"Roooaar—!"
A soaring dragon cry split the heavens.
Above Stormveil Castle, two massive dragons circled in wide, predatory arcs. Each beat of their wings dragged down wind and snow, as if the sky itself had been torn open and shaken empty. In no time, the entire fortress vanished beneath a fresh blanket of white.
This was the power he had claimed at the altar of the Cathedral of Dragon Communion—offering an ancient dragon's heart as tribute, completing the rite, and carving that authority into his very bones. A mark of a Dragon Communion devotee.
And it wasn't even all he could do.
He could, if he wished, call upon the scarlet power that squatted in Caelid—upon Ekzykes, long since consumed by Scarlet Rot, and exhale that ruin across the battlefield until nothing living remained.
But he didn't.
If he did that, how would he be any different from Malenia?
The Scarlet Rot she unleashed during the Shattering had left Caelid broken to this day. He refused to turn Limgrave into the same hellscape.
On the broad avenue leading to the throne room, Godrick the Grafted—still plotting his next grafting like a starving man daydreaming over meat—lifted his head toward the sky.
Two dragons.
Why would ancient dragons come to Stormveil?
Shouldn't their wrath fall upon Leyndell, the Royal Capital?
The question lingered for only a heartbeat before he discarded it.
He didn't care. He truly didn't.
He didn't care what became of Stormveil, didn't care that snowflakes were already drifting into the corridors, melting into cold beads on stone. The only thing he cared about was power.
Power that would let him return to the foot of the Erdtree—return to the place he still called home.
Leyndell.
He reached out with his original hands and stroked the cold scales of the dragon corpse before him, a carcass that had been dead for who knew how long. His gaze was feverish, almost worshipful, like a man caressing salvation.
"Dragon… fellow scion of the old order… thy strength is beyond doubt," he murmured, voice trembling with greedy reverence. "It will raise me… to greater heights."
In his mind, he was already there—wearing dragon power like a crown, breaking into the Royal Capital, crushing Radahn with his fists, stamping Malenia into the dirt, seizing the title of Elden Lord as if destiny owed it to him.
"Soon… soon… you will become my strength…"
Even as he luxuriated in that fantasy, a shiver of dread crawled up his spine.
Even now, recalling Marika's words made his skin go cold.
He would never become a sacrifice.
At the castle gates, the soldiers saw the two dragons overhead and visibly flinched.
It was hard to tell whether it was the cold, or pure fear.
Probably both.
They turned and fled in chaos, sprinting back into the castle as if Godrick had forgotten to graft them an extra pair of legs.
The armored commander—one of those walking iron cans—stared upward in complete stupor. His weapon slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground, but he didn't even notice. He could only look at that snowy sky and the silhouettes cutting through it like nightmares.
Those things… were not something they could fight.
He knew better than anyone how much blood Godrick had spilled just to obtain the dragon corpse in the throne hall. How many lives had been thrown away to claim it.
And those two dragons in the sky weren't even remotely comparable.
Despair swallowed him whole.
A few Omen on the bridge, however, seemed unimpressed—either defiant or simply mindless, incapable of understanding fear at all. They swung their cleavers wildly at the air, as if brute force could drag gods down from the clouds.
The soldiers on the walls forced their trembling hands to obey, cranking the heavy ballistae and firing.
It didn't matter.
The dragons were too fast. The bolts couldn't catch them.
"Heh. How ridiculous."
From within the massive draconic maw came a human voice—low, calm, and almost amused.
"Prepare your breath."
"Yes, Master."
The two dragons turned together, soaring toward the ramparts and the Stormveil heights, draping the land below in a sweep of silver. Then they arced back, mouths filling with cold so dense it felt visible, a frost that gathered like a storm being born in their throats.
They unleashed it.
A pure-white torrent roared across the bridge.
The freezing breath swallowed stone and steel in an instant, ice spreading faster than thought, rushing outward in the direction of their flight and then creeping inward toward the castle itself. The soldiers retreating through the gate didn't even have time to scream—one blink, and they were statues of ice; the next, they shattered into glittering fragments that scattered across the ground.
In moments, Stormveil became a city of white.
A silent castle.
A frozen grave.
When the Tarnished returned to human form, he walked calmly along the bridge, absorbing the runes spilling from fallen soldiers like heat rising into his skin. He surveyed the castle ahead—now an unbroken stretch of pure white—and nodded with quiet satisfaction.
He had done things like this before.
But never this cleanly.
At the very least, the castle itself remained intact.
And unlike the past, when he'd done cruel things purely to vent fury, this time the enemy had brought the war to him.
So he felt no burden at all.
Not that "burden" or "guilt" meant much anymore. He'd misplaced those somewhere in the first few hundred cycles.
"Good work," he said, turning toward the figure beside him—the Mimic Tear wearing his face.
The Mimic Tear shook its head, expression steady.
"No. This is what I should do."
Then it dissolved into smoke and drifted away, vanishing as if it had never existed.
For some reason, speaking to a version of himself always left an odd taste in his mouth—like looking into a mirror that breathed back.
He rubbed his chin, considered it for a brief moment, then shook his head hard enough to banish the thought.
"Whatever. First, I pick up Roderika…"
He'd promised to let her witness Godrick's death.
A promise was a promise.
Inside the tunnel, Roderika sat near the firelit glow of Grace, staring at the snow that the wind carried in from outside. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, shivering.
She was cold to the bone.
And yet her heart felt strangely light.
She didn't even need to guess. That power—the storm, the dragons, the sheer weight of it—couldn't possibly belong to Margit or Godrick.
It had to be the Tarnished.
To be so strong… and still so gentle…
And to have so many powerful companions…
Her gaze drifted to the spirits standing guard around her like silent sentries. Something bright flickered deep in her eyes, a glimmer she didn't quite understand yet.
If the Tarnished could become Elden Lord…
Then maybe this hopeless world really could change.
Maybe no one would have to endure that kind of suffering again.
Lost in that thought, she suddenly heard a familiar voice.
"Roderika. I'm back."
"Tarnished… welcome back."
The moment she saw him, a smile rose naturally to her face.
Lately, she'd been smiling more—and she hadn't even noticed.
The spirits around her bowed in unison.
"Mm. You've done well," the Tarnished said softly.
They didn't speak. They only shook their heads, bowed once more as if reporting a completed duty, and then dissolved into thin trails of smoke that vanished into the tunnel air.
He crouched in front of Roderika, lowering his voice.
"How do you feel? Can you still walk after this?"
"I—I'm fine, Tarnished…"
She said it bravely, but her body betrayed her with a small shudder.
"…"
He almost laughed.
Freezing, and still insisting she was fine.
She'd always been like that—back at the Roundtable Hold, studying spirit tuning day and night just to be useful, to help him in any way she could. Even when flames swallowed the Hold, she hadn't wanted to leave. She'd stayed with Hewg until the end.
A girl with far too much heart.
"Rest a little," he said at last, settling down beside her. "I've got something to take care of anyway."
He tossed a bit of fire grease into the flames, summoned Torrent, and fed the steed a few pieces of Rowa Raisins. When he finished, he opened the group chat once more.