The smell of the battle had changed. It was no longer just gunpowder and broken stone—now there was something too sweet in the air, the sickly sweet, metallic scent of fresh blood mixed with plaster dust. From the hilltop where the Republican headquarters had been established, the young vision Adept, Marcos, adjusted the focus of his spyglass, his fingers trembling slightly.

  Inside the castle, through a broken window, he saw the scene: Lord Garcia kneeling amidst the rubble, his massive body bent over something small and motionless. A woman—Baroness Inês—was screaming, her face a distorted mask of agony. The sound didn't reach him, but the posture said it all.

  "Commander Specter," Marcos lowered the spyglass, his face pale. "The Earth Adept... Garcia. He's no longer on the walls. He's inside, in the living quarters. And... it seems a child died. In the explosions."

  He swallowed dryly, his fingers gripping the cold metal of the spyglass. A child. Perhaps my little brother's age.

  Specter did not take his eyes off the castle. His hands, calloused and marked by old scars, were crossed behind his back. When he spoke, his voice held none of the young man's hesitation.

  "Your name is Marcos, isn't it?"

  "Yes, Commander."

  "You feel sorry for them." It wasn't a question.

  Marcos hesitated. "It's just... a child, sir."

  Specter finally turned, his gray eyes fixing on the youth. They weren't cruel eyes, but profoundly tired, as if they had seen more than any man should.

  "In the last village we liberated, three days' march from here," he began, his voice low but clear, "we found eight women in a shed behind Inês's mansion. They all had one thing in common: none had a single tooth left in their mouths."

  Marcos frowned, confused.

  "She pulled them out," Specter continued, his words dropping like stones into still water. "One by one, with a blacksmith's pliers, because one of them dared to smile when her son passed by. And the others... well, collective punishment is her specialty."

  The commander took a few steps, his boots sinking slightly into the soft earth.

  "As for her children, Marcos..." He paused, choosing his words. "Last month, a six-year-old slave boy was found dead in the gardens of Castelo Garcia. The bones in his hands broken in twelve different places. Witnesses said Inês's youngest son liked to hear the sound of bones breaking. Called it 'playing the piano.'"

  Marcos felt his stomach churn. The spyglass in his hands suddenly felt too heavy.

  "When a human life gets a price tag," Specter concluded, his gaze returning to the smoking castle, "it ceases to be life. It becomes an object. A toy. And some toys are made to be broken."

  The sound of the cannons continued, rhythmic and relentless. Each shot was a hammer striking the anvil of the castle. Marcos looked through the spyglass again, but now the scene had different colors. The pain was still real, but its flavor had changed.

  "And the others?" he asked, his voice firmer. "The slaves still inside the castle. Many must have died in the explosions..."

  "More will die," Specter admitted without hesitation. "And every death will be a stab in me, Marcos. But if we don't attack now, with everything we have, it's the entire army that will die. And it won't be a quick death by explosion."

  He paused, the sound of a cannon being reloaded echoing behind them.

  "Garcia doesn't bury his enemies. He impales them on the walls. Inês keeps bones as trophies. Death would be a gentle fate compared to what they would do to us."

  As they spoke, a figure approached silently. Whisper adjusted the strap of her backpack, now filled with timed grenades—small metal spheres with modified Fire-gems for delayed ignition. Her long black hair, usually loose, was tied in a tight ponytail. Her sniper rifle rested on her back like an extension of her body.

  "Artillery!" Specter's voice cut through the air. "Cease fire!"

  The command echoed through the sound gems. One by one, the cannons fell silent. The sudden quiet was almost more frightening than the noise—, the crackle of distant fires, and the wind blowing through the valley could be heard.

  Whisper did not wait for orders. She lay down on the ground, finding a stable position, closing one eye as she aimed. She wasn't aiming at a man or a wall—she aimed at a specific shadow inside a tree about 500 meters ahead.

  "Thirty grenades," she thought, feeling the weight of the backpack. "Thirty little suns ready to be born."

  The rifle fired with a dry crack. The special projectile—a bullet made with a darkness gem—sped across the distance to the shadow. And then she prepared and fired at another shadow, and another. Until she fired at the shadow cast by a fallen beam through a broken window inside the castle.

  And soon she disappeared into her own shadow and emerged in that one.

  "Three minutes," she whispered to herself, getting up. "Three minutes until hell begins. It would be so much easier if we had those wristwatches the president talks about..."

  Inside Castelo Garcia, chaos was a living organism. Screams echoed through smoky corridors. Men ran with buckets of water trying to extinguish fires. In a side room, a group of Earth Adepts was desperately trying to reinforce a cracked wall, their hands trembling against the stone.

  It was in this room that the first grenade was dropped, clattering to the floor with an innocent metallic sound, unnoticed in the chaos.

  Whisper moved like a ghost through the corridors. Every shadow was a door, every dark corner a hiding place. She didn't stop, didn't hesitate—she simply appeared, let one or two grenades roll from her backpack, and disappeared again.

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  Guard room: two grenades under a table.

  Kitchen: one inside a still-warm oven.

  Armory: three among the magical weapons.

  She was following the sound of voices—voices of command, of organization. The more chaos inside the castle, the easier the final assault would be.

  It was when she reached the central courtyard that things changed.

  First was a strange sensation in her right wrist—as if an invisible thread had tied itself there, pulling gently. Then the left. She looked, but saw nothing. "What the hell...?"

  "Are you the monster that killed one of my children?"

  The voice came from all sides and from nowhere. It was feminine, laden with a pain that transcended anger, becoming something deeper, more primitive. Whisper spun, her rifle ready, but saw no one. Only shadows dancing incorrectly, contorting like living things.

  "It disgusts me to have to dirty my hands with the blood of vermin like you," the voice hissed, now closer. "But with this, I'll be able to give you a death that will make my Luís's last moments seem like a peaceful dream."

  Whisper felt her own muscles rebel. Her right leg took a step forward without her command. Then the left. It was as if invisible ropes were tied to her limbs, pulling her like a puppet.

  "Shit! Illusion? Mind control?" Her mind, usually so clear and focused, was now a whirlwind of whispering voices. Voices telling her to give up, to drop the weapon, to stay still and accept the knife she now saw gleaming before her, held by a figure that seemed made of blood and shadow.

  Baroness Inês. Up close, she was more terrifying than in the reports. Her eyes weren't just red—they were deep as wells of ancient pain, and the hatred within them was a physical thing, almost palpable.

  Whisper fought against the invisible ropes. Every muscle burned with the effort. The fingers of her right hand trembled, fighting to move a few centimeters towards her pistol holster.

  "Useless," Inês's voice was a poisonous whisper. "Your blood is already mine. I feel it running in your veins. Warm. Eager to spill."

  Whisper's finger touched the pistol grip. One centimeter. Another. Inês's knife rose, ready to descend.

  The shot echoed in the enclosed courtyard, much louder than it should have been. The bullet didn't hit Inês in the heart—she twisted at the last instant—but struck her foot, entering through the top and exiting through the sole with a scarlet gush.

  The scream that followed was no longer controlled rage, but pure animal pain.

  "BITCH!"

  The control broke instantly. The invisible ropes snapped. The voices in her mind fell silent abruptly, as if someone had cut a telephone line.

  Whisper didn't wait. SHe threw the backpack with the remaining grenades at the baronet and threw herself backward, straight into the deepest shadow she could find—the shadow of a broken statue of some ancestor of Garcia. The world darkened, compressed, and not long after she was outside, emerging from the shadow of a charred tree fifty meters from the walls.

  But time had run out.

  Castelo Garcia, from within, began to bloom. Flowers of fire and metal. First, a muffled explosion from the guard room. Then a roar from the kitchen that sent pots and bricks flying through the air. Then the armory. At last in the castle corridor.

  The last one was different. It wasn't an explosion—it was a deep sigh followed by an eruption. The east tower simply disintegrated, stones the size of horses being hurled into the sky like divine seeds. The shockwave hit Whisper even fifty meters away, throwing her to the ground.

  Something hot and sharp cut her leg—a shattered stone, flying like a razor. She felt the bone crack before she even felt the pain.

  "SHIT!" she screamed, grabbing her leg. Blood gushed between her fingers, warm and slippery. "But I'm alive. By a hair's breadth, but I'm alive."

  Without wasting time, she lay down and fired again at the shadow of a huge stone, then at a tree and another until she returned to the army.

  Specter saw the tower fall. He saw the cloud of dust and debris rise like a fateful mushroom. And then he saw Whisper appear near the army, looking injured.

  He was moving before he even thought, running across the open field with surprising speed for a man of his age and position. Beside him, Marcos was running too, carrying a medical kit.

  "You're late!" Specter said, landing on his knees beside Whisper. His hands were already examining the wound, pressing the area to stem the bleeding.

  "Sorry, Commander," Whisper replied, her teeth clenched against the pain. "I encountered the Blood Baroness. She... she made me see things. Hear things. Clouded my mind. And then... it felt like I was a puppet. She controls the blood gem, right? But supposedly it should only control the blood of the dead, the mana-less blood of the living... besides, that last explosion was too powerful, it caught me off guard. But I think she died in the explosions."

  Specter stopped for an instant, his gray eyes darkening. "Hallucinations. Muscle control. The blood gem working with the nightmare gem?" The combination was theoretically impossible—or at least, he had never heard of such a thing.

  "It doesn't matter now, she’s dead," he said, returning to the wound. "Marcos, the tourniquet. Above the knee. Tighten until I say."

  "Alright, Whisper," he said, his voice softer now. "You did what needed to be done. You can rest. The medics will take care of you."

  He stood up, his eyes returning to the castle. The east tower was now a pile of smoldering rubble. Huge gaps tore through the walls. And from inside came no longer battle cries, but cries of despair. "Did some magical weapon in the armory react with the explosion? But that doesn't matter, it's even good for us."

  Specter brought the sound gem to his lips. His voice, when it came out, wasn't a shout, but a calm, clear affirmation that echoed in all the army's gems:

  "Infantry. Advance. The castle has fallen."

  In the field below, hundreds of men in green uniforms emerged from their positions. They didn't run—they marched. Methodically. Inexorably. In their hands, they carried not swords or spears, but rifles. The new era was marching over the rubble of the old.

  ***

  Inside the castle, Garcia heard the cry from the field. He was standing again, his face a mask of dust and dried blood. In his arms, he carried the small body of Luís, wrapped in his own cloak. Behind him, Inês limped, supported by a servant, her gaze fixed on her dead son.

  — That bitch almost killed me! If you hadn't found me in time, and kicked that backpack away... I wouldn't be here.

  Luckily for Inês, in addition to kicking away the backpack, he created an earthen barrier that protected them.

  — Don't just run off like that again! You could have warned me or had more guards take you, you were blinded by revenge and almost died! — Garcia shouted, but was interrupted by his captain.

  The captain ran to them, his helmet dented, his face smeared with soot.

  "My lord! They're advancing! What do we do?"

  Garcia looked at the body in his arms. He looked at Inês, whose hatred now had a specific target, a name, a face. He looked at the broken walls, at the castle that had been an extension of his body and was now a wounded carcass.

  "We fight," he said, his voice so hoarse it seemed to tear his throat. "We fight until not one stone remains upon another. Until not a drop of blood remains in our veins. Until each one of them pays for this."

  He handed Luís's body to Inês with a gentleness that contrasted horribly with the fury in his eyes.

  "Take him to the crypt. I will receive our visitors."

  His hand found the hilt of his steel sword inlaid with the gem of earth and strength.

  Outside, the first Republican soldiers were already climbing the rubble of the broken wall. The last battle of Castelo Garcia was about to begin.