The shadows faded inside the cabin, and the old woman disappeared as if she had never existed. Mary remained on the ground, faint red steam rising from her, while tears and blood mixed on her cheek.
Laura, terrified, embraced her and whispered:
"Stay strong, Mary… please."
But Mary suddenly opened her eyes—not as she had been. Something had changed.
Her pupil was completely black for a moment… then gradually returned to its natural color, as if she had just looked into the mouth of nothingness.
She rose slowly, planting her hands into the earth to push herself up, while the ground itself cracked beneath her with red veins.
Laura whispered in astonishment:
"Mary… your face, your hands… you're radiating heat!"
Mary spoke in a low tone, as if to herself:
"I'm no longer who I was… but I haven't broken."
[After a few minutes—at the edges of the village]
The military unit sent from the capital arrived late. Among the commanders was Franco, wearing his golden armor, running toward Laura and Mary.
"What happened? Where's the source of the magical contamination?!" one of the commanders demanded.
Laura pointed to the cabin behind them:
"It's gone… but Mary…" she hesitated, looking at her, "she's… changed."
A cavalryman suddenly shouted:
"We have abnormal movement south of the forest! Magical creatures advancing toward the village!"
Franco:
"The civilians aren't ready! We need a defense barrier immediately!"
Everyone rushed to their positions, spells beginning to form in the sky.
But Mary… didn't move with them.
She stood in the middle of the road leading into the village, where the monsters were beginning to appear… like a nightmare summoned from the earth's memories.
She took a step forward.
Then raised her right hand.
One soldier whispered:
"She's going to summon iron… her usual element."
But what happened next silenced everyone.
From her hand… emerged pure flame. Violent fire, white at its core, red at its edges, pulsating with a magic unlike any ordinary spell.
"Fire?!"
"But it… carries the iron element, that's impossible!"
"Then it's a miracle for someone to wield two elements."
Franco: "Damn, you always race me to our dream of becoming a Holy Knight, the one I told you about as children."
Mary looked at her hands, completely unbelieving, but she did not falter. She said in a steady voice:
"If the curse planted something inside me… I'll turn it into a sword."
"It doesn't matter how many elements I wield… what matters is the purpose I use them for."
Then she stepped forward, raising both hands…
From her right came roaring flames.
From her left, iron gathered into a solid shield.
"I'll finish the mission… then I'll confront the curse."
In the soldiers' eyes and Franco's, Mary was no longer just "the Iron Flower"…
But something else entirely:
"The girl who burned without being consumed."
The attack had begun.
The beast emerging from the forest was unlike any other. Enormous, its skin covered in stone-like layers that seemed to breathe slowly, its horns glowing with gray energy. A rare Category-S creature, found only in the first magical war reports.
Mary advanced fearlessly, her heart beating with iron, her palm burning with the new flame. She shouted as she struck the ground:
"Burn!!"
A flaming blade blasted toward the beast… but it did not move. It didn't retreat. It only roared, cracking the sky.
She leapt, brandishing a fiery sword, and struck its chest… energy exploded, but rebounded onto her!
She tumbled on the ground, the iron shield crumbling, the fire dimming.
"It's absorbing the flames… impossible…"
The beast attacked!
Its rocky tail surged at her, so she formed an iron barrier at the last moment, but the impact was fierce… she slammed into a wall, and blood spilled from her mouth.
Franco tried to intervene, but the creature's roars made even the knights retreat.
Mary got up with difficulty, wiping blood from her mouth:
"I will not fall… not now."
She tried to stand, but her legs didn't respond.
The beast prepared its final attack… its jaws glowing with deadly gray energy.
Then… a black beam fell from the sky.
As if shadow itself had turned into a blade.
In a swift moment, the ground trembled.
The beast stopped.
A strike to the neck.
A figure stood behind the beast, back to the light, clad in a torn black cloak, long hair tied back, right hand dripping with dark magic.
He was silent.
Franco: "Who is that person?"
He slowly turned—his face pale, but his eyes… were no longer as they once were.
Dead eyes that had seen the unseen.
He approached Mary, who barely saw him.
He spoke in a soft voice:
"You once protected me from myself… today… it's my turn to prevent your death."
Then he caught her before she collapsed completely.
Mary whispered:
"André… you knew?"
He smiled, a smile without joy:
"I saw you in my nightmares… there, you were the only light."
Then Mary lost consciousness…
In the arms of the one she once saved… now something else entirely.
Then Franco and many soldiers surrounded him to kill him.
A faint light seeped through the medical tent's window, and the soldiers' voices outside spoke of "the prison escapee" and "the creature that vanished without a trace."
Mary slowly opened her eyes; everything was dim… but a familiar face stared at her.
André.
Silent, sitting in a reclined chair, his gaze upon her neither pity nor tenderness… but a long acknowledgment of shared pain.
He said calmly:
"I was going to leave after saving you… but you whispered my name before losing consciousness. So I stayed."
Mary looked at him for a long moment, then closed her eyes again, and in a hoarse voice said:
"I saw you in my dream… falling. Then rising."
A moment of silence.
Then the tent's door burst open.
Franco.
His face tense, his armor still bearing battle's ash.
He approached in angry steps, looked at André then Mary.
"You okay?"
Mary nodded.
Then Franco's gaze shifted to André:
"What are you doing here?!"
André didn't move. He said coldly:
"Protecting her. As she once protected me."
Franco took a step forward, his voice bursting:
"That doesn't give you the right to stay by her side!"
But Mary, in a soft, decisive voice:
"He does have that right. Because he chose life, as I did."
Franco's face constricted. Pain was clear, but he didn't interrupt her.
She added:
"I… will not return to missions again."
Franco stepped back, voice trembling:
**"What do you mean?"
Mary:
"My mother… years ago, proposed an unspoken law to the Elite Council: when a knight marries… he is exempt from missions, given a life among the common folk, away from war, until he returns of his own will as a holy knight."
Dead silence.
"I… will live with André."
André was embarrassed by her words, instantly understanding the message of love.
Franco yelled, unaware:
"But he was a terrorist! His home was a prison!"
Mary calmly:
"And I was a noble girl who knew nothing of shadows. Then the war came… then the nightmares. We both changed, Franco."
"I understand how you feel, but I won't give up our dream of becoming a holy knight. I want to avoid such missions because of the curse I suffered. I want to protect Gaia continent and give the poor a better life. This is my new path to becoming strong."
Franco: His eyes full of sadness and regret. "Do what you will, but remember my path is faster—remember that."
She approached André, stood with difficulty, and said:
"I want a life where my role is not dictated by rank or title. I will return… only when I choose to be a 'holy knight,' not when expected of me."
Franco, silent, awash in looks of jealousy and betrayal, only murmured:
"You always chose the harder path…"
Mary:
"Because the easy path… never protected anyone."
Mary lived with André, and they had a child on a day when the sky rained… but it was no ordinary rain. It was warm, as if the earth wept with joy.
In a simple wooden-floored room, Mary screamed in strained voice as she gripped André's hand.
The pain was immense, her body torn between life and death, but her eyes did not leave the gray ceiling, as if searching for her son's face before she saw him.
Then… the baby cried.
A faint cry, but it carried something strange in their ears.
The rain suddenly stopped.
The midwife exited the room shouting:
"The whole city felt it! As if something pure was born here…"
Mary held him… and felt her tears fall onto his forehead without intent.
"Adam…."
"He will be pure… even if this world breaks him."
But years later, watching him grow, she began to notice something strange.
Adam… was not gifted.
He failed his first simple magic test that she taught him until she realized his father André's combat methods served him well.
And the other children laughed at him because he couldn't summon any energy. She felt worried seeing her son like this.
Each time, he was silent. He didn't get angry, didn't cry. He only stared at the dirt, as if seeing something no one else understood.
One day, Mary found him sitting behind a tree, trying to keep the children away from him without violence.
She asked him:
"Why don't you defend yourself?"
He replied in a cold voice:
"They're not my enemies… they just don't understand me."
Mary shuddered. That was no child's answer.
It was the answer of someone… very much like his father.
But in all of it, there was no darkness in him. He was… just empty.
And one time, André told me he was going on a trip for a certain job a week before our new birth, and that he would return to see our daughter who was to be born.
I said okay.
This time, the sky was not raining…
It was eerily still.
Even the air was motionless, no birds, no dogs barking, no sounds in the city.
Mary sensed an inexplicable heaviness.
A child in her womb… but her heart wasn't beating with joy this time.
At midnight, she screamed, and the sky split.
Mila was born.
At the moment of her first cry… every torch in the capital extinguished.
In that same minute, a mysterious collapse occurred in one of the energy temples.
And children in the nearby hospital began crying nonstop.
The records later will note that seven strange incidents occurred around the city that day—all inexplicable.
This is what Mary deduced and observed, and many situations until my recovery from childbirth was faster than expected; I was amazed by this child's powerful energy—she's the opposite of Adam in every way.
Mary held the baby… but did not cry.
She looked into her wide gray eyes, then whispered:
"You are… different."
She felt that Mila… did not carry light.
But something else.
As if the nightmares she survived… had transferred in blood.
Inside: Mary was alone.
One night, weeks after Mila's birth, Mary sat in the dark, watching Adam asleep from the results of his confrontation with Neil, and Mila in her crib, staring at the ceiling without blinking.
She murmured to herself:
"My son… without talent. And my daughter… without soul?"
"Is this the result of living in flight from the curse? Or has it begun to work?"
After speaking with Mr. Volt, I transported Adam and Mila to a location behind a magic circle of my own creation and gave Adam my memories of what would happen to me in the next hour of a possible battle with the enemy.