Chapter 48 – Echoes of What Was
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I taught her blade, I taught her breath, I did not teach her love of death. She took the path I could not see, And walked it far away from me.
She laughed beneath the crimson sky, A girl I knew who chose to die. Yet in her fall, she found her throne— A crown of blood, a heart of stone.
I raised her once, I’ll strike her twice, And pay the gods their asking price. But still I see the child I knew, Behind the fangs, beneath the rue.
So let her rise, and let her fight— The shade I failed, the stolen light. I'll face the dark I could not save, And walk her memory to the grave.
*
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Ysara moved. Slowly, painfully, she raised her head. Dust clung to her, blood soaking every line, hair plastered across her ruined face. But her crimson eyes burned all the same. Her lips curved, dragging into a smirk.
Her chest convulsed. A wet, gurgling cough tore from her throat, spattering a mouthful of blood across her chest. She tried to laugh, but it broke into ragged wheezes, each sound scraping against her shattered lungs. The kick had caved her abdomen in, ribs jutting like spears beneath her skin, every breath a war she was losing.
Still, she looked at Eliza. Through the crimson haze, through the blood running down her chin, she looked at her.
“I… kn-knew… it…” The words clawed their way out, fractured and uneven. She swallowed more blood than air. “R-relic… too much… for you…”
Her body convulsed again, another surge of blood spilling past her lips, running down her neck. But her smirk widened, defiant, cruel. She forced her head back, hacking and choking, until laughter broke free—a jagged, broken sound that rattled in the silence.
“El… Eliza…” she croaked between coughs, her voice cracked and thin. “T-too weak… always… too weak…”
Her chest heaved. Another fit wracked her body, spitting more blood onto the floor.
With her remaining arm, she lifted a trembling hand and held it above her face, fingers splayed as though grasping something unseen in the air. Her eyes rolled skyward, never leaving the ceiling, never once sparing Eliza the mercy of breaking her smirk. The laughter kept coming. Raw and ragged, bleeding into the chamber until it seemed to cling to the stone. A sound both pitiful and haunting.
And Eliza… Eliza’s heart twisted at the sight.
This was no faceless monster before her. This was Ysara—broken, torn apart, barely clinging to life, yet still mocking, still laughing in her suffering. For the briefest moment, sorrow cut through Eliza’s resolve like a blade.
But she forced it down.
Wiping the blood from her helm with the back of her gauntlet, Eliza rose from her knee. The armor still clung to her body like a second skin, unyielding. She gripped her sword, hefted her shield, and began to walk—slowly toward the fallen vampire.
Each step rang out like judgment.
When the steps ceased,
Eliza came to a halt, looming over Ysara’s broken form. The sight twisted her chest—bones jutting, blood soaking her frame, laughter still rattling through her teeth. For a long moment, Eliza said nothing.
Then, softly, her voice broke the silence.
“Do you remember,” Eliza said softly, her voice carrying through the chamber like a confession, “the first time we met?
It was after one of my missions. The halls were still heavy with smoke, and I heard the Sisters whispering that a new batch of children had been brought in. I should have ignored it, but…” She paused, her helm tilting ever so slightly. “…I was curious. So I went.”
Her gaze on Ysara softened,
“There you were. So small. Surrounded by the others, yet standing so still, so calm. You didn’t cry, not even when the others did. You only stared—steadfast, unflinching. It reminded me of myself, long ago.”
Eliza drew in a deep breath. “I saw that strength, even in a child. That was why I chose you. I taught you magic. I put a sword in your hands. And I watched you grow.”
The laughter faltered. Ysara’s chest still heaved, her hand still hung above her face, but the sound cut short into silence. She listened.
Eliza’s voice dropped, threaded with something softer. “You were quick with the blade, quicker still with magic. A good student… better than most I ever taught. But more than your skill, it was your smile that stayed with me.”
Her grip on the hilt tightened, knuckles pale against steel. “Whenever I brought back something sweet from the market—just a tart, or sugared bread—you would light up. The way your eyes softened, the way you smiled, as though the world was still kind. Do you remember that?
That was what I cherished most. Not your strength. Not your talent. But that fleeting warmth.”
The paladin’s head bowed, the weight of memory dragging at her. “It was… heartwarming. A light I could protect.”
Her words hung in the silence, heavy as chains. Eliza’s breath rattled against her helm, before she forced herself on.
“When I left on long campaigns, I held onto that image of you. I would picture you in the yard, training with the sword until your arms ached, or at the circle, weaving the spells I taught you until your voice cracked. That thought… it carried me through more battles than I can count.”
Her shoulders rose and fell. A warrior’s frame trembling not from fatigue but from memory. “When I returned, I did not find the girl I imagined. I found you buried in books, surrounded by scrolls.
The sword I gave you—cast aside.
The magic you had once chased with such eagerness—forgotten.
And I…” Her voice hitched beneath the steel mask. “…I was angry. Not at you, but at myself. It hurt me, Ysara. To think that I had failed you. That everything I had given meant nothing.”
She took a step closer, and the sound of her armor scraping the stone filled the void between them. Her blade gleamed above Ysara’s broken form, yet her voice softened with grief.
“Then, I learned it was your choice. That this—this path, this hunger for knowledge, for secrets—was not forced upon you. You chose it. And though it wounded me, I told myself I had no right to chain you to my vision of what you should be. I told myself I should be proud. That you had carved your own way.”
A tremor shook her, the faintest crack in the fortress of her composure. “But when I looked at you—when I saw the child who once smiled at sweet bread now grown into someone who no longer smiled at all—it hollowed me. That warmth, that little light I cherished, had been smothered. And I knew… this place was killing you, even as it fed your strength.”
Her sword lowered a fraction, just enough to betray her hesitation. “I tried, Ysara. My lord knows, I tried. I wanted to pull you away from this cursed place. To free you. But every step I took… every effort I made… it was never enough. And now—”
Her voice wavered, but she forced the words through gritted teeth. “Now it falls to me to give you peace. To end this suffering, and send you to my Lord’s embrace. That is all I can give you now.”
Eliza drew in a long, ragged breath, the sound of steel whispering as she raised her blade high.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, helm tilting. “Truly. Sorry that I couldn’t shield you. Sorry that every path I tried to carve for you collapsed into ruin. Sorry… that I failed you.”
Her throat tightened, but still she pressed on, “When this is done, when my duty is complete, I will join you.
You won’t walk alone into the the next life. That, I swear.”
Her chest rose, steadied by resolve. “ If you have words… any last request… I will hear them. I owe you that much.”
For a long moment, Ysara did not move. Then, with a shuddering effort, her remaining hand fell from the air and came down over her eyes, shielding them.
“Eliza…” Her voice rasped, broken. “Do you… remember… the first time… you taught me the sword?”
Eliza’s gaze softened. Behind her helm, her lips curved into the faintest, aching smile. Despite the weight of the moment.
“Yes,” she answerred softly. “Yes, I remember. It’s one of my fondest memories.”
The smirk returned. Small, cruel. Eliza could not see her eyes beneath the shield of her hand, but she felt it—the change in the air, the quiet dread coiling from that smirk.
“Then…” Ysara wheezed, her smirk widening, “…do you remember… what I did… after you beat me?”
Eliza froze, her mind clawing backward through memory. For a moment—too long—her thoughts lingered.
By the time she remembered, her blade was already falling—
But it was too late.
Steel bit deep into stone, sparks hissing as the edge carved a jagged scar into the ground. Dust flared upward, choking the air. Eliza’s heart lurched—because Ysara was gone.
Panic seized her. She tore her sword free and whipped around, searching—
She saw her.
Not three paces away, Ysara’s mangled body had moved like a phantom, her one arm locking around the throat of a wide-eyed woman who had lingered too close to the fight. The victim’s scream never came. With a sickening snap, Ysara sank her fangs into the woman’s neck.
Eliza’s breath caught.
Blood burst forth, spilling in hot rivulets down Ysara’s chin, soaking her already crimson chest. The woman’s body convulsed once, then went limp, life pouring out of her in seconds. Ysara pulled back with a savage rip, tearing a chunk of flesh from the throat, the sound wet and final.
She chewed. Slowly. And smiled through the blood.
Then she moved.
A blur of red, Ysara darted across the chamber with impossible speed, descending upon another terrified cultist before Eliza could even draw breath to stop her. Another scream was cut short as Ysara’s mouth found flesh, and again the sound of draining—of life being stolen—filled the chamber. In seconds, the body sagged into nothing more than a husk, dropped carelessly to the floor.
“YSARA—!”
Eliza roared, her heel twisting hard into the stone as she launched forward. Her armor thundered with the weight of her charge, her blade rising, shield braced.
But Ysara only laughed, the sound ragged yet exultant, mocking, her smirk gleaming through a mask of blood. She danced back, just beyond the arc of Eliza’s swing, nimble where she should not have been, broken ribs grinding yet somehow carrying her with wicked grace.
Then she turned from Eliza entirely—her eyes flashing—and vanished into another rush. Another cultist fell screaming into silence, their blood spilling, then vanishing into her.
One by one.
Every desperate heartbeat saw another victim drained, their forms crumpling like discarded dolls upon the stone.
Eliza struck again and again, each swing carving air, each charge breaking through only the aftermath—blood pooling, husks collapsing. She could not catch her. Could not pin her.
And Ysara reveled in it. Giggling between gasps, scarlet staining her lips, she slipped through Eliza’s reach, feeding, feasting, laughing even as her body remained mangled and torn.
By the time the last cultist fell—emptied, discarded—Ysara stood amid the carnage, her chest heaving, her mouth smeared red. She tossed the final body aside as though it were nothing more than bone and rags.
Then, slowly, she turned.
Her gaze locked on Eliza.
Her grin widened.
Before the paladin’s eye, the impossible began.
The ruin of Ysara’s body—ribs jutting from torn flesh, abdomen caved in like shattered stone, the gaping hole where Eliza’s blade had pierced through—shivered.
Then it happened.
Flesh rippled. Bone ground against bone. A sound like wet silk being torn filled the air as her wounds knit themselves together. Her ribs snapped back into place. One by one. Vanishing beneath a sheen of new flesh. The hollow of her stomach swelled, rising as muscle wrapped itself whole once more. The gash in her chest sealed slowly, lips of the wound drawing together until nothing remained but smooth, pale skin. Blood hissed as it evaporated from the heat of her body, leaving her glistening.
Her lips parted.
“Ahhh—…hnnhhh—ahhhhnn—”
The moans spilled unbidden, obscene. Each note quivered with a trembling sweetness that made the air thick.
Her hand rose, trailing fingers over the curve of her stomach as it knitted whole. She shivered at her own touch. The palm slid higher, smearing through the blood across her chest until it hovered over where Eliza’s blade had once pierced. She pressed down on the new flesh—hard—and gasped.
“Mmmhhhnnn… yesss…”
She arched her back. Body stretching in one long, languid motion. Her breasts lifting, her throat bared, the moan rising like a song of pain turned to pleasure. The gesture was almost theatrical, as if she wanted Eliza to see every inch of her rebirth.
Only her arm did not return. The shoulder remained raw, ragged. Yet Ysara hardly seemed to notice.
Bone cracked down her spine, one after another, like knuckles being idly popped. She rolled her wrist, flexing fingers slick with blood.
Her head tilted, her hair spilling wild around her face, matted to her skin by gore. For a moment, her gaze flicked to the ragged stump where her arm had been. Her smile widened. She dismissed it with a laugh, her neck cracking as she tilted it from side to side.
Naked, drenched in blood, she stood—an unholy vision, beauty sharpened into something meant to wound. Every movement was a mockery, a taunt, a temptation.
Slowly, she leveled her gaze at Eliza once more.
Her lips curled, teeth gleaming scarlet.
“Now…” Voice purred, dripping with the aftertaste of ecstasy. “…let’s try that again.”