"I wonder what Count Martissant would be willing to pay for your return," Arven continued, a cold smile on his lips. "Or perhaps he would prefer we keep you. You might have much to teach us about your... particular methods."

Maggie raised her head, gathering what pride she had left. "You will get nothing from me."

Arven's smile widened. "We'll see."

———

Alka's POV

Night had swallowed the Pilaf camp.

Between the command tents, torches sizzled in a wind laden with ash and burnt flesh. The air reeked of victory—that nauseating mix of sweat, iron, and smoke that Alka knew all too well.

Sitting on a crate of weapons, hands clasped, she watched the soldiers bustle around the central fire. The cries of the wounded formed a continuous bassline behind the clatter of hammers repairing lances. She could have felt at home here, in this encampment that breathed order and power. But something bothered her—a tension under her skin, a vibration in the air.

A rumor had spread since evening: an enemy Awakened had been captured. A woman.

Alive.

And, according to the scouts, she had resisted one of the elite generals before collapsing.

A rare feat.

Rare enough to attract the attention of Arven himself.

Alka looked up at the dark sky, where plumes of smoke still rose from the plain of Karthak.

The name of this prisoner—Maggie—meant nothing to her. Not a memory, not a trace in the reports she had read.

But something felt off.

She finally stood up, pulling her cloak around her shoulders, and slipped between the tents towards the messengers' area. The fire was slowly dying behind her, and the night seemed to swallow every step.

In an isolated tent, she unrolled the communication crystal, a cylinder of polished onyx with blue reflections. The spiritual energy pulsed faintly as she touched the runes.

— Connection: Gael.

The old man's face appeared in the spectral glow. Shadows ate away half his face, leaving only his sharp blue eyes visible.

« Alka? Well, well, you don't look so good, it seems?»

« No. I don't have much time. »

She paused. The sound of the wind mixed with the crystal's hiss.

« An Awakened from Count Martissant has been captured. The name given by the scouts is Maggie. Does that name mean anything to you? »

Gael frowned. His gaze lost itself for a moment in the void, as if searching his memories.

« Maggie… Yes. Captain of the third vanguard battalion. A renowned fighter. I recruited her personally as a mercenary for the Count. A force of nature, but unstable now. Her spiritual core is, to say the least… peculiar. Too vast. Too unstable. »

He paused, then added, lower:

« Why? Is she dead? »

Alka slowly shook her head.

« No. Captured. Arven is keeping her under direct surveillance. »

A dense silence fell between them.

Gael sighed, his tone becoming more serious.

« That's news that is neither entirely good nor entirely bad.»

Alka leaned forward, eyes narrowed.

« Explain. »

« Maggie isn't just any Awakened. Her stigma has awakened. But she can't access it because of her unstable core. Still, her leadership was important for our side, but a mercenary remains someone employed and guided by money.

I'm thrilled she's still alive but furious that she is. »

Alka's heart tightened. She understood then that this prisoner was not a simple war trophy—but a direct threat to her own plan.

She raised her head, her gaze hard.

« Then I need to see her. Before they do. »

Gael nodded slowly.

« You know what you're risking? If Pilaf discovers your involvement in anything related to those gems… »

« I know. »

Her voice was barely a whisper.

« But I can't let them break her before I know what she carries inside. »

The crystal died out in a luminous sigh.

Alka remained still for a moment, the reflection of the torches in her eyes.

In the Pilaf camp, the war had just changed its face—and its face was that of a woman chained in a tent, somewhere not far from her.

The night was thick, but the Pilaf camp was not asleep. It was digesting its victory, a process as methodical and organized as their war machine. Alka slipped between the straight lanes of tents, her dark cloak blending with the shadows. Every step was calculated. She avoided the guard fires, skirted the patrols whose rhythmic steps echoed on the frozen ground. The air smelled of burnt pine, lentil soup, and fear. A fear different from the one that reigned in the Martissant camp: here, it was a disciplined fear, channeled, turned outward. The fear of disappointing, the fear of punishment, the fear of breaking the perfect order.

She approached the detention tent, a larger, sturdier structure than the others, flanked by two guards in heavy armor. Their faces were hidden under helmets with impassive masks, stylized in the shape of a falcon, Pilaf's emblem. They embodied the ideology of their nation: the individual existed only as part of a whole, an interchangeable piece in the great clock of the State. Singularity was a weakness, a flaw to be corrected.

Alka didn't need to show a pass. With a barely perceptible gesture of her hand, a thin film of essence, invisible to the naked eye, wrapped around the perception of the two guards. Their gaze became glassy, their posture relaxed by a tiny degree. They had just received the subliminal order to consider her part of the scenery, an officer whose presence was a given. She pushed aside the heavy leather flap and entered.

Inside, the air was cold and smelled musty. Maggie was sitting on a low stool, her hands tied behind her back by manacles of a dull metal that seemed to absorb light. She was pale, her short hair matted with sweat and dust, but her gaze was clear. A gaze that scanned the darkness, looking for landmarks, for flaws. A soldier's gaze.

But it wasn't Maggie that Alka was interested in first. It was the man standing near her.

General Arven.

He had removed his helmet, revealing an angular face, hewn as if with an axe. His hair, ink-black, was pulled back into a severe queue. His eyes, the color of steel, scanned Maggie with the cold curiosity of an engineer examining a faulty machine. He no longer wore his combat cape, but a stark black tunic, unadorned, that hugged his powerful frame. He was the embodiment of the Pilaf doctrine: pure efficiency, devoid of any useless pomp.

"You are an enigma, Captain Maggie," said his voice, as neutral and sharp as a razor blade. "Your spiritual core is a field of ruins. Yet you released a discharge of essence that nearly broke our advance. An inefficient waste. Misdirected energy."

He took a step to the side, his hands clasped behind his back.

"In Pilaf, we have no place for waste. Awakened who cannot control their power are either recalibrated or recycled. Their essences are extracted to fuel our war machines or strengthen those who are more... disciplined."

His gaze finally settled on Alka, who had stood silently near the entrance. He did not seem surprised.

"Alka. Your timing is, as always, impeccable. Have you come to examine our catch?"

Alka bowed slightly, keeping her face a mask of neutrality. "The War Council is questioning the nature of the threat she represents. Her profile... falls outside established parameters."

A cold smile touched Arven's lips. "'Outside parameters.' That's an understatement. She is organized chaos. A living contradiction." He turned back to Maggie. "We will resolve this contradiction. We will map her core, understand the flaw. And if we cannot repair it, we will extract the data to make a more stable weapon. Order must prevail."

Maggie finally lifted her head, her gaze meeting Arven's unflinchingly. Her voice was hoarse but firm. "You can try."

Arven ignored her challenge. He looked at Alka. "You have one hour. Use your... talents. If there is a residual signature linked to those artifacts you're tracking, find it. The Council wants results, not mysteries."

With that, he turned on his heel and left the tent, leaving behind a silence heavy with meaning.

Alka waited for his footsteps to fade. She then approached Maggie, crouching to be at her eye level. The two women measured each other with their gazes.

"They won't break you," Alka murmured, too low for the guards outside to hear. "They will dismantle you piece by piece, with the same methodical coldness they use to dismantle a machine. Your will, your memories, your essence... everything will be catalogued, analyzed, and if deemed useful, repurposed."

Maggie held her gaze. "And you? Are you their dismantler?"

"I am the one trying to understand what they want to dismantle," Alka corrected. Her fingers almost brushed Maggie's manacles, a subtle gleam of essence sparking from her fingertips, not to break them, but to feel their composition, their resonance. "Because what they see as a flaw to be corrected... I see it as a key. A key that might just open a door they fear."

Her eyes plunged into Maggie's, seeking beyond the soldier, beyond the prisoner, towards the echo of the black structure and the monolith.

"Now, let's talk about what truly inhabits you, Captain. Before it's too late."

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