Paola watched in stunned silence as the skeleton moved forward, each slow step deliberate, his long, whip-like blades dragging ominously across the rubble-strewn ground outside the cathedral. Shadows played across his bleached bones, flickering and elongating with the dance of the distant fires, and for a brief moment, his figure appeared like something from a nightmare—a revenant, skeletal and vengeful, summoned from a dark tale.
Lady Marcelline straightened, her gaze sharp, though beneath the composure, Paola saw a tremor of something almost human—fear, perhaps. She drew herself taller, her eyes narrowing as she watched Malakar approach.
"You recognized me," Malakar’s voice rasped, each syllable like a death knell, his tone laced with bitter amusement. "A miracle. I would have thought you’d let my memory rot in the mud along with my body."
Marcelline’s chin lifted, a defensive edge to her expression as if defending against unseen accusations. Her voice remained smooth, careful, like a serpent coaxing its prey. "Malakar, I never wanted it to come to this."
"But you made it come to this," he countered, his voice cold, unyielding. The deadly whips coiled tighter in his grip, rattling like the bones of a specter’s wings. "You crafted this end for me. You set it up perfectly, didn’t you? It’s almost flattering. The lengths you went to cast me as a villain."
His words struck a nerve, and Marcelline’s face tightened, but she held her composure. "I never wanted you to die," she murmured, her voice almost sorrowful. "You…you were the one who chose the darker path, Malakar. You became the monster that I…that I was warned about."
"Is that what you tell yourself?" Malakar let out a dark, mirthless laugh, each syllable carrying the weight of a thousand betrayals. "I served the Leviathan. I devoted myself, gave everything to honor it. And you—you painted me as a worshipper of Poseidon, our enemy. You knew what they’d do to me if they believed that lie." His voice grew harder, cutting through the night like a blade. "You wanted me gone, Marcelline. You needed a dark lord, a scapegoat to unite the nobles, and you chose me."
Marcelline took a half-step forward, her eyes gleaming with the cool edge of her composure. "You don’t understand, Malakar," she said, her tone suddenly coaxing, pleading. "It wasn’t that simple. I…had no choice. If I hadn’t…if you hadn’t taken that fall, Valarian would have been torn apart by civil war."
"Spare me your excuses," Malakar sneered. "You could have done a hundred things differently, but instead, you framed me, killed me, and left me to die like a dog in the forest. You didn’t even grant me the courtesy of a trial. And don't use that sorry excuse of a trial either, that was an execution."
She flinched at his words, but her response was as calculated as her gaze. "I had no choice," she insisted. "It was for Valarian, Malakar. The survival of our city was on the line. And besides, you—"
"Don’t you dare," he interrupted, his voice a low, seething hiss. "I remember it all. I remember how you stood silent at my execution, saying nothing, watching as they tore me apart. You didn’t speak up once in my defense." His eyes, dark and fathomless, burned with a loathing that seemed to simmer from beyond the grave. "The guilt must be eating at you now, though, for you to recognize me even as this." He gestured to his skeletal form, and there was a twisted satisfaction in his voice, as if he took pleasure in her discomfort.
For the first time, Marcelline’s facade wavered, a crack appearing in the mask of her composure. She looked down, her voice trembling, though still strong enough to carry. "You’re right," she whispered. "It haunts me. Every night, I see your face. I’ve carried that regret with me every day since they took you away, even when I tried to bury it."
For a moment, a fragile silence lingered between them, a flicker of vulnerability passing over Marcelline’s face. Malakar’s grip on his weapons tightened, his hollow eyes locked onto hers, searching for even the faintest glimmer of sincerity.
“You expect me to believe that after all these years?” His voice was cold, but there was a trace of something else there, a lingering echo of the love he had once felt for her, buried beneath layers of bitterness and betrayal. “That you still cared, even when you condemned me to die?”
“Yes,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper. She took another step forward, so close now that he could see the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. “I never stopped caring, Malakar. You were my one true regret.”
Malakar’s stance softened, the fury in his gaze wavering as he took in the vulnerability etched into her features. Against his better judgment, a sliver of hope ignited within him, the remnants of a love that had refused to be entirely extinguished. “Your regret…” he murmured, his voice tinged with disbelief. “Do you even understand the weight of that word? After everything you took from me?”
She nodded, a single tear slipping down her cheek as she whispered, “I understand, Malakar. And if I could take it back… I would.”
He stared at her, the anguish in her expression cutting through his defenses, a flicker of the woman he had once known shining through the cracks. For a moment, he allowed himself to believe her words, to imagine that she had truly loved him, that her betrayal had been born of fear, not malice.
He lowered his head, his skeletal shoulders slumping as the weight of his emotions crashed over him. The bladed tendrils relaxed, coiling around him as if reflecting his moment of vulnerability. “Then perhaps… perhaps we were both victims of our choices,” he murmured, his voice soft, almost resigned.
Marcelline’s eyes gleamed with something triumphant, though she hid it behind a mask of remorse. She stepped closer, her hand reaching out to him, her fingers trembling as they brushed the air between them, so close yet still so far.
“Malakar…” she breathed, her voice laced with an aching sincerity. “We could… we could start again. Forget the past, let it die with what remains of this night. Together.”
Malakar’s head remained lowered, his guard down as he struggled to process the torrent of emotions swirling within him. His gaze dropped to her hand, the faint glimmer of hope rekindling in his hollow chest. He wanted to believe her, to believe that maybe...maybe, there was a sliver of redemption left for both of them.
But as his guard fell, as he allowed himself to be drawn into her words, he missed the faint glint in her eyes, the subtle shift in her posture. And before he could react, before he even realized his mistake, Marcelline’s hand moved.
There was a sickening sound, like the shattering of glass, as jagged shards of ice erupted from the ground beneath them, morphing into the shape of a twisted, broken birdcage. The frozen tendrils shot forward, coiling around him with deadly precision, stabbing into his skeletal frame and ensnaring him within their frigid grasp. The spell was brutal in its design, each shard angled and sharpened like a predator’s teeth, glinting in the fractured moonlight. The cage was no mere prison—it was a death trap, designed to ensnare and pierce its victim from all sides.
Malakar barely had a moment to process the betrayal before the shards closed in, stabbing through the gaps in his bones, spearing him from every angle. Jagged pieces of ice slammed into his ribcage, his spine, his limbs, each shard aimed with chilling precision to pierce even the smallest space between his skeletal structure. They buried themselves deep within, locking him in place, draining the last remnants of his strength.
His whip-blades snapped back, trying to deflect the ice, but it was too late—the cage had already sealed shut, the shards embedding themselves with relentless, biting cold.
A strangled, gasping sound escaped Malakar as the last of his strength ebbed away, the skeletal frame that had once moved with deadly grace now immobilized, pinned in place like a grotesque sculpture. His voice, hollow and trembling, broke the silence, his disbelief evident. "You…"
Marcelline’s expression was one of cold satisfaction as she took a step back, watching him struggle in vain against the icy prison. Her tone was mockingly gentle, a feigned softness that barely concealed her triumph. "Oh, Malakar," she murmured. "Did you really think you could come back and haunt me? Did you think I’d let a mere skeleton, a whisper of a past I’ve already buried, be my undoing?"
Paola’s chest heaved with shock as she watched the scene unfold, the finality of the betrayal crashing over her like a tidal wave. She could barely register the pain in her own body, her focus locked on the horror in front of her.
Malakar hung suspended in his frozen cage, jagged spears of ice piercing his skeletal form from every angle, a twisted halo of crystalline death holding him in place. His once-proud figure, now reduced to bare bones cloaked in navy blue and black trimmings, looked haunting and oddly vulnerable in the dim light cast by the flickering remnants of the cathedral. He struggled, the remnants of his will driving the last of his strength, but each small movement sent a cracking sound through the ice as shards shifted, digging deeper into his bones. Paola could see the pain etched in his hollow eye sockets, the stubborn refusal to relent even as his own end seemed to creep ever closer.
Lady Marcelline took a step back from him, her face half-lit by the fractured moonlight, her icy blue eyes unreadable as they lingered on him with a strange mix of coldness and regret. She tilted her head, studying him as one might study a relic—something both familiar and wholly irrelevant to the present. She breathed in, her lips parting as if she was about to say something cruel, but her gaze softened.
"I did love you, Malakar," she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I loved you in a way that I never thought possible. Even as I betrayed you, as I watched them take you from me, I… I knew you were the one person I would regret. And I still do.”
Malakar’s jaw twitched, a faint remnant of emotion passing through him, a mocking laugh bubbling up from within. "Love," he rasped, his voice a strained murmur against the freezing hold of the ice. "If that was love, then I hope I never feel it again." He forced a shuddering laugh, one that crackled like dry bones. "You shattered me. Loving you hurt worse than anything else. Worse than death."
Marcelline’s eyes grew colder, but there was a flash of something deeper, a glimmer of the sorrow she’d hidden so well. “Malakar,” she murmured, “I truly am sorry. But the dead…they should stay dead. Do you think this world has room for ancient ghosts to roam free?” Her gaze fell to the ground, somber. "I only wonder, how did you manage to come back after all this time?"
His bones creaked as he tried to move his head, managing the faintest nod toward the shadows. His laughter was weak but steady, mingling with a bitterness only the dead could feel. “Oh, I’m just here with a boy—a funny one at that.” His laugh turned into a grim chuckle, one that seemed to echo against the ice. “You wouldn’t believe his complaints, even now…though I have to admit, he's got some real fire in him."
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Paola, overhearing him, glanced at Marcelline’s face; confusion flickered across her expression, though she quickly dismissed it, her attention drawn back to him.
“But,” he continued, his tone hardening, “none of that matters. I returned, Marcelline, because I swore to myself I would. I cursed you with every piece of me left to rot in those woods. I loved you…as deeply as anyone could. And you cast me aside to be the villain.” His voice grew hoarse, almost a whisper. “To rot alone.”
Marcelline’s composure cracked, her lips parting as if she wanted to say something, perhaps some final apology, but she held back, her face transforming into a mask of resolute determination. She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a low murmur, almost tender. "Sacrificing you, Malakar… it was necessary. The city needed something to believe in, something to fight against. And the Leviathan honors sacrifice. It was your life in exchange for the unity of Valarian—a sacrifice worthy of reverence."
As she spoke, her voice became softer, almost reverent, her eyes gleaming with a chillingly pious light. She gazed down at Malakar, her hand extended toward him, as if honoring a relic. “The greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward. I know you can understand that.”
Paola, her body weak and nearly drained, felt her heart pounding. This was her one chance. She glanced at her stats, knowing that the toll on her body was critical:
Health (HP): 17/277
Mana: 5/177
Stamina: 6/192
Her heart sank. Her teleport skill would cost 5 MP—a near-drain of what she had left—and with her stamina so low, the risk was overwhelming. But Paola didn’t have time to think. She had to act. Marcelline’s back was turned, her entire focus absorbed in this twisted farewell to Malakar.
Paola’s golden-flecked brown eyes narrowed as she gathered every ounce of her will. This was it. She took one trembling breath, crouched, and launched herself forward, her muscles screaming with the effort as she closed in on Marcelline.
With a flicker of silver and a burst of chaotic energy, Paola teleported, her form blurring as she reappeared mere inches behind Marcelline, her knife drawn and ready. Marcelline was in mid-sentence, her voice a murmur as she whispered, “…honor your sacrifice…”
The knife slid in.
Paola barely registered it, her own breath catching in her throat. She’d expected resistance, a barrier, a final shield—but instead, her blade had met soft flesh, puncturing through Marcelline’s back and piercing her heart. She could feel the hilt trembling in her grip as Marcelline’s body went rigid against her.
For a heartbeat, Paola froze, her mind racing in disbelief. Did I actually do it? Fragments of her abilities flashed through her mind, unbidden—an increased chance of a critical hit, that extra 25% damage from her teleporting strike, the Rabbit’s Foot trait bolstering her already unlikely odds, the nudist trait she had hated for so long. Somehow, it had all lined up, every factor combining into this one fatal blow. It worked.
The world stilled around them, both women locked in the shock of the moment.
Marcelline’s gaze drifted downward, her eyes widening as she saw the crimson-streaked tip of Paola’s blade protruding from her chest. She blinked, as if the sight before her was an illusion, her mouth opening in a silent gasp, struggling to grasp the reality of her own downfall.
Paola could barely breathe as she took in Marcelline’s expression—a mixture of shock, pain, and something that looked eerily like acceptance.
Marcelline raised a trembling hand, hovering it over the blade, her face twisted in disbelief. Her lips parted, her voice a ragged whisper. “Malakar…”
She turned her gaze toward him, as though seeking some impossible absolution, the faintest glimmer of regret shimmering in her eyes. “All of it… was for Valarian.”
Malakar, even in his bound state, watched in silence. For a brief moment, a bitter, almost satisfied smile flickered across his face, as if this final act was the justice he’d awaited.
Paola felt her grip tighten, her shock transforming into a cold, unyielding clarity. Her voice rang out, her words as steely as the blade lodged in Marcelline’s heart.
“And this…is for me.”
Marcelline’s breath caught, her form swaying as Paola withdrew the blade, stepping back as the weight of the fatal strike sank in. The ice cage shattered, the shards dissolving into the air as the magic sustaining it crumbled with Marcelline’s strength. Her hand clutched her chest, blood seeping through her fingers as she looked up at the stars one last time, a bitter smile tracing her lips.
“The Leviathan…” she whispered, her voice a thread of breath, “it…honors…sacrifice…”
With that, she collapsed, her body falling limply to the ground, her eyes closing as the light left her face.
Paola staggered back, her body teetering on the edge of exhaustion, every ounce of her strength expended in that single, fateful blow. She barely registered Malakar, who freed from his frozen bindings, stumbled forward, his gaze fixed on Marcelline’s lifeless form.
For a moment, there was only silence, the quiet of a city that had borne witness to the end of a tyrant.
Under the unbroken expanse of the starlit sky, an energy erupted from Lady Marcelline's lifeless body, a pulse of deep violet and blinding white bursting out, striking the cobblestones and sending Paola stumbling backward. Her blade slipped from her fingers as she shielded her face, feeling the immense pressure bearing down on her chest.
Then, with a strangled cry, Malakar unleashed a series of sharp, crackling strikes into the empty air, his skeletal form lunging forward as his whip-like swords lashed out, piercing the nothingness where Marcelline’s soul had just been. "No!" he shouted, his voice raw, desperate. "She can’t—she can’t do this!"
A shadow of the energy surrounded her body, not in a display of glory but as if something was being torn away. And then, the energy ebbed. A heavy silence settled over them, and all that remained was Marcelline’s still form lying among the shattered stones. She was gone.
Paola’s breathing was ragged as she lowered her hands, her fingers shaking as she tried to comprehend what she’d just seen. Then, she felt it—a cool droplet splashing against her shoulder. Then another, on her cheek. She lifted her gaze to the empty sky, blinking as more droplets began to dot her face. She couldn’t see any clouds, not even the faintest wisp, and yet—
“It’s raining,” she whispered, her voice carrying a tremor as she looked over at Malakar, who was also staring at the sky, his empty eye sockets tilted upwards, his whole skeletal form caught in that eerie stillness.
Droplets began to patter down against her skin, soft and relentless, though the sky was perfectly clear, a black expanse dotted with distant stars. Not a single cloud loomed above them, yet the rain fell anyway. Slowly, steadily, the droplets intensified, a chill soaking into her skin, each drop carrying a strange, electric weight. She watched, frozen, as the rain began to wet the earth, mingling with the blood that spattered the cobblestones. It pattered against Malakar’s bare bones, pooling in the hollow of his skull and streaming down his jagged jaw.
Paola’s breaths came slow, shallow, as if she were in a trance, her eyes wide as she stared up at the dark heavens. The rain fell heavier, a quiet, relentless deluge that cast a somber rhythm over the silence. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sky, her mind too clouded to process the thousand questions spiraling within her.
Malakar’s voice was a low murmur beside her. "She’s gone, Paola," he said, his tone hollow, tinged with a strange sorrow. "Lady Marcelline is dead…but her soul has been moved.”
The words settled heavily over Paola, sinking in like stones dropped into deep, dark water. A chill ran down her spine, her body going cold as she tried to make sense of what he’d just said. She looked at him, her golden-flecked brown eyes wide and uncomprehending.
“What… what does that mean?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Malakar’s gaze remained fixed on the spot where Marcelline had fallen, the rain drumming softly against his bones. He lifted one hand, his skeletal fingers splaying out as he let the droplets gather against his palm, the rain tapping against his bones in a haunting rhythm. “This body,” he said slowly, “due to its… unusual circumstances, has a clearer connection to the realm of souls. I felt her essence leave, Paola. It didn’t dissolve, didn’t fade into the beyond. She… shifted.”
Paola shivered, her mind reeling. “Shifted… to what? Where??”
He glanced at her, and though his skull showed no expression, there was something profoundly sorrowful in his hollow eye sockets, a knowledge that weighed upon him like a burden he wished he could relinquish. “The Marcelline we knew is gone, but I believe, given her connection to the Leviathan, she’s done something that relates to the destinies of any Fallen Star’s fate.” He paused, looking up into the rain-soaked sky. “She’s on the path to awakening something ancient, something that should have remained buried.” He let out a bitter laugh.
The weight of his words settled over Paola like a shroud, an ominous realization prickling at the edges of her mind. “Awakening the titans?” she whispered, her throat dry despite the rain that now streamed down her face. She could feel the chill sinking into her bones, mingling with the lingering fear and exhaustion that weighed her down.
Malakar nodded, his gaze grim, unreadable. “It would seem so. The path of a Fallen Star is… complicated. Marcelline had climbed high in the ranks, possibly reaching Sapphire or even Diamond tier. With that kind of power, a soul can transcend the ordinary boundaries of life and death. Her connection to the Leviathan was strong. It’s likely she’s used that power to forge that very path.”
Paola’s eyes narrowed, skepticism lacing her voice despite her fear. “How am I supposed to believe any of this?”
Malakar’s response was simple, unhurried. He held his skeletal hand out, letting the rain collect in the crevices of his bones. “It’s raining,” he said quietly, his voice carrying a note of finality.
Paola scoffed, her brow furrowing in confusion. “So? It rains all the time.”
Malakar shook his head slowly, his gaze meeting hers. “Not here. Not in Valarian. It hasn’t rained here in over a millennium. This—” he gestured to the rain, the way it poured down around them, drenching the cobblestones, the shattered remnants of the cathedral, “—this is a sign from the Leviathan. Acknowledgment of her sacrifice.”
The words struck Paola like a blow, her heart sinking as she looked around, the full weight of the rain’s significance settling over her. The quiet, the relentlessness, the way it washed over everything—it was as if the city itself was mourning, as if the rain carried within it the sorrow and regret of something ancient, something unfathomable.
“Marcelline is gone,” Malakar murmured, his voice thick with something dark, something raw. “She’s not the woman who ruled Valarian anymore. She’s… something else. Something I don’t fully understand.” He looked back down at her, his skeletal form casting a dark silhouette against the night sky. “And she has sacrificed more than her life for it.”
A long silence stretched between them, broken only by the soft patter of the rain. Paola swallowed, her throat tight as she processed his words, her mind reeling with the implications. Marcelline was dead… but not gone. She’d paid the ultimate price, crossed into a realm that no one else had ever ventured. And for what?
“What… what do we do now?” she asked, her voice barely audible, as if she feared the answer would only deepen the dread that coiled within her.
Malakar’s gaze returned to the horizon, the rain dripping from his bones, his expression unreadable. “We wait,” he said simply, his tone hollow. “We watch. And we prepare. Because whatever Marcelline has awakened, whatever path she’s taken…” He trailed off, his gaze growing distant, as if peering into a future he wished he couldn’t see. “It’s not over. Not yet.”
Paola stared down at the lifeless form of Lady Marcelline, her own hands trembling as the realization settled into her bones like a cold she would never shake. The rain pelted her, a strange, quiet rhythm against the broken cobblestones, filling the silence left by the fight, by the shattered cathedral, by Marcelline’s final words.
The words echoed, hollow and unyielding, in her mind: The greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward. And Marcelline, in her endless ambition, had sacrificed everything—her own life, her own humanity—for this moment.
She had said it with pride, conviction. And Paola had been the one to give her the death she needed.
Paola’s mind reeled as the pieces fell into place with brutal clarity. The sacrifice Marcelline had craved wasn’t just a death—it was a beginning. A path she had paved with her blood, one that would awaken something terrible, something that should have remained in the depths of history, of myth. The titans…
The rain continued, unrelenting. It dripped down her face, mixing with the blood and grime, a cold, steady reminder of the Leviathan’s acknowledgment. The only sound now was the empty, bitter whisper of rain on stone, filling the void where Valarian’s silence fell like a heavy shroud.
Did she… did Paola… did she just start the reawakening of the titans?
The thought settled into her mind, sinking deep and unyielding. There was no undoing this. She had fought to protect Valarian, to keep its people safe—and in doing so, she had unleashed something far more ancient, something devastating.
Her breath came shallow, the reality of it crashing over her like a wave.
Marcelline was gone. And in her place, an emptiness stretched across the city, across the night, across Paola’s own soul, leaving her hollow, stranded on the edge of a disaster that had only just begun.