The rain kept falling.
No longer violent—just constant, heavy, patient.
The drops struck the ruined ground, the remnants of shattered magic, the exposed skin of Brianna, mingling with the thin blood that ran from cuts she did not remember receiving.
She was kneeling.
Not by choice.
Her body simply stopped responding when the thread snapped.
Her chest rose and fell in failed attempts, too short to be called breathing.
Each effort pulled something inward—cold, abrasive, wrong—as if the air itself had learned how to wound.
Brígida stood before her.
Motionless.
The rain did not hurry her.
It never had.
The drops slid over her softly embered skin, evaporating before completing their path, as if the world still remembered who she was… and refused to touch her fully.
Golden-amber eyes watched Brianna from head to toe.
Not with contempt.
Not with pity.
But with the silent attention of someone watching a mechanism finally give way.
"Don't fight it," Brígida said.
Her voice was low.
Grave.
Velveted and warm, like metal kept too long in the fire.
"Your body is still searching for something that no longer exists."
Brianna tried to lift her head.
The movement failed halfway.
The world spun, short and dry, and she had to brace a hand against the ground to keep from tipping sideways.
Her fingers trembled.
Mud seeped under her nails.
"Shut—" the sound came out hoarse, breaking before it could become a word.
Brígida was not offended.
She merely tilted her head, a minimal gesture, almost respectful.
"No," she replied calmly. "Now, you listen."
A distant thunder rolled, muffled by the rain.
Whirok shifted a few meters behind them.
A harsh drag.
A low growl slipped from his throat as he tried to rise, the crooked smile still there, but less certain—more tense.
"I've always loved speeches," he muttered, spitting blood to the side. "Especially when someone's on their knees."
Brígida raised a single finger.
She did not point at him.
She did not need to.
The air around Whirok thickened for an instant—not enough to crush him… just enough to remind him.
His smile froze.
"Stay," she said without looking. "I haven't decided yet if you're irrelevant… or merely useful."
Whirok swallowed hard.
And did not move again.
Brígida returned all her attention to Brianna.
She knelt in front of her.
The gesture was slow.
Controlled.
Deliberate.
They were nearly at the same height—but the difference was still absolute.
"It hurts because it wasn't torn out with violence," Brígida went on. "It was cut clean. An old thread. Well woven. Poorly placed."
She extended her hand.
Did not touch Brianna.
Stopped a few centimeters from her chest.
"You feel the space, don't you?" she murmured. "It isn't pain. It's absence. A hollow where your world used to rest."
Brianna closed her eyes.
For one second—just one.
And in that second, the name almost escaped.
It caught.
Died there.
"Don't say it…" Brianna whispered, her voice failing like thin glass. "Don't use that…"
Brígida smiled.
Small.
Sad in a way too old to be human.
"I don't need to say the name," she replied. "You're already carrying its weight alone."
The rain struck harder for a moment.
As if the sky had heard.
Brígida rose again.
"Stand up, Brianna."
It was not a shouted command.
It was worse.
It was a certainty spoken softly.
"It isn't over yet." She paused, letting the silence press down. "And the world won't stop because something precious fell."
Brianna opened her eyes.
Slowly.
The gaze was empty.
But… not broken.
Not yet.
She braced her hand against the ground again.
Her body shook.
But it obeyed.
And as she rose, drop by drop sliding down her face, something rearranged itself inside her—not healing, not closing… only hardening around the lack.
Brígida watched.
Attentive.
Like someone witnessing a blade being tempered for the first time after it breaks.
"Now," she said, with that heavy calm that crushed promises, "…let's see what remains of you without the thread that kept you human."
The rain was still falling.
But for an instant too short to be called silence, it seemed to hesitate.
The air behind Brianna rippled.
Not like magic being summoned—but like reality recognizing something that did not need to ask for passage.
The raindrops unraveled into white strands.
Not shadows.
Not smoke.
Something cleaner.
Older.
Like mist stitched together by intent.
She appeared there.
Without a step.
Without a sound.
The white presence took shape behind Brianna with the cruel softness of a tale that always begins the same way.
The eyes—too white to be human—watched as one who rediscovers something never truly left behind.
The voice came low.
Velveted.
Loaded with eras.
"It's been a long time, Brianna…"
The air vibrated.
It did not explode.
It vibrated—like strings being drawn to the limit of what can still be called music.
Brianna shuddered.
Her body responded before her mind.
She turned slowly.
Each movement seemed to cost something she no longer had.
Her eyes—once white, empty—darkened.
Black flooded the irises like ink spilled into still water.
When she spoke, the voice came out broken.
Not weak.
Broken.
"You… you…" her breath failed between the words "…planned all of this."
The White Viper met her gaze.
Without surprise.
Without denial.
The smile that touched her lips was minimal—not of victory, but of confirmation.
"Plan…" she repeated, tasting an old flavor. "That's a simplistic term."
She stepped forward.
The rain veered aside.
"You may be clever, my dear…" she continued, her voice far too calm for what she was saying "…but I've been playing this game far longer than you've been breathing."
Her pale eyes never left Brianna for a second.
"I taught you that." A short pause. Precise. "True power isn't in the fight… but in anticipation."
The air trembled again.
"You need to be able to see where the enemy will be… before they even know it themselves."
Brianna felt the weight settle on her chest.
Not like guilt.
Like fit.
"It may have taken a while," her mother went on, almost gently "…but you and the boy moved exactly as I needed."
The name was not emphasized.
It was let fall.
Like a blade slipping from the hand.
For an instant, something crossed the white gaze.
Something that almost looked like… recalculated math.
"I admit," she said, tilting her head slightly, "that for a moment I feared the Son of Chaos would ruin everything."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Brígida watched from a distance.
Without intervening.
Without smiling.
Like someone who has just confirmed a suspicion too old to be surprising.
The White Viper turned her eyes back to Brianna.
"But the board answered as it always does."
One step closer.
"With sacrifices."
The world seemed to tighten around them.
And in that exact instant, Brianna's body began to fail.
Not in pain.
In excess.
As if something had been opened… too wide to remain conscious.
Then—
The filaments appeared.
At first, too thin to be called matter.
Black lines, alive, serpentine beneath Brianna's skin like veins that did not belong to a human body.
They moved slowly.
Exploring.
Learning the paths.
Brianna gasped.
Her eyes—still darkened—locked onto her mother.
There was no confusion there.
There was hatred.
Pure.
Raw.
Aware.
The White Viper watched.
And smiled.
Not a wide smile.
But that small, satisfied one—the smile of someone finally seeing an ancient mechanism turn again.
The filaments broke through the surface of the skin.
Descended.
Touched the ground.
And the moment they did, the earth answered.
Cracks opened in black lines, aesthetic and violent, spreading like inverted lightning—not light descending from the sky, but darkness rising from the ground.
The earth cracked.
The air split into deep vibrations.
The rain evaporated wherever it touched those fissures, turning into black vapor before it could even reach the soil.
Brígida narrowed her eyes.
The heat around her wavered.
"It seems…" Brígida's voice dropped slow, abrasive, laden with eras, like metal dragged across living stone "…that you have finally reached what you so carefully architected, Morriah."
The name was not spoken.
It was invoked.
It fell into the air like an ancestral seal being broken by force.
The White Viper turned toward her.
The smile resting on her lips did not vanish at once.
It gave way.
Millimeter by millimeter.
Like ancient ice cracking under a weight it recognizes.
Her eyes traveled over Brígida with deliberate slowness.
There was no curiosity.
There was measurement.
"We have not been introduced," she said at last.
Her voice was far too serene.
Far too ancient.
It carried the calm of one who survived eras when names still held absolute power.
"…but it's evident that you know who I am."
The air responded.
Not in shock.
In silent submission.
Brígida remained upright.
Motionless.
Like a forge that does not fear heat.
"I know what leaves marks," Brígida replied without haste. "And the scars that cross entire generations… when someone like you decides to exist."
There was a pause.
Not to think.
To let the weight settle.
"After all… when the Celtic gods were driven from the altars…" her voice dropped, grave, controlled "they didn't disappear."
"They learned to hide."
"In bloodlines."
Her eyes did not waver.
"The same bloodlines," she continued, "that gave rise to you… daughters of Salem."
The air grew colder.
Denser.
"And yet… here we are," she said at last.
"Two sides of the same blood."
"Opposite poles…" the last word came slow "of a memory that refused to die."
Morriah inclined her head slightly.
Not in deference.
In cold recognition.
"Then you understand," she said, her voice low, far too gentle for the dust and blood around them, "that even symbols… exist only as long as the world agrees to keep them standing."
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was measured.
Brígida smiled.
Not a broad smile—just the minimal curve of someone hearing something she had known since before the question existed.
"Oh, my dear child…" she replied, her voice grave, velveted, ancient as remembered fire. "The blood of Morrígan may have reached you."
She paused briefly.
Long enough for Morriah to know what came next.
"But we both know," Brígida continued, without raising her tone, "whom it chose."
The thick dust around them began to move.
Not pushed.
Drawn.
Brígida raised a single hand.
The gesture was simple.
Almost intimate.
And the world answered.
From the midst of mist and wreckage, the Drakkoul was ripped from the ground—not pulled, claimed.
The twisted body rose into the air, suspended a few steps from her, limbs contorting as something ancient recognized it before it could resist.
The air compressed around them.
"The boards of the gods," Brígida said, her golden eyes glinting with an ancestral tension that made even Morriah and Whirok feel the weight of the moment, "were never meant for a single player, child."
She stepped forward.
The Drakkoul trembled.
"And it was here," she continued, without raising her voice, "that you brought the threshold."
Her eyes lifted, passing through Morriah… and reaching beyond.
"The blood of Morrígan," she said with absolute calm, "the magic you carry… and the boundary the prince opened when he dared to look beyond."
And the world seemed to listen.