A New Character

A New Character

[Henrique's Perspective]

Henrique knelt beside Miro, who had been in deep sleep since the incident with the temple. The boy was still breathing… but something had changed.

The warmth around his body was no longer human.

It felt like standing next to a volcano contained by flesh.

"He's still my son," Henrique murmured.

"I don't care what he was… or what he's become."

Kiala appeared, her expression grim.

"If the veil has been opened… other entities will come."

"Some don't want memory. They want to rewrite everything."

Henrique stared at the sky.

He knew war was drawing nearer.

Then a knock echoed through the shelter's door.

Three knocks.

Dry. Firm.

[At the Shelter's Entrance]

Silas was about to order the guards not to open it when one of the sentries shouted:

"It's just one man! Unarmed… I think!"

Henrique arrived quickly, sword on his back, eyes sharp.

On the other side stood a wanderer. He wore a dusty gray cloak. A wide hat hid his hair, and his face was concealed by a wooden mask carved with runes.

"Who are you?"

The voice came muffled through the mask:

"I am merely a reader of forbidden books."

"Do you have a name?"

"I have many. But none matters more than the one I carry."

He held out a book sealed with three crystal locks.

"This volume was written before the First Ascension."

"And it bears the name of a woman you know very well, Henrique."

Henrique froze.

The title, written in crimson ink, read:

"Lívia – The Empress Before the End."

[Sónia's Perspective]

Sónia followed the wanderer from a distance.

He walked among the survivors as if he knew them. He stopped before children, elders, even Samuel — who, to everyone's surprise, bowed his head in reverence.

Sónia felt the book in her backpack vibrate — the one she'd found with her name scribbled on the inner margins. The same book that had always been hidden in the basement of the old house.

When she opened it, a new page had appeared, and on it was a signature:

"To my daughter.

When you're able to understand… you'll know what I was."

She stood still.

Her mother… was more than she claimed to be?

[Silas's Perspective]

Silas watched it all with hungry eyes.

Deep within the storage room, his followers were multiplying. Four had already accepted the Mark of the Hollow Flame.

He approached a new recruit: a young man, unsure and afraid of dying like the others.

"There are only two paths in this world now," Silas whispered. "Die as a shadow… or burn as light."

The young man extended his arm. Silas smiled.

The cult's symbol was branded into his flesh with a makeshift iron rod.

"May the hollow fire purify you."

[Wanderer's Perspective]

The wanderer sat by the central fire, opened Lívia's book, and read aloud:

"In the third era, the Crimson Empress was not born.

She was made.

Forged in lies, in pacts, and in the blood of those who loved her."

"Her first love was an ordinary man… and that's why she destroyed him."

Henrique approached.

"Why are you reading that?"

The wanderer looked at him — or seemed to, through the mask.

"Because this book has seals. Three."

"And?"

"The first breaks in the presence of the Empress's blood."

"The second, before her echo."

"And the third… in the heart of the mirror."

Henrique's stomach churned.

"You want to use my children to open it?"

"No," the wanderer stood. "I want to stop her from doing it."

[Miro's Perspective – unconscious]

Miro was dreaming.

But it wasn't an ordinary dream.

It was a palace suspended above an inverted ocean, where fish flew and stars slumbered.

At the center, a faceless woman held a sword twin to Henrique's.

"Vós sleeps, but the world screams.

Awaken, shadow. Or they will erase you first."

Miro opened his eyes within the dream.

"I am not Vós."

The woman bowed:

"Not yet."

[Final Perspective – The Book Opens]

At nightfall, the wanderer placed the book on the main table. Miro lay nearby, still asleep. Henrique, Leandro, and Sónia watched anxiously.

The wanderer pulled out a key made of bone.

"The Empress's blood has touched this place."

"The echo already cries out."

"And the mirror… awakened yesterday."

The three seals unlocked.

A white smoke drifted from the book, floating like an ancient soul.

And on the first page, a single sentence appeared in living letters:

"If you're reading this… then I have failed."

Henrique held the book with trembling hands.

And finally felt… that the war ahead

was not just against monsters.

But against the past.