Flames swallowed the sky. Smoke choked the stars. A single figure stood amid the destruction, eyes glowing faintly in the inferno. Axel's boots crunched through broken glass and scorched dirt, every step slower than the last.
From behind, a voice cut through the crackling fire.
"Axel, stop! You don't have to do this!"
It was Abel. The man who had watched from the shadows for weeks. His coat fluttered behind him in the hot wind, his eyes full of something—fear, maybe... or regret.
Axel didn't turn around. His voice was cold, like it didn't belong to him anymore. "I'm going to kill him."
Abel took a step closer. "If you do this... it's the end. You know that, right? This isn't justice. It's suicide."
"There's no other way," Axel snapped back, his voice raw. "He's going to destroy everything."
The demon—massive, twisted, a silhouette of horns and fire—laughed from across the ruined street. "Everything? This place? You think it's worth saving?"
Axel raised his head, glare sharp as a blade. "I'm not letting you burn it to the ground."
"Oh?" The demon tilted his head, amused. "So eager to protect them. Tell me, Axel... do you even know what they did?"
Axel's brows twitched. "What are you talking about?"
"They're the ones who killed her," the demon said simply. "Maria. Your sister."
The air dropped to silence.
Axel's world cracked.
"What... did you say?"
The demon stepped forward, flames swirling at his feet. "They burned her alive. Twenty years ago. And they made it look like an accident."
Axel stood frozen. Abel called out behind him, "Don't listen to him! He's twisting everything!"
But Axel wasn't hearing Abel anymore.
His mind was already slipping into the past.
Twenty years ago
The village of Drevane looked like something out of a painting. Gentle hills rolled like lazy waves around the valley, dotted with mossy stones and tall evergreens. There were no carriages, no polished lanterns, no city noises—just dirt paths, simple wooden cottages, and the sound of wind chimes whispering in the breeze.
Axel and Maria were already ankle-deep in trouble by the time the morning sun rose high.
"Maria! You're doing it wrong!"
Axel, seven and proud of it, stood on the edge of the creekbank, arms crossed like a tiny general. His little sister, Maria—five years old and way too stubborn for her size—picked up a fat, round stone and hurled it like she was trying to punch the water.
Plop.
The rock sank with no bounce at all.
"I'm practicing," she muttered.
Axel rolled his eyes. "You're throwing it like a cabbage."
Maria glared. "Your face is a cabbage."
"That doesn't even make sense!"
Axel picked up a stone—smooth, flat, perfect—and skipped it with ease. One, two, three—plip. It vanished under the far reeds.
Maria stared, mouth open.
"Show me again!"
"Nope," Axel grinned. "Now it's your turn."
Maria bent down and picked a smaller rock. She squinted, tongue poking out in concentration, and threw—
And promptly slipped in the mud.
THUD.
She fell backwards with a splash. Mud caked her apron, arms, even her forehead. Axel burst out laughing.
"You look like a swamp frog!"
Maria shot him a deadly look, stood up, and charged. "You're DEAD!"
He tried to run, but the mud betrayed him too. They both tumbled into the creek, splashing and squealing as water drenched them from head to toe.
They snuck back toward their cottage an hour later, soggy, muddy, and very, very nervous.
"Maybe she didn't notice we're late," Axel whispered, dripping on the porch steps.
Maria, hair slicked to her face, looked unconvinced. "Maybe she's baking. She gets happy when she bakes."
Axel peeked through the curtain.
No bread. No humming. Just their mother, standing at the table with her arms crossed, staring at the door.
"Uh-oh."
She didn't say anything when they crept inside—just looked them up and down. Maria dripped a trail of mud onto the clean floor. Axel tried to smile.
"Hi, Mama."
Silence.
Then—"Out. Both of you. To the back. Strip those wet clothes before you catch something. I just scrubbed this floor!"
"Yes ma'am!" they shouted together, sprinting out like their lives depended on it.
Their mother's name was Ilena. She had sharp eyes, quicker hands, and a voice that could command silence from an entire tavern if she needed to. But around Axel and Maria, her strength softened. She was strict, but never cold.
She tucked Maria's hair behind her ear as she dried her off with an old linen cloth. "You could've caught fever. What were you even doing?"
"Throwing rocks," Maria mumbled.
"Into the water?"
"At the water."
Ilena pinched the bridge of her nose. "You've got your father's stubbornness."
"And yours," Axel said without thinking.
Ilena raised an eyebrow.
"Uh—I meant that as a compliment!"
She chuckled, shaking her head. "Go help your sister get dressed."
The rest of the day passed in a warm haze. Their cottage smelled of stew and rosemary. Birds chirped outside the window as Ilena repaired a worn shawl near the fire, humming softly.
By midday, the two children dashed off toward the village square.
Drevane's square was a circle of cobblestones, old wood signs, and moss-covered walls. Merchants called out from stalls. Children darted between baskets of dried herbs. A sheep had wandered into someone's potato cart again.
The baker—a big-bellied man with cinnamon always stuck in his beard—gave Axel and Maria a half-loaf of sweetbread.
"Don't spoil your dinner," he said, wagging a finger.
Maria took a bite the size of her face. "Too late!"
They passed the weaver's hut, the herb shop, and then slowed near the chapel.
It stood a little apart from the rest of the square—quiet, white-stoned, its windows dark and empty. No one went there anymore. Not since before Maria was born. The door was always shut. The steeple had no bell.
Axel stopped walking.
"Do you feel that?"
Maria looked up from her bread. "Feel what?"
The wind had stopped. The chimes nearby didn't move. The square, for a second, felt too still.
Then the door of the chapel creaked open.
Just a little.
Maria froze beside him.
"…Mama said no chapel," she whispered.
"I know."
They backed away slowly. Neither of them noticed the woman in the herb shop glance toward the chapel, then quickly pull her curtains shut.
That night, the wind returned. Their mother tucked them in with the usual warning: "No getting up to chase shadows, you hear me?"
Axel nodded. Maria yawned. The fire in the hearth crackled low.
Ilena sat by the window, mending a sleeve by lamplight. The wind outside sounded strange—like it was whispering in a language no one had taught them.
Axel didn't sleep.
Not at first.
He lay awake, staring at the wooden beams of the ceiling, thinking about the chapel. About the door. About the feeling in the air, like the trees themselves were listening.
And he remembered something else.
Once, a year ago, he'd seen his mother bury something behind the chapel at dawn. A small bundle wrapped in cloth.
She told him it was nothing.
But Axel remembered her eyes.
She had looked afraid.