The cold greets me like an old comrade—unforgiving and familiar. Snow crunches beneath my boots as I cross the final bridge to the Zapolyarny Palace. Snezhnaya looms before me, carved in ice and iron, unchanging as always. But something within me has shifted.
The Pyro Gnosis presses faint heat against my chest. Contained. Sealed. Controlled.
It does not burn me, but I feel it all the same.
Two masked guards nod as I pass. I do not acknowledge them. I've never needed to. Let them look at me and wonder what lingers behind the armor. I am used to being their silence.
But today, I carry something louder.
The palace doors groan open, the warmth of its corridors nonexistent. There is no fire here. Only shadow, polished marble, and the kind of cold that never leaves your bones. I walk slowly, deliberately. Let them feel my return before I speak a word.
They are all waiting in the war chamber.
Pantalone, smug and composed behind his ridiculous opulence. Arlecchino, lounging like a dagger pretending to be bored. Dottore scribbles something without looking at me, though I know he hears every step. Even Pulcinella sits at the far end, still and unreadable.
I place the reliquary on the table.
It clinks softly. The Pyro Gnosis glows inside, a caged ember flickering with life. It pulses like a second heartbeat beneath the metal of the container—and mine.
"Well," Pantalone says, folding his hands, "the lost ember returns—with interest."
I say nothing. Let the fire speak for me.
Arlecchino leans forward, eyes glinting. "Did it fight?"
"All fire resists the jar," I reply.
That shuts her up for a beat.
Dottore finally looks up, his curiosity more unsettling than his machines. "Fascinating. And the Archon?"
"She wasn't there."
They stare. Even Pantalone falters for a breath.
"She left?" Pulcinella rasps.
"She never came," I correct. "Only her legacy. Fire. And those foolish enough to chase it."
The door creaks behind me. I don't turn—I don't need to.
Pierro enters. I feel the room shift around him, like the gravity tilting.
"Capitano," he says, voice as calm and frigid as ever, "you have fulfilled your duty."
Then the question I expected: "Tell me—what did you see in Natlan?"
I hesitate.
I remember children dancing between geysers, warriors painting their skin with ash before battle, and the sound of drums echoing into the night. I remember Mavuika, standing on scorched earth, her smile both mocking and mournful.
"You may carry their fire, Capitano. But be wary—flames change the hand that holds them."
I finally answer. "I saw what we are not."
Pierro's eyes narrow. Not in anger. In thought. I can never tell if that's worse.
"Let us hope," he says at last, "that knowledge makes us stronger."
The Gnosis glows dimly on the table.
It is theirs now, by right of conquest.
But as I stare into its core—into that quiet, living flame—I wonder if I left something behind in Natlan…