Two days passed.
In the cave, ti was still an invisible prison. The drops continued to fall from the ceiling in an illogical rhythm, the tallic echo of the chains still cut through the silence, and the torch had already been changed three tis. But Kael didn't seem any different. His body showed no signs of real wear.
He remained kneeling, his wrists marked by enchanted iron, his mask replaced after their last verbal confrontation. And yet, it felt as if it wasn't he who was caged—it was she.
The gray-eyed woman had entered the cave every day, always at the sa ti, always with the sa cold deanor. But Kael noticed. Small, almost imperceptible details: the excessive tightness of her leather glove, the way her steps grew faster and faster, as if urgency was eating away at her insides.
She was under pressure.
And Kael knew why.
The witches were already moving.
He could feel it.
Not the way the others felt the mana—his connections were severed, blocked by the runes burning into his chains. But there was sothing deeper. He was a reflection of Elion, and deep down, he carried echoes of the ancient network that bound all witches together.
The call of the Hunting Order vibrated in the air like distant thunder. A collective roar, thousands of voices rged into one, echoing through the invisible threads of the world.
Even trapped, he knew: their ti was running out.
The door creaked. The woman entered again.
This ti, there was more haste in her steps.
She walked toward him, removed her iron mask with a sharp click, and stared at him intently.
"Speak." Her voice was firm, but with a tone that hadn't been there before: urgency. "Where is the princess?"
Kael looked up slowly. The smile didn't co this ti. Instead, he rely tilted his head, watching her silently.
"You think I have answers I haven't given you before?" His voice was calm, almost soft. "In two days, nothing has changed, except one thing."
Her gray eyes narrowed.
"What?"
Kael smiled, a short, almost imperceptible smile.
"You're afraid."
She huffed, irritated.
"I don't fear you."
"I didn't say you feared ." Kael leaned forward slightly, his chains clanking. "You said you're afraid of what's out there."
Silence fell heavily.
She stared at him, rigid, but the lack of response betrayed the truth.
Kael continued, his voice low, thick with conviction.
"They're coming. You feel it, don't you? Like a distant roar that won't go away, no matter how hard you try to ignore it." The Hunting Order cannot be stopped." He paused, his eyes shining. "It doesn't matter who you are, where you are, or how deep you dig a cave."
Her jaw clenched.
Kael noticed.
"You tremble because you know that when they arrive, there will be no negotiations. There will be no questions. Only destruction." He chuckled softly. "And I will be at the center of it all."
She finally stepped forward, leaning over him, her face inches from his.
"You think you're special, don't you? That just because you carry the na Scarlet the world will bow before you."
Kael raised an eyebrow.
"I don't think so. I know."
The silence between them lasted long seconds. The torch fla crackled, casting restless shadows on the walls.
Then she jerked away, her eyes returning to the floor, as if trying to control her anger.
"What are you, really…?" — The question escaped like a whisper, almost involuntary.
Kael watched her silently, and for the first ti in days, his expression lost its ironic smile.
He took a deep breath, his eyes narrowed.
"I am... proof that witches have no limits."
She looked up at him, confused, and Kael continued:
"I am not a son. I am not human. I am not a mistake. I am the reflection of Elion Scarlet." His voice grew heavy, as if carrying a secret too old to reveal. "She didn't create to live... she created to survive."
The woman shivered, even though she didn't fully understand what he ant.
Kael smiled again, but this ti without irony. There was sothing darker, more intimate.
"And you know what's funnier?" he whispered. "I just have to wait."
She frowned.
"Wait for what?"
Kael looked up, the torch's glow reflecting in his eyes.
"Wait for the hunt to begin."
The echo of those words filled the cave.
Outside, far away, the witches were already moving.
In the snowy mountains, entire circles of sorceresses gathered around mana fires, tracing runes in the ice to locate the lost trail. In the deserts, elders summoned sand spirits to sniff out the enemy. At sea, witches traveled in enchanted ships, their sails driven not by the wind, but by the fury of the Order.
And in the heart of the Witch Kingdom, Cabernet Inaura stood before floating maps, her eyes fixed on each luminous dot that represented a hunter. Her fingers drumd on the table, but her mind was steady.
Kael was alive.
But for how long?
And, above all... who had dared to defy the Order itself?
The hours passed.
In the cave, ti continued to drag on like a slow, cruel animal. The sound of chains, drops, and the burning torch had already beco part of her, as if it were a second heart beating within her body.
But sothing was different.
Kael didn't need eyes to know. He could feel it.
The cave was no longer imrsed in absolute silence. Subtle vibrations ca from the ground, imperceptible to any ordinary human, but clear to him. Movent. Running. Orders shouted from outside, muffled by the walls, but still audible to his heightened perception.
The organization that had captured him began to move like an attacked anthill.
Kael slowly raised his head, a half-smile appearing.
"Finally..." he muttered to himself.
The latch on the stone door creaked. She stepped inside again, her gray eyes blazing brighter than before. Her pace was quick, almost impatient, and this ti she made no attempt to hide her tension.
Kael chuckled softly.
"You ran."
She stopped in front of him, her eyes narrowing.
"Shut up."
He tilted his head, the chains clanking with the movent.
"Isn't that what you wanted? Wasn't I supposed to starve, break down from thirst, tear myself apart in silence?" His voice sounded almost amused. "But apparently, you don't have ti to wait any longer."
She took a deep breath, ignoring the comnt, but Kael didn't miss the detail: her fingers were trembling as he removed the iron mask from her mouth.
"Sothing happened, didn't it?" he teased, his voice low and slow. "I felt it. Rush. Orders. Your n are panicking."
She stared at him silently, steadily, but the gleam in her eyes didn't hide the truth.
Kael leaned forward, his smile becoming almost predatory.
"Let guess... you noticed."
She arched an eyebrow.
"Realized what?"
"That the Hunting Order isn't a rumor." Kael's voice echoed with conviction. "That every second you keep here is a second stolen from the lives of everyone out there."
She bit the inside of her cheek. The gesture was minimal, but it was enough for Kael.
He laughed.
"I know that feeling." His eyes glinted. "It's the fear of soone who understands that their own walls won't hold."
The woman turned her back, as if to avoid that gaze that stripped her bare more than the chains held Kael.
But then, before leaving, she said sothing that surprised even him:
"If you're so confident... then tell . How much ti do you think you have left?"
Kael smiled, closing his eyes as if savoring the question.
"Hours. Maybe less."
Silence fell.
Outside, the echoes of movent grew louder. Heavy footsteps, shouts of orders, tal clanging. It was as if the entire organization was preparing for an inevitable war.
And Kael knew it.
They weren't preparing to attack.
They were preparing to resist.
The hunt had begun.
…
The sky above the forest still bore the scars of the fire. The charred trees were black skeletons pointing toward the heavens, and the sll of dead wood and charred resin perated the air.
But there was sothing else.
Mana.
The very air vibrated with it, as if the roots buried in the soil were screaming in unison.
Across the entire periter of the destroyed forest, a radius of five hundred miles, space had beco the stage for a mobilization the likes of which the entire continent rarely witnessed.
The Hunting Order had begun.
Witches in dozens, then hundreds, moved like silent swarms.
In the skies, groups of them flew on broomsticks adorned with mana crystals, leaving luminous trails that resembled broken constellations. Each one raised orbs of vision that reflected the ground below, revealing footprints, heat trails, dried bloodstains, particles of magic that ordinary eyes would never notice.
On the ground, magic circles were drawn at precise intervals. The hunters knelt on the earth, touching the ground with their palms, and the circles expanded into living runes that traveled kiloters in seconds, revealing any sign of passage, any distortion of energy.
In the eastern sea, witches in enchanted vessels raised columns of water that twisted like transparent serpents, sniffing the winds for any shred of essence.
In the mountains to the north, entire peaks reverberated with chants, and the echoes transford into tracking spells, as if each stone were a watching eye.
Escape was impossible.
And yet, the heart of the search lay not in any of these points, but in the center.
In the shadow of the hills surrounding the ancient forest, in a hiding place protected by barriers of illusion, Irelia, Alia, and Sylphie silently watched the progress of the hunt.
Outside, the night sky lit up as if it were day, illuminated by the magical lines that crisscrossed the heavens, forming an unbreakable hunting net. The sound of the searching chants reverberated even within the stones of the shelter.
Irelia sharpened her sword with dry movents, but her eyes continued to narrow at the magnitude of it.
"They're everywhere..." she murmured, her voice low, almost a growl. "This is truly frightening."
Amélia, sitting near one of the mana windows, stared blankly at the sky where blue symbols intertwined like webs.
"It's the Hunting Order," she said calmly, though her fingers clenched in the fabric of her cloak. "They won't stop until they find you."
Sylphie remained still, her golden eyes glowing like embers. She had connected to the dead forest from the first mont, and now every vibration of a tracking spell coursed through her nerves like currents of fire.
"Eight..." she murmured, entranced. "Eight great covens have already entered the radius. And more are coming."
Irelia stopped the blade.
"Entire covens...?"
Sylphie nodded slowly.
"When the Queen's daughter disappeared..." she said in a distant voice, as if recalling ancient mories, "...that was the kind of mobilization that nearly tore the world in two."
Silence fell heavily on the shelter.
Amélia closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.
"They'll find him soon, and we'll continue our journey until he returns." Her voice was firm.
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