Sejin did not step into the chasm.
His foot hung in the air, frozen, trembling. The Ura King's breath washed over him—warm, wet, smelling of old earth and older blood. The empty eye sockets watched. The massive heart pulsed.
"Come closer," the voice repeated. Not louder. Just... deeper. As if the ground itself was speaking.
Sejin's crystal claw flickered. The purple light dimmed, brightened, dimmed again.
And then—
He stepped back.
"What are you doing?" The Other asked.
"Thinking."
"You don't think. You act."
"Maybe that's the problem."
Sejin turned away from the chasm. His boots crunched on the bone floor. The Ura King's breath followed him, a warm wind against his back, but he didn't look around.
"He'll kill you for this," The Other said. "When you return. He won't forget."
"Then I won't return until I'm ready."
"You're never ready."
"Then I'll never return."
Sejin walked back toward the surface, toward the black ice, toward the bruise-colored sky. The Deep Uras in the frozen ground parted before him. They did not attack. They did not follow.
They were waiting.
They could afford to wait.
---
The surface was worse than he remembered.
The black ice had spread. The ridge where he had rested was now a series of broken teeth, crumbling into the frozen plain. The sky had darkened—not night, but something thicker, like smoke from a fire that had been burning for centuries.
Sejin found a hollow in the rock, just deep enough to sit, just narrow enough to defend. He sat. He wrapped his arms around his knees. He stared at nothing.
"You're retreating," The Other said.
"I'm regrouping."
"Same action, different word."
Sejin closed his eyes. Behind his lids, he saw the Ura King's heart. Black light. Slow pulse. Endless hunger.
"How do I kill something that big?"
"You don't."
"Then how do I stop it?"
"You don't do that either."
Sejin opened his eyes. "Then why am I here?"
The Other was silent for a long moment.
Then, quietly:
"Because you have nowhere else to go."
---
The sound of footsteps came at midnight.
Not Uras. Not Deep Uras. Human. Multiple sets, moving with purpose, their Source auras flickering in Sejin's peripheral vision.
He didn't move. He didn't draw his shadow blade. He sat in the hollow, his crystal claw visible in the dim light, and waited.
They found him.
Three figures. Two men, one woman. Silvercrest colors—white and silver, though their uniforms were torn, stained, patched. They had been fighting. Recently.
The woman stepped forward. Her face was young—younger than Mira—but her eyes were old. Scarred. Tired.
"Sejin Yun," she said.
"Yes."
"We've been looking for you for three weeks."
"I've been walking."
"We noticed." She glanced at his crystal claw. Her expression didn't change. "I'm Sora. Mira's second. She sent us to find you."
Sejin's jaw tightened. "I told her I was done with the Silvercrest family."
"Mira said you'd say that. She also said to tell you that 'done' is a luxury for people who aren't carrying a god-killing weapon in their arm." Sora's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "She needs you. The fleet needs you. The Ura King is waking faster than we predicted. Without you, we don't have a chance."
Sejin looked at his claw. The purple light pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"With me, you still don't have a chance."
"Maybe. But at least we'll die fighting."
---
He followed them.
Not because he wanted to. Because the hollow was cold, and the ice was hungry, and the Ura King's breath was still warm on his neck. He needed to think. He couldn't think alone.
They walked south, away from the Expanse, toward a cluster of rocks that Sora called "the Fangs." The journey took six hours. No one spoke. The black ice crunched under their boots. The Deep Uras swam beneath them, watching, waiting.
The Fangs were a series of stone spires, sharp as broken teeth, rising from the frozen plain. Between them, hidden from above, was a camp. Tents. Fires. People.
Dozens of people.
Vessels. Silvercrest soldiers. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes hollow, their uniforms stained with ash and blood. They had been fighting. Losing. Retreating.
Sejin walked through the camp. No one greeted him. No one looked at him. They stared at his claw—at the black crystal, the purple light—and then looked away.
"They're afraid of you," The Other said.
"They should be."
"That's not humility. That's self-pity."
Sejin stopped. A child was sitting in front of a tent—a girl, maybe eight, with dark hair and grey eyes. She was drawing in the dirt with a stick. When she looked up and saw Sejin's claw, she didn't flinch.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
Sejin blinked. "What?"
"Your arm. Does it hurt?"
He looked at the crystal. The black surface. The purple veins.
"Sometimes," he said.
The girl nodded, as if this made perfect sense. "My mom says that things that change you always hurt. But after they stop hurting, you're different. Not worse. Just different."
"Your mom sounds smart."
"She's dead."
Sejin's chest tightened.
"I'm sorry."
The girl shrugged. "She died fighting. That's what we do."
She went back to drawing.
Sejin walked away.
---
Sora led him to a tent at the center of the camp. Inside, Mira was waiting.
She looked different. Thinner. Her platinum hair was shorter—cut unevenly, probably with a knife. A fresh scar ran from her temple to her jaw. Her cold blue eyes were still cold, but there was something else in them now. Something broken.
"You came back," she said.
"You sent for me."
"I sent for the weapon. You came back."
Sejin sat down across from her. The tent was small, cramped, lit by a single lantern. Maps were spread on the floor—sketches of the Expanse, the ice fields, the King's skeleton.
"The King spoke to me," Sejin said.
Mira's expression didn't change. "What did he say?"
"Come closer."
"That's it?"
"That's enough."
Mira leaned back. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword—not threatening, just... present.
"The fleet is assembling at the edge of the ice. Three ships. Two hundred Vessels. We're going to march on the Expanse in seven days."
Sejin shook his head. "Two hundred Vessels won't be enough."
"I know."
"Then why are you going?"
Mira looked at him. Her cold blue eyes held something that might have been hope. Or desperation. Or both.
"Because if we don't go, no one will. And the King will wake. And everyone dies." She paused. "At least this way, we die on our feet."
Sejin looked at his claw. The purple light pulsed.
"I need time," he said.
"We don't have time."
"Then make time."
---
He left the tent. Walked to the edge of the camp. Stood at the base of a stone spire and looked north, toward the Expanse.
The sky was darker now. The black ice glowed faintly purple. Somewhere beneath it, the Deep Uras were swimming, circling, waiting.
"You're going to go back," The Other said.
"Yes."
"Not with the fleet. Alone."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Sejin touched his crystal claw. The surface was warm. Alive.
"Because if I go with them, they'll die. If I go alone, maybe only I die."
"That's not logic. That's guilt."
"Same thing, different word."
Sejin turned away from the north. He walked back toward the camp, toward the tents, toward the people who had come to die.
He had seven days.
He intended to use them.