, for just a flicker of a second, her hair darken, green bleeding into deeper shades, like leaves bruising under shadow. The change made his breath hitch.

He didn't know what it meant, but something about that color, it reminded him of the elven he'd bargained his vial pendant, the same hue of green that shimmered faintly against his memory.

Before he could dwell on it, Diego moved.

He vaulted over the debris and broken furniture. His boots barely made a sound as he landed, then he dashed forward, weaving with effortless precision.

Tyron watched, a mix of awe and disbelief, as Diego crashed into the mercenary. His claymore swept low, severing the enemy's hold on Olga's restraints.

For a moment, everything slowed.

Diego's strike halted as he took in the dead man's vacant eyes, but erratic movements. Tyron, witnessing his shock, knew Diego had recognized the man, too.

This was a man Tyron knew the old man recognized, the mercenary was Diego's brother, Hugo… the very one who had once worked with his father.

A heavy, wordless realization passed between them as Tyron met Diego's eyes. He could see the despair etched across the man's face, yet Diego didn't hesitate. He held his brother down, even as the corpse twitched and jerked, a dead body forced to move by mana manipulation.

It was the worst kind of desecration, forcing the dead to move, to serve, when their souls should have been at rest, no matter the deeds they had done in life.

Tyron's chest constricted. He wanted to speak, to offer some word of comfort, but the Saint was already moving before he could.

Her focus snapped back to Olga, whose body had finally been re-snared within the web of fabric. The woman thrashed violently, but silent tears, not snarls, broke through. Her grief was a cascade of glistening beads, catching the light as if even her sorrow was now controlled against her will.

The Saint's hands moved in deliberate, practiced motions, tightening the bindings and layering new sigils over the old ones as she whispered a soft prayer.

"Stop struggling, Olga," the Saint murmured, her voice trembling only slightly. "Please... you're only making it worse."

And as Tyron watched it all, the Saint's calm restraint, Diego's silent hesitation, the growing tension in every direction, he felt an old, familiar dread crawl up his spine.

A sudden flash of light erupted from beneath them.

He hissed, throwing an arm over his eyes as the shockwave of mana surged through the air, stinging like static against his skin.

The brightness was blinding, too pure, too violent, and for a moment, his senses reeled. He felt the princess beside him flinch too, her breath catching in her throat.

"What was that?" she muttered, her voice small, choke up, not from fear, but disbelief.

Tyron blinked rapidly, his eyes struggling to adjust. It wasn't just light. He knew that texture in the air, that tingling weight pressing against his ribs.

It was mana, dense, unrestrained, familiar in the worst way. The same kind of overwhelming burst he'd felt when the dragon child's mana had erupted.

But this time, it wasn't her.

He squinted down toward the crater, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

At first, he thought it was the tenth prince who'd caused it, he could still make out the faint red glint of the prince's dagger, and the streak of violet fire clinging to Princess Yona's short blade.

The princess herself burned within her own flames, her outline shrouded in a purple glow so bright it made his heart lurch.

But then his gaze shifted, drawn, unwillingly, to another figure moving closer to the center of it all.

Not the prince.

Not the princess.

Not the dragon child.

Not even a beast.

His breath caught.

It was his father.

The realization hit him harder than the flash. His father stumbled through the haze, a knife gleaming faintly in his grip, eyes fixed with unrelenting focus on the dragon child.

Even from this distance, Tyron could see the wild gleam in the other's eyes. It was the same cold, determined stare he'd seen years ago when his father had spoken of the family's 'curse' and the lengths he'd go to break it.

It wasn't a curse, just his easy excuse. Whenever something bad happened, he would parrot the same words, blaming the child born from a 'beast'.

"No…" Tyron whispered, voice cracking.

His father's gaze wasn't that of a desperate man, it was that of someone seeing salvation within reach. The dragon child, her tails, scales, and ears visible in full, wasn't a person to him.

She was the key.

That's what his mother's heart needed. The blood of a sacred dragon's progeny, still pulsing with life, its blood capable of giving life, of granting wishes, of defying death itself.

A drop of blood wouldn't be enough. His father knew that. To fuel the heart, to awaken its dormant core, it required something greater, than a drop.

And for a brief, horrifying instant, Tyron understood what his father meant to do.

He tried to move.. His thoughts blurred between disbelief and terror as he watched his father close in on the dragon child, the knife catching the reflected light of that pulsing mana .

And amidst it all, he caught sight of the tenth prince locked in combat with the mage, struggling to break free, trying to reach Lenko's unmoving body.

Then, a surge. A ripple in the mana field so strong it sent shivers crawling up Tyron's arms.

Before he could even comprehend what was happening, Lenko moved.

The boy who had been dead, motionless, gone, had moved.

His chest rose sharply, a ragged gasp tearing through the silence.

Tyron's mind went blank.

It shouldn't have been possible. There had been no offering, no blood, neither from him nor from the dragon child… to feed the heart.

Yet there Lenko was, alive again.

His body trembled, healed, though still streaked with blood and dirt.

Tyron realized it then, his mother's heart had revived the boy, answering a wish from the one who held the dragon's heart over him.

The tenth prince lay motionless over Lenko, the dragon's heart clutched tightly in his hand.

Tyron didn't need to guess what that meant.

It was the prince's blood, his mana, that had fed the dragon's heart.

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