The fortress before dawn was silent. The bedrock of the Caldra Range held the night's cold air trapped within it, and the sound of footsteps echoing through the corridors seemed unnaturally loud. Ashna Vilhelm stopped before the stone steps leading to the supply sector, listening intently to that sound. Multiple footsteps. Not one person. Shortly after dawn, Rokven arrived at the door of Zeerie Karlsvine's command quarters, leading twelve veteran soldiers. It was Zeerie herself who opened the door. Her long purple hair was bound in a single knot, and her silver eyes swept quietly across the thirteen figures lined up in the corridor. The bandage on her left arm remained in place, its edge bearing the faint color of dried blood. Yet her stance did not waver. "[serious]General Zeerie. I wish to make a formal petition" Rokven's voice was low and measured. It carried the same weight as the voice that had named Ashna in the dining hall yesterday. "[serious]I demand the expulsion of Ashna Vilhelm from the fortress. My grounds are threefold. First—the continuous possession of human texts. Second—the precision of this assault cannot be explained without internal information. Third—the female warrior she killed held a position in the Hero Party, and the Holy Staff Authority has delayed confirming her death" Zeerie took the petition from Rokven. She read through it slowly. She said nothing. After some thirty seconds of silence, she spoke. "[serious]I will establish a three-day period for fact-finding. During that time, I will not make a hasty judgment" The veteran soldiers behind Rokven stirred. Zeerie continued, as if to silence them. "[serious]However—during that time, Ashna will surrender her weapons and relocate to the deepest part of the fortress's supply sector. This is a concession to your petition. After three days, I will examine the facts and then decide" Grimhart Stark, who stood in that place, began to open his mouth. Zeerie's gaze turned toward him like a blade. "[serious]Grimhart. If you grow angry here—only one fact will remain: that the one defending Ashna is a former human. Do you understand?" Grimhart clenched his fist. The knuckles of his fingers turned white. Yet he closed his mouth. Standing against the wall of the corridor, Ashna had heard it all. When the words came to surrender her weapons, her legs trembled slightly. But she looked into Zeerie's eyes. There was a certain color in those silver pupils. Not anger, not confusion—the quiet weight that only those who have made a decision possess. Ashna saw it and understood that this measure was not abandonment. And yet, her legs still trembled. --- The supply sector was dark. The ceiling was low, and stacked wooden crates and cloth bags formed walls. A single small opening for ventilation existed high on the bedrock above, and through it a thin shaft of light entered, changing its angle with the hours. There were no weapons. No training ground. No faces of her comrades in the fortress. On the first night, Ashna hugged her knees and leaned her back against a wooden crate. The strange quietness that remained after she had finished crying before Zeerie the previous night still dwelt within her body. That sensation that came after weeping oneself dry—neither painful nor anguished, merely hollow and empty. The Star Divine Record lay upon her knees. The book with the scorched cover that Wenzel had handed to her. The only thing she had brought out from Tuulya. The book she had tried to throw into the flames last night but could not. Tonight, Ashna opened its pages for the first time. Not to read. But to confirm why she possessed it. As her fingers turned the pages, her hand stopped at a passage near the middle. —*The stars are the souls of the dead returned to heaven. So long as a name is spoken, that star does not fade.* Ashna stared at those words for a long time. The memory-speech of the demon-kind. That ritual of speaking the names of the dead aloud, passing them down through generations. The form was entirely different. But the root beneath it—the same fear: not wanting to forget the dead. The star-faith of humans and the memory-speech of demon-kind faced the same direction. In that moment of realization, something settled quietly into place. She understood now, for the first time, why she had continued to read human texts. Not because she wanted to understand humans—but far earlier, long before—because she did not want to forget the dead. In whatever form, in whatever words, the fear of those who bore names disappearing had guided her hand toward this book. On the morning of the second day, something was passed through a gap in the outer wall. Three dried fruits and a small piece of cloth folded carefully. There was no voice. The footsteps receded quickly. Ashna took the fruits and touched the cloth. The rough texture of the fabric transmitted itself to her fingertips. She remembered the night beneath the collapsed ceiling of the abandoned sector, when Grimhart's shoulder had been beside hers. The distance of sitting beside someone without words. Because the footsteps had already faded before she could speak, Ashna only gripped the fruits tightly. --- On the afternoon of the second day, quick footsteps echoed through the fortress corridors. The scout Lyudova had returned. A young female demon-kind she had seen face-to-face during the mining tunnel mission of the third story—small-framed, swift-footed, skilled at solo reconnaissance. She had apparently been investigating the southern slopes of the Caldra Range alone since immediately after the fortress assault, and this was her return after ten days. One of her shoe soles was peeling away. She went directly to Zeerie's command quarters and closed the door. An hour later, Zeerie sent a messenger to summon the veteran soldier Donark. Donark was a man in his forties, a veteran soldier who gave a quiet impression within the fortress. He bore an old sword scar on his right shoulder and sat at the edge of the table during meals, speaking little. He was one of those who had moved alongside Zeerie since before the Ergenhorst Collective had reached its current size. The messenger returned within mere minutes. —*We found him in the depths of the supply sector.* Ashna heard that voice through the stone wall. In the narrow passage at the very back of the supply sector, some dozen paces beyond where Ashna had been sitting, it had happened. Donark was hanging from a rope. The rope had been made from scrap timber used as a beam, and a wooden crate that had served as a footstool lay overturned beside him. There was no sound. No sign of struggle. It was clear he had chosen this himself. Ashna looked upon Donark's face in death. His eyes were closed thinly. There were no wrinkles between his brows. It was not the face of one who harbored resentment. It was the face of one who had tried to protect something and failed. Only that was clear in the thin light of the stone wall. What Lyudova had brought back were fragments of encrypted documents used by human intelligence organizations and a hand-drawn sketch showing the fortress's internal structure. The handwriting matched Donark's, a veteran soldier testified. Zeerie gathered everyone and told them the truth. Donark's wife and children were detained in a holding facility at Vastork Fortress—a human military stronghold built on the southern coast of the Rezona Inland Sea—and for more than a year he had been continuously leaking information about the fortress's movements to a liaison of the Holy Staff Authority. It was coercion. His family held hostage, he could not refuse. Everyone gathered in the dining hall listened in silence. After a long silence, Rokven could say nothing. He opened his mouth and closed it. Opened it again and closed it once more. Finally, he bowed his head quietly. The suspicion against Ashna was officially withdrawn on the spot. Ashna was returned her weapons. But—what came before relief was something else. Donark's wife and children were still in the holding facility at Vastork Fortress. That alone would not leave her mind. No one was purely evil. Donark too had died trying to protect something. Rokven too could not stand without blaming someone for his comrades' deaths. Words to condemn the one who had tried to frame her would not come from Ashna. Not anger, but a heavy weariness toward the world itself accumulated at the bottom of her body. --- Night fell. In the central sector of the fortress—the place that had once served as a dining hall, its walls half-collapsed in the fourth story's battle—Ashna stood alone. Half the ceiling was gone, and the night sky was visible. The night sky above the Caldra Range held many stars. Stars that, as the Polaris star-faith claimed, would not fade so long as their names were spoken, existed in countless numbers. Stone debris scattered at her feet. The cross-section of the collapsed wall gleamed white in the night light. Ashna drew breath. And she raised her voice. In the form of the demon-kind's memory-speech—calling out the names of the dead. The young demon-kind soldier who had run beside her through the mine tunnel during the third story's mission. She remembered his name. A man with dark brown hair bound at the back, his eyes narrowed in the light of the stone lantern. The training companion whose head was severed before her eyes during the fourth story's assault. There had been no time to call out. He had sat across from her in the dining hall. He had told her his favorite food once. Donark. A quiet man, often seen maintaining his sword at the edge of the training ground. He had something he wanted to protect. He could not protect it. One by one, Ashna called out their names in her voice. And then—she stopped. Golden hair. Armor bearing the Holy Staff Authority's crest. A face with eyes wide open, falling forward. Her own right hand releasing flames. Those flames melting through the breastplate. She did not know the name. "[sad]……I don't know the name" Ashna's voice trembled. But she continued. "[sad]The human texts say that all stars bear names. You must have had a name. You must have had a place to return to. I cannot speak it. And yet—I will not forget that you died" Her voice was absorbed by the night and the collapsed stone walls. The form of the demon-kind's speech and the words of human star-faith mingled together—a speech that belonged to neither world. Not demon-kind, not human, but Ashna's alone. The sound reached the remaining corridors of the fortress. One by one, shadows began to stand outside the collapsed wall. Veteran soldiers came. Young demon-kind soldiers came. Lyudova came. And Rokven came too. No one spoke. No one entered. They simply stood outside the wall, listening to Ashna's voice. When Ashna finished speaking, silence fell. Footsteps came. It was Grimhart. He said nothing, simply stepped over the collapsed stone wall and walked to Ashna's side. His silver hair swayed in the night wind. His mismatched eyes—gold and violet—faced forward. The distance between their shoulders stopped just before touching. It was slightly closer than when they had sat side by side on the night in the abandoned sector. Ashna noticed it. Grimhart noticed it too. Neither of them moved from that place. The stars in the night sky trembled. She thought that somewhere, there was a star for the nameless female warrior. --- The next morning, a general assembly was called. In the fortress courtyard—a space surrounded by half-collapsed stone walls—the remaining forces of the Ergenhorst Collective gathered. One hundred seventeen soldiers. Sixty-three dead, nearly forty wounded, and still they stood. Zeerie stepped forward. "[serious]In three days, the remaining forces of Ergenhorst will cross the Caldra Range northward" Her voice echoed across the courtyard. "[serious]We