"I suppose she won't be coming after all," Pride said, almost to himself.

There was genuine regret in his tone, as if he'd been expecting someone important and had just been stood up.

Wendelina's eyes narrowed. Her hands were still raised, power crackling between her fingers, the silver light of origin energy casting sharp shadows across her aged features.

"We haven't finished yet, demon," she said coldly.

"The boy can wait.

Right now, I need to kill you."

Pride's shoulders shook with silent laughter.

When he spoke, amusement colored every word.

"You think you can?"

"I can," Wendelina said flatly.

"And I will."

She took a step forward, and behind her, two dozen witches mirrored the movement. Their combined power built like a rising tide, the air itself humming with gathered energy. Origin techniques began to take shape—binding circles, destructive lances, elemental fury waiting to be unleashed.

Pride tilted his head slightly, the gesture almost bird-like.

"Perhaps you could," he acknowledged.

"Under different circumstances, this would be quite the entertaining battle. But tell me, Mother Supreme—what happens when the boy wakes up?"

Wendelina paused.

"What if he returns with even more power?"

Pride continued, his tone conversational.

"What if next time, he doesn't have that woman to talk him down? What if next time, his first instinct is to erase everyone who threatened him?"

Confusion flickered across Wendelina's weathered face. Her gaze darted to Jaenor's unconscious form, then back to Pride.

The calculation was visible in her eyes—weighing threats, measuring priorities, and analyzing risk.

Pride was right, and they both knew it.

The boy was the greater danger.

Not immediately, but potentially.

And in Wendelina's three centuries of life, she'd learned that potential dangers had a way of becoming real ones if left unaddressed.

Her jaw tightened. She hated being maneuvered, hated even more that it was a demon of Sin doing the maneuvering.

"Detain him," she ordered sharply, not taking her eyes off Pride.

"Immediately. Binding circles, suppression seals, everything we have. I want him unable to access his power if he wakes."

The witches hesitated.

"Now!" Wendelina's voice cracked like a whip.

Several of them broke from the formation, moving toward Jaenor with visible reluctance. Their hands began weaving patterns, origin energy flowing into complex patterns that would lock down his cores and prevent any flow of power.

But as they approached, they slowed.

Then stopped entirely.

The youngest witch, barely twenty summers old, was trembling.

"Mother Supreme," she whispered.

"I... I can't."

"Can't?" Wendelina's tone was dangerous.

"I'm terrified," the girl admitted, shame coloring her voice.

"Just getting close to him, even unconscious, it's like standing at the edge of a cliff. My instincts are screaming to run. I can't make myself take another step."

Wendelina's eyes swept across the other witches who'd moved forward. She saw the same fear reflected in their faces. These were trained, women who'd faced demons and monsters without flinching, and they were paralyzed by an unconscious boy.

The power he'd unleashed had left a mark on them all.

A primal recognition that they'd witnessed something beyond their ability to comprehend or control.

"Cowards," Wendelina spat, but there was no real heat in it.

She understood.

She'd felt that same terror herself.

Before she could issue another command, movement came from an unexpected direction.

Baren pushed through the crowd of onlookers.

The young man moved with purpose despite his injuries from earlier battles. Blood still seeped from wounds across his arms and torso, but his expression was determined.

And now he'd witnessed something that changed everything.

"My lady!" he called out, his voice hoarse but carrying authority.

"Mother Supreme!"

Wendelina turned toward him, irritation flashing across her face at the interruption.

"Who are you, and what do you want?"

"Can't you see—"

"There's something in the temple," Baren said quickly, gesturing toward the cracked structure.

"A treasure. Something this dead clan has protected for ages. I think that's why the sect came here. Not for the boy—for whatever's inside that shrine."

"I'm sure that demon is for that."

Silence fell.

Pride's head snapped toward Baren with sudden, focused intensity. Behind his mask, those green eyes blazed brighter.

Wendelina's gaze shifted to the collapsed temple, really looking at it for the first time since the battle had ended. The ancient structure had split down its center, revealing darkness within. Even from here, she could sense something—a presence, old and powerful, emanating from the depths.

How had she missed it?

The realization struck her like cold water.

The Blaedred Skull sect had been here first. Before her arrival, before the full assault on the village. They'd been searching for something.

And in all the chaos, all the fighting, she'd been so focused on Jaenor and the threat he represented that she'd completely overlooked the original reason for the attack.

"Tell me more," she commanded, her voice sharp with renewed focus.

Baren took a step closer, speaking rapidly now.

"The Ki'thara were keepers. That's what the elder told me before he died—that they were guardians of something sacred. He didn't say what, but he made it clear that it could never fall into Blaedred hands. I saw some of their soldiers trying to breach the inner sanctum earlier, but the temple's defenses held them off."

Wendelina's mind raced. She turned to her assembled witches.

"Synthia—did your research turn up anything about this place? About why the Ki'thara settled here specifically?"

Hanila, a middle-aged witch with silver streaks in her dark hair, stepped forward. Her expression was troubled.

"We knew the clan held some importance," she admitted.

"The records suggested they were tied to this location for centuries, possibly longer. But the specifics were lost. Most of their history was oral tradition, passed down through their bloodline. When Vasthren went rogue and fled, he took much of that knowledge with him."

"There were rumors," Synthia added. She was younger, with keen eyes that missed little.

"Stories of an artifact from before the Separation. Something powerful enough that it needed constant guardians. But I thought they were just legends, exaggerations to make a minor clan seem more important than they were."

Before the Separation.

Those words hung in the air like a spell. The Separation had occurred over a thousand years ago, when the world had been torn apart by war between those who wielded aura and those who controlled origin energy. The conflict had nearly destroyed civilization itself, and most knowledge from before that time had been lost.

Artifacts from that era were beyond rare.

They were priceless.

And often, incredibly dangerous.

Wendelina had also seen Jaenor moving toward the temple before the fighting had escalated.

At the time, she'd assumed he was seeking shelter or trying to flee. But what if it had been something else? What if his bloodline had somehow sensed what lay within?

The Arkwrights had existed before the Separation. They'd been one of the bloodlines that had tried to bridge the gap between aura and origin energy, to unite rather than divide.

Perhaps they had knowledge others didn't.

A doubt flickered in Wendelina's mind, small but growing. She'd made assumptions and acted on incomplete information. What if there was more to this situation than she'd understood?

At that moment, Pride's cultured voice cut through her thoughts like a blade.

"What are you all doing?"

He'd turned away from the assembled forces, addressing his own subordinates with clear displeasure. The Blaedred sect members shifted uncomfortably under his attention.

"You still haven't retrieved those items?" Pride's tone had gone cold, the earlier amusement completely gone.

"How long have you been here? Hours? And you've accomplished nothing?"

One of the sect members, a thin man with ritual scars across his face, stepped forward nervously.

"My lord, we've tried. The temple's inner sanctum is sealed with old runes. We've lost three people attempting to breach it. The defenses are beyond our ability to—"

"Beyond your ability," Pride repeated softly.

"How disappointing."

The man paled, taking a step back.

Wendelina's eyes narrowed as understanding crystallized.

It was true.

All of it.

The Blaedred Skull sect had come here specifically for whatever was inside that temple. The attack on the Ki'thara village had been strategic, meant to eliminate the guardians and claim the treasure they protected.

And Pride himself had come personally. That spoke volumes about the value of what lay within.

It wasn't like the pride; Draelusa wanted to hide it. He just didn't believe that Wendelina was capable of winning against him, and it was the reason he called out the sect members.

She looked at the demon lord with fresh calculation. Then at the ruined temple. Then, at her assembled witches.

A decision crystallized.

"Prepare for combat," Wendelina commanded. Her voice rang with authority, cutting through the tension.

"Full battle formation."

Her witches responded immediately, years of training overriding their fear and exhaustion. They spread out, creating overlapping fields of fire, their hands already weaving the initial patterns for devastating spells.

Pride turned back toward her slowly. Behind his obsidian mask, those green eyes studied her.

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