The barrier shuddered.

Akiko's body wouldn't move. Her legs were dead weight. Her lungs burned with each breath. She stared into the storm and knew, if Raya hadn't dragged her back, she'd already be gone.

Raya braced her arms wide, one hand pressed to the ground for stability, the other pressed against Akiko's shoulder, steadying her.

The mana storm screamed against the shield, white and howling, shards of frost like razors spinning in the current. Akiko could barely see through the gale, but she felt it.

Not just the cold. The presence, the weight of Skadi's fury. It filled the space like rising pressure, thick and punishing. A grief with edges. A scream turned inside out.

"She's not stopping," Raya shouted over the roar.

Akiko nodded. Or tried to. Her head barely twitched. She blinked against the wind. Frost clung to her lashes.

There was a shape within the storm now. Half-seen. Moving.

Slender. Sharp-edged. A glint of pale skin beneath refracted ice.

Skadi. But not Skadi.

Her frame shimmered with a pale, bluish sheen. Her hair, once tangled and dark, now rippled silver like liquid metal, moving as if caught in an unseen current. Her skin shimmered like wet glass, too perfect, too still.

Her head turned toward them, too slowly, like a predator searching for sound. Her eyes were a pure, blinding white. No pupils. No recognition.

And when she stepped forward, the ground beneath her froze solid in an instant, spiderweb fractures chasing out in every direction.

Raya tightened her grip on Akiko's shoulder. "We can't fight that. Not like this."

Akiko didn't answer. She couldn't. Because deep down, buried beneath exhaustion and fear and the instinct to run, she knew the question wasn't can they fight her.

It was—

Did they have to?

And that was a question she didn't have the strength to answer. Not yet.

A sharp cough broke through the wind.

Akiko turned, barely.

Fenrik was stirring.

His body shifted against the wall, one arm dragging beneath him. Blood matted his hair beneath his helmet where Karn had struck him down, but his eyes fluttered open, unfocused and bleary.

Then the storm hit the barrier again. Hard.

The shield rippled, the edges flickering. Raya flinched, both hands braced now, her teeth gritted in concentration. Cracks spidered outward from the emitter's base, glowing faint and unstable.

"Raya," Akiko said, hoarse. "We're running out of—"

"I know," she snapped.

Then Fenrik coughed again and looked up. His eyes locked on the figure in the storm.

"…Skadi?"

The shape hesitated. Only a fraction. A pause in the rhythm of the wind. But it was there.

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Fenrik dragged himself to his knees. "Skadi, it's me. I'm… I'm sorry. I didn't know. I thought—"

She stepped closer.

Her head tilted, white eyes unreadable. The ice beneath her feet cracked and bled frost into the air. She raised one hand.

"You think I don't know what you did?" The voice came distorted through the gale, layered with something colder, deeper. But Skadi was in it. Her voice.

"You helped him."

Fenrik shook his head, frantic now. "I thought he could save her. He said he just needed more time. I believed him."

"He used her."

"I didn't know. Not until—" His voice broke. "I tried to stop it. I tried. He wouldn't listen."

She raised her hand higher.

The barrier cracked down the center.

Raya gasped. Her arms trembled, sweat beading along her brow. "She's going to break it."

Fenrik looked to Akiko, then to Raya. Then back to the storm.

"If you're still in there," he whispered, "you have to believe me."

The wind shifted. It didn't stop. But the edge dulled. The storm's howl softened, just a touch.

And when Skadi stepped forward again, there was something different in her stance.

Focus. Fury. Betrayal.

Raya's barrier groaned again. A final, warbling crack traced across the arc.

Skadi's eyes left her brother. They found Akiko.

The gale slowed, restrained. The silence of an oncoming blade.

"You," Skadi said.

Akiko didn't move.

Skadi stepped forward. The frost beneath her feet groaned.

"You said we'd save her."

Her voice was cold. Frozen from the inside out.

"You sat beside me. You looked me in the eyes. And you told me we'd bring her back."

Akiko opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

"She's gone."

Another step. The barrier flickered behind her, irrelevant now. The danger wasn't the storm anymore. It was the voice inside it.

"You promised."

Akiko flinched. Her shoulders hunched, her breath catching short.

"She's gone, and you're still here. You—" Skadi's hand trembled, white light gathering around her fingertips. "You brought this into our world."

Foxfire flickered at Akiko's spine, instinctual, defensive. But she didn't lift her arms.

"You tore the sky open. You let all this in. And now you want me to believe you're sorry?"

Akiko looked up. Her eyes stung. Her throat burned.

"I am," she whispered. "I wasn't enough."

Skadi's expression didn't change.

And Akiko broke. She didn't collapse. She didn't cry. She just lowered her head, and let the guilt settle into her bones like frost.

"Skadi," Fenrik said, his voice hoarse.

She didn't turn.

"I know I don't deserve it. And she—" His voice cracked. "She doesn't either. But I'm not asking you to let it go."

Still no response.

"I just… I don't think Mom would want this to be the end of her story."

That made her hesitate.

"She wouldn't want her death to be this. Rage and frost and blood. She'd want us to keep going. To protect what's left. Zephara. The people who are still here. The ones Haven hasn't broken yet."

Silence. Then… a shift.

Akiko felt it before she saw it. Something subtle within the storm's texture, less a sound than a note, a warmth curled inside the cold. Familiar. Gentle.

She felt it brush her skin like a memory.

And Skadi staggered. Her hand dropped a few inches. Her breath caught.

"Mom…" she whispered.

Her head turned slightly. Her fingers touched her sternum, just above her heart, where frost shimmered like veins of light.

"She's still here," Skadi murmured. "In the magic."

No one answered. No one could. For a moment, she looked young again. Small. Just a girl wrapped in grief, trying not to drown in it.

Then the storm coalesced behind her.

She looked to Akiko, eyes still glowing, but no longer wild.

"I'm not done with you," Skadi said. Quiet. Clear. Cold. "I'm not ready to forgive."

Akiko nodded once. No protest. No plea.

"But Karn was only the beginning. And Haven is still breathing."

Skadi stepped past Akiko without another word.

The frost beneath her feet softened, the wind trailing behind her like a cloak of mist. Fenrik followed, one hand still pressed to his ribs, eyes downcast. He said nothing more.

They were nearly to the open corridor when Skadi stopped.

She turned, just slightly, and looked at Raya.

"Thank you," she said. Quiet. Sincere.

Raya blinked.

Skadi's lips pressed into the faintest, saddest smile.

"You never lied to me. You never promised what you couldn't give."

Raya opened her mouth, but no words came. She only nodded, once.

"Goodbye, Raya," Skadi whispered.

Then Skadi's gaze flicked to Akiko one last time. Something unreadable passed through her expression.

And then she turned. Walked into the frost-choked passage, Fenrik at her side, the storm swallowing their silhouettes as they vanished into the broken moonlight.

Silence fell.

And Akiko was left with the echo of promises she couldn't keep.

She stood there, frozen, eyes fixed on the horizon beyond the ruined sanctum, on the broken world they'd barely survived.

And beneath it all, the tremors kept rumbling…soft, steady, waiting.

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