The smoke grew ever thicker as one went deeper into the King's palace. What was once regal grounds of might and marble was now reduced to a crumbling ghost of a palace. The white cloaks had flooded inside, most were engaged with the soldiers who'd pooled inside to defend their monarchs. A scant warfare, but no less terrible.

Fall rushed past the melee of the grand hall and up the stairs. One enemy lunged at him, screaming curses and shooting hardened spikes of ink. His scream cut off at a high pitch as he disintegrated to a burst of ash. Another came at him once he was past the stairs, brandishing a paper sword, ready to strike. A soldier rammed his shield into his side, knocked him off the railings.

“To His Majesty!” The soldier screamed to his men, those who weren't engaged followed after him and Fall.

The enemy had probably attacked only just a few minutes ago. Just a few minutes, and they'd already caused this much damage. The King and Queen might be cornered, unable to escape. Or they were already fighting their way through. None of the white cloaks he'd seen so far were threatening, though. The stronger ones could be there with them.

Torched walls blurred on both sides as they quickened their pace, a cacophony of metal hitting stone, crumbling walls and a deep rumbling mixing with his heavy breath. He'd passed these halls to the King's chambers two days ago with Karls. Though they'd stopped halfway as the Archknight thought it odd to be receiving a summons quite late into the rest hours. His Majesty had a good laugh at them, when they found him in the throne room.

Now there was no one to find it odd to be rushing to those very same chambers so early in the day. He reckoned Karls wouldn't have, had he been here now.

They were greeted with doors smashed to bits and stained with black ink when they reached the large room. Inside was enveloped in fire and smoke. The soldiers rushed past him and into the chambers, calling for their King. He could be dead, or he might've escaped. Somehow, the former thought clearly ran through the minds of the other soldiers beside him for they trembled lightly, breaths coming in rasps through their helmets.

People always seemed to do that at the thought of death.

“What about the Queen?” He asked the captain of the unit.

“Her chambers have been checked, sir. Neither she nor Her Highness were seen. Lucks be that they'd gotten to safety. Our men are searching for them.”

The pendant grew somewhat cold in his hand, and he remembered he'd been holding it since he left Karls’ dead body in the desolate soil in the outskirts of Brensfell. He gripped it tighter and broke into a sprint back through the path they came.

Somewhere in this foreign heart, that always beat in an opposite tempo with his soul, he knew where to find them.

And he'd been right.

The throne room could hardly be called one when he got there. Cracked floors and broken walls, rubble and corpses, the throne itself snapped in two and the top half far off in a corner. Amidst the madness stood two women. The Queen could easily be mistaken for a commoner in her tattered night robes and messy greying hair fell behind her like a shattered waterfall. The human woman floating mid air some distance away, donned in a white cloak with an odd design like a splash of red paint, bore an aura drenched in confidence.

She cocked her small head once she noticed him, a small curl playing on her lips. “You over there.” She raised a hand towards him, and a pool of black ink flowed from her hand, swirling and hardening into a sword with no drop wasted. “Do you defend my target?”

“Stand back, Iskar!” Queen Rihn of Holtsdar held out her hand without peeling her eyes from her opponent for even a bit. She could somehow tell he was the one even while he stood behind her, a sign of her commendable strength. “You're here for me, wench. Best to focus on your target.”

The princess was nowhere to be found. Either she was hidden, or the enemy had gotten to her first. He could ask, but he might be making a mistake in doing so. So he kept quiet.

“You are the Cursed One, yes?” That question gave a lot out from the woman. The enemy sought a cursed person, and they weren't sure yet whom it was. “Then, prepare to die.”

Red hot fire ignited in a balzing tempest around Rihn, a battle cry rising with it. But before she could so much as move, her body stiffened in place, her arms and feet stretched out by a pulling force. Strings of black snaked around her limbs, trapping her and her burning flames in place.

“This matter need not be dragged. My Lady would be pleased with your riddance.” The human smirked, raising her sword for a throw. She realised her ink ropes wouldn't last on the Queen, for they burned and reduced to steam on her blazing skin.

With no hesitation, the human threw her black sword straight at Rihn. Fall took a step forward, but it was already late. The sword almost made impact. Almost, but the queen had been ready for her. He just noticed what her glaring display was truly meant for.

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She'd been condensing another energy at one point, unnoticed.

The sword met her bar of fire with a powerful explosion and a flash of blinding light. The force sent both women flying away from each other, with the sword spinning mid air towards the human. She quickly dissolved it before the blade sliced her face, the liquid splattering on the floor before her.

The Queen landed on her knees and immediately got back up, rushing back towards the enemy with another burst of flames.

His mind clouded as they fought, black swirling and twisting lines like meaningless writings of a child. Something told him to take a step forward.

You are not Iskar... Fight!

He moved, already igniting his flames, but a wall of fire suddenly flared before him, stopping him in his tracks.

The human had pinned Rihn in a parry and the latter looked back at him, her frown insistent that he stay back.

The Queen succeeded in pushing the human back. She followed up with a thick bar of flame that hit the woman on the shoulder, burning through her cloth and scalding her skin.

The human hissed and snarled, then threw her ink blade. The same way she did the first time. It may have been out of rage, for she must've realised by now that the same attack wouldn't work twice.

Only that it did.

Fall had moved just in time to cushion the Queen as the same explosion as before sent both of them flying again. He held her in his arms, her weight sinking him to his knees. She'd deflected the attack, but not entirely this time. Splinters of solid ink penetrated her chest, right where her heart was. Blood streaked her forehead and lips, her breaths coming slow and weak. The netherwoman he'd seen just the previous day commanding and strategizing, displaying a might unique to herself, now laid half-dead, gazing weakly into Fall's eyes.

She coughed, spattering blood onto her dirty clothes and a bit on his armour. “Take Sirf and run…” Her words were barely audible, one hand clutching at his armour with barely the strength of a child. “I locked her in the tunnels. No one can find her there… Take her and leave Holtsdar.”

He nodded, giving her the time she needed to speak. The pendant in his hand grew even heavier, as though it were responding to the Queen's pain.

“Leave… this place and look for The Clan With No Name. The Curse blooms in my daughter… Find The Aura of None, only they… can give her a peaceful release.” Her grip on his arm grew tighter and she moved her head closer, firm eyes pinned on his. “She should die in the hands of none but them..! The fate of my daughter lies… in your hands…”

His lips curled at her words. Again?

“Why me?” What could they possibly expect from him? It made no sense. What were these emotions that drove them to trust him?

“Because…” For the first time since he found himself in Holtsdar, he saw crystal clarity in a person's eyes as they looked at him. “I can see you.” Her hand released his arm and weakly placed itself on his cheek.

Just the way she'd done a year ago, while she gazed at him as a mother would her child that was hurt. Or as a stranger would at an impoverished loner.

What do you seek? Was what she'd asked him that day.

“I hope you find… what you're looking for…” And her eyes turned glassy, her hand falling from his face. Just like that, the Queen of Holtsdar was dead.

“Are you even of this kingdom, guard?” The human had descended to the ground, strutting up to him as he set Rihn’s corpse aside and got to his feet. “With less an ounce of emotion, you watched your Queen perish at the hand of an enemy.” Scrutiny awash on her face, she looked him up and down? “You demons are just unfathomable.”

Now they stood on level ground, face to face. She relishing in her rising certainty that she could kill him, and him knowing exactly where her head would fall to once he relieved it from her body.

She tore her eyes from him to the corpse beside him. “Huh,” she cocked her head, “as I've been told, should the Cursed One be killed, their curse will be released so even the simplest of eyes could see.”

Fall said nothing. He straightened his right hand before himself and made a grabbing gesture just above the wrist with his other hand.

“I see nothing coming from this body. Just like I saw nothing from the King's corpse,” she continued. “The Cursed One is among the royal family. And if it's not the father or mother, then it should be the child.”

A hilt materialised from thin air in his left hand, only a fraction of the blade visible above the wrist of his right hand while the rest of it formed inside the hand.

A chuckle escaped the human. “Quite commendable, they'd been deceiving me. To give enough time enough time for the child to escape. Such caring parents, if I must say. You, I might be willing to spare you, should you tell me where the girl–”

“Shut up.”

He unsheathed the sword from his hand, drawing blood with it, brandished it to the side so the blood splattered in an arch before him. The sword ignited as his wound closed up, burning steadily and quietly in his flames. His blank eyes met her wide ones.

The woman stumbled back in shock as she set eyes on his sword. “That sword, it's ignited but the flame… no, this is impossible.” With bated breath and paling skin, she took a few more steps back. “The colours that accompany flames reflect the virtues of wielders but this fire… has no colour..!”

He took a step forward, the blood on his sword already one with the atmosphere.

“Almost as if… The wielder bears no virtue… No emotion… An empty vessel..!” She immediately summoned a twisting mass of solidifying ink. “You! What are you?!” Her face contorted into a mix of fear and rage as she screamed at him.

His transparent fire spread from his body, enveloping both of them in a calm burning cage. The human shot her vines of ink, rushed in herself with two long swords in her hands, facing death with perhaps the last expression she ever thought she'd have painted on her face.

The cage grew bigger and hotter, mixing with the wild vines of twisting ink and burning them in a split second of contact. The woman's angry shriek filled the throne room as she closed in, now only an arm's length from him.

“You can call me Fall.”