The rain fell.
There was no recognizable courtyard—only an expanse of crushed stone, uneven, with no hierarchy between ground, wall, or ruin.
The drops did not ricochet.
They sank.
As if the world were accepting too much impact to react.
Fenrir was kneeling.
One knee driven into the soaked stone, one hand braced against the ground to keep his axis.
The body remained upright, but something was wrong with the alignment—constant micro-adjustments, as if reality demanded continuous corrections to accept him there.
There was blood at the corner of his mouth.
It did not run.
It was just a warm residue, too present to ignore, insufficient to justify alarm.
Breathing required attention.
Not from pain.
From compression.
The space around him was dense, compacted, vibrating low, as if it were being held together by insistence.
Fenrir raised his gaze.
First he saw the rain warped in the air.
Then the marks on the ground—long, irregular grooves, wet lines drawn by something being dragged without care.
The legs came next.
They advanced slowly.
Unhurried.
The shadow came with them.
Not behind. With.
The dead body was revealed in full when it crossed the boundary of what remained of the courtyard.
A man being pulled by the hair, his head hanging at an impossible angle, arms loose, offering no resistance at all.
The face no longer carried identity—only the consequence of having been ended before understanding.
No sound beyond the friction of weight against stone.
Whoever dragged him did not look at him.
Did not tighten their grip.
Did not accelerate.
A few steps from Fenrir, the hand released.
The body fell.
Not heavy.
Not light.
It simply ended there.
Then Fenrir's gaze lifted further.
The torso revealed itself first—upright, stable, crossed by a silent pressure that made the air around it seem delayed.
The dark clothes bore no symbols.
They didn't need to.
The shoulders were relaxed.
Not from carelessness.
From absence of opposition.
The neck.
The defined jaw, unmoving.
The lips neutral, without any tension.
Then the hair.
Black, short, with longer, irregular strands falling to the nape, as if the cut had never been a relevant decision.
Finally, the eyes.
Purple.
They did not glow.
Even so, the space around slowed when Fenrir met them.
Something ancient recognized something structural.
Fenrir held the gaze for a few seconds.
There was no challenge.
No surprise.
Only reading.
"Then…" Fenrir said, his voice low, steady, without irony, without challenge.
A short pause. Precise.
"…this is what they were hiding."
His gaze did not waver.
"Now it makes sense."
He inclined his head just enough to mark evaluation complete.
"Éreon."
The purple energy responded.
Not like an explosion.
Like reorganization.
Purple filaments ran through the space around Éreon's hands, not as something external—as a reminder of axis.
The world seemed to accept that there was a center there.
Fenrir did not try to move.
The body understood before the mind.
Éreon's hand rose.
Stopped in the air.
Did not touch.
Fenrir's heart missed its rhythm.
Then his chest deformed from the inside, as if something were being pulled by a point that did not exist in physical space.
There was no tearing.
There was no impact.
The organ shifted, passing through flesh and bone as if both had, at the same time, lost the right to resist.
The heart emerged into the air.
Whole.
It pulsed once.
Fenrir exhaled slowly.
The corner of his mouth relaxed.
Not from pain.
From confirmation.
The body lost support and fell among the ruins, the knee giving way, the hand slipping on wet stone.
For an impossible instant, the world accepted that configuration as final.
The rain resumed its single rhythm.
The fissure in space lost tension, like a rope loosened too late to snap.
Fenrir stepped back.
One step.
Then another.
On the third, his hand rose to his temple.
His fingers pressed lightly, not from pain—from forced adjustment, like someone trying to keep aligned something that insists on shifting.
The space around him oscillated.
It did not yield.
It did not open.
But it lost sharpness for a fragment of a second, as if two configurations had tried to occupy the same place.
Fenrir exhaled slowly.
His gaze remained fixed on Éon fallen, not assessing the body—but the exact point where consequence should have closed.
"Völva."
The word did not echo.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Too regular to be mistaken for random echo.
The sound crossed the devastated courtyard without haste, each step finding stone, water, ruin—and remaining audible even after the foot had left the ground.
The approach came from behind.
Fenrir did not turn.
Not from carelessness.
Because the space behind him had already accepted that presence before the sound.
The rain did not react.
It did not veer.
It did not intensify.
It simply continued to fall as if instructed not to interfere.
Then the voice.
Low.
It did not come from a specific point—it came from the interval between sounds.
"This was one of the veils."
No emphasis.
No dramatic pause.
The sentence existed as a fact accepted too late.
"One among many where the outcome remained the same."
The steps ceased.
Not because she stopped.
But because distance ceased to be relevant.
"Everything you sought…" the voice continued, calm, measured "…ended here."
A short silence.
Respectful.
"With your death."
Fenrir remained still for one instant longer.
He scented the air.
Once.
The air came in heavy with rain, stone, residue of distorted space—and something else.
His jaw adjusted.
He turned his face just enough.
"There is völva in you."
The statement came out low.
It was not accusation.
It was reading.
Fenrir scented the air again.
Slower.
Deeper.
His eyes narrowed by an almost imperceptible degree.
"…but not only that."
He began to turn.
Unhurried.
Without caution.
The body followed the motion as if the world had to reorganize itself around him to allow it.
When he finished, he saw her.
Hair in tones of deep blue and violet, shoulder-length, lightly wavy.
Irregular strands framed the face, without deliberate symmetry—there was no vanity there.
The cut was functional.
Made not to interfere with rituals.
Nor with combat.
The face was young.
Too delicate to bear what it carried.
And yet, it did.
The eyes—deep blue—held luminous abyssal symbols, inscribed beyond the iris, manifesting in controlled flow.
They were not signs of fury.
They were signs of thirst.
The pale skin bore scattered marks without aesthetic pattern: incomplete runes, interrupted ritual circles, erased constellations that seemed to have been engraved and then denied.
Seals of containment.
Not adornments.
Anchors.
Preventing the Abyss from finishing its claim on her.
The black garment she wore was not common fabric.
Structured like a ritual armor—dark plates integrated into flexible layers.
Fenrir kept his gaze on her for a few seconds.
He was not assessing beauty.
Nor immediate threat.
He was assessing cost.
"You are not—"
The air behind Fenrir gave way.
There was no visible displacement.
No announcement.
The blade appeared low, short, aligned to pierce where structure yields first—not flesh, axis.
It was a clean attack.
Calculated to end.
Fenrir reacted in the same instant.
His hand rose and closed.
His fingers dug into Éon's neck before the strike completed its arc.
The impact did not throw either of them.
The world simply stopped allowing movement.
Éon was lifted from the ground.
His feet lost contact with the soaked stone, the blade fell from his fingers, the body suspended by a single hand.
The grip did not crush.
Not yet.
Fenrir's red eyes fixed on him.
There was no anger.
No surprise.
Only acknowledgment.
"Predictable," he said, low.
The pressure increased by one degree.
Enough to drive air from Éon's lungs without breaking anything yet.
The thumb adjusted.
The correct position to finish.
Then—
The voice came again.
Unhurried.
Not raised.
As if speaking after the outcome, not before.
"Even faced with the revealed path…"
"…few believe it to be real."
Fenrir's hand did not loosen.
But it did not advance.
She continued, solemn, firm like an ancient sentence:
"A veil does not convince."
"It merely allows sight."
The rain fell between them, intact.
"Belief…" the woman continued "…demands loss."
"And you have not yet lost enough, Fenrir."
A dense silence formed.
"That is why, even seeing…" the pause was minimal "…you chose to test."
The pressure in Fenrir's fingers increased another fraction.
Éon's body reacted in contained spasms.
"And you always chose to kill…" the voice concluded "…before accepting."
Fenrir's hand remained closed around Éon's neck.
The suspended body trembled once more.
Then stabilized.
Fenrir did not look at him.
His gaze stayed where the voice had manifested.
"You speak like a völva," he said, low.
It was not praise.
Nor simple observation.
"You see paths."
"You name endings."
A short pause.
"But the scent doesn't match."
The air around responded.
Not with wind.
With vibration.
The raindrops seemed to hesitate for a fragment of a second, as if space had recognized the term before the meaning.
The pressure around Fenrir reorganized.
It did not expand.
It aligned.
"You smell like them…" he continued, his voice firm "…the wanderers."
The vibration ceased.
Not because it lost force.
Because it had been recognized.
The voice answered.
Not immediately.
When it came, it came whole.
"You are right," she said.
There was no pride.
No concession.
"The body you read…" the pause was short, deliberate "…is that of a wanderer."
The rain continued to fall between them, obedient.
"It was shaped in the Abyss.
It walked as they walk.
It bleeds as they bleed."
A step forward.
Not toward Fenrir.
Toward truth.
"But I am not one."
The pressure in space changed in nature.
Less dense.
Deeper.
"And I am not völva either," she continued, with the same calm "…though I see."
"Though I name."
"Though I cross veils."
The abyssal symbols in her eyes pulsed once.
Not like activation.
Like remembrance.
"Völvas observe destinies."
"Wanderers consume them."
A brief silence.
"I exist between these paths."
The rain touched the ground.
Heavier.
"My name…" she said, without raising her voice "…is Edda."
The air seemed to accept it as something it already knew.
"One among the thirteen."
The final pause asked for no reaction.
"A princess of the Abyss."