"RUNEEE!!!!"

Time fractured.

The world didn't stop... it shattered.

Sera's scream still hung in the air, a sound torn from somewhere primal and broken. Her legs moved before her mind could catch up, stumbling forward, arms outstretched toward the falling figure.

She caught him.

The weight of his body collapsed into her arms, warm and heavy. Her knees buckled, but she held on, lowering them both to the ground as gently as trembling hands could manage.

"Rune... Rune, no, no, no, no, no, no...." The words spilled from her lips like prayers to a god who'd already turned away. Her hands fluttered uselessly over the wound, over the sword still buried in his chest. Blood bloomed across his lenin shirt, spreading like dark flowers, soaking into the fabric, into her hands, warm and sticky.

His golden eyes were still open, but the light in them was dimming rapidly.

Behind her, Lydia stood frozen.

Completely, utterly frozen.

Her black hair whipped around her face in the night wind, but she didn't feel it. Her hands hung at her sides, fingers twitching like they wanted to reach out but couldn't remember how. Her lips parted, closed, parted again... no sound emerging. Just shallow, rapid breaths that barely reached her lungs.

'This wasn't real.'

'This...this couldn't be real.

Her vision blurred. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks before she even realized she was crying.

"No..." The word came out so quiet it was almost nothing. "No, this can't..."

Her legs gave out. She collapsed to her knees, hands pressed against the cold ground, her whole body trembling violently. The iron taste of panic filled her mouth as her breathing turned ragged, desperate.

She'd left everything for him. Commander Quinn. Tugnier. Her friends.

And now he was dying in front of her, and she could do nothing but kneel there and shake apart.

Ilya's reaction was different.

She moved.

Fast and calculated, muscle memory overriding the shock trying to paralyze her. She dropped to her knees beside Sera, her hands already assessing the wound with clinical precision despite the tremor running through her fingers.

"Move your hands," she said, her voice tight and controlled. "Let me see.."

But even as she said it, even as her trained mind catalogued the angle of the blade, the placement, the amount of blood... she knew.

She knew.

The sword had pierced straight through. Heart. Absolutely fatal.

Her hands hovered over the wound, and for the first time in her career as the Duchess's right hand, Ilya didn't know what to do.

"There has to be..." Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard, forcing it steady again. "Healing magic. We need... we need a cleric, or..or.."

But there was no cleric. No magic strong enough. No time.

Her hands clenched into fists. Blood stained her fingers, and she stared at it like it was evidence of some crime she'd committed.

She'd brought him here... delivered him right into the hands of death wearing the face of the Sword King.

"I'm... I'm sorry," she whispered, the words barely audible. "...I'm so sorry."

Merin watched from where she still knelt on the ground.

Her face was a mask. Her dead eyes reflected the scene before her with the same lifeless quality they'd held since realizing they would all die here.

She'd accepted death already. Expected it.

Her fingers dug into the dirt beneath her. She said nothing. There was nothing to say.

Sera pulled Rune closer, cradling his head against her chest. Blood soaked through her clothes, warm and terrible, but she didn't care. She bent over him, her forehead pressed to his, her tears falling onto his face.

"...Don't leave me," she breathed against his skin. "Please... don't leave me. I can't...hick.. I don't know how to... hick"

Her voice shattered completely. Sobs wracked her body, each one tearing through her like physical pain. Her fingers tangled in his hair, holding him like if she just held tight enough, she could keep his soul from slipping away.

But his eyes were glazing over. His breathing already so shallow, stuttered and stopped.

"Rune...?" Her voice went small, childlike, terrified.

His hand, which had been weakly gripping her arm, went limp.

"NO!"

The sound that tore from Sera was inhuman. Grief and rage and denial all twisted into one agonizing cry that echoed across the estate grounds.

Lydia's head snapped up, and the sound of Sera's anguish broke whatever fragile control she'd been clinging to. A sob burst from her throat, then another, until she was crying so hard she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but let the pain consume her.

Ilya's jaw clenched so tight it hurt. She turned her head away, but not before the tears streaming down her face, her shoulders shook despite her desperate attempt to maintain composure.

The Sword King stood in the distance, ancient and terrible, his eyes filled with genuine sorrow as he watched the young ones break apart before him.

The Sword King took a few nimble steps forward.

His shadow fell over them. Over Sera. Over Ilya. Over Lydia. All three kneeling beside Rune's still form, their bodies forming a protective circle around what could no longer be protected.

"Forgive me, children," he said quietly, his voice heavy with centuries of burdens. "This world is cruel to those with kind hearts."

But his words meant nothing to them.

None of them looked up at him.

Fear had abandoned them. What use was terror when the worst had already happened? They simply remained there, passive, hollowed out.

"Soon you will join him," the ancient voice spoke above them, heavy with the weight of inevitability.

"Please excuse this old dog."

A tear fell from the Sword King's weathered face, catching the first light of dawn as it descended. It landed on the green grass beneath him.

His grief was genuine. Centuries of killing had not robbed him of his humanity.

But genuine grief from a executioner meant nothing to those being executed.

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