Chapter 3: Pure flash of white.

A sudden rustle cut across the night air—

not behind him, but ahead.

Gallan skidded to a halt, gravel spraying underfoot.

From the trees a shadow swept, faster than wind.

The maid—no, the thing that wore her shape—stepped into the moonlight as if she had been waiting all along.

“You can’t run forever, young Gallan,” her voice rasped, deeper now, edged with something inhuman. “So much fire in those lungs, yet nowhere to go.”

Gallan’s pulse pounded in his ears. He reached instinctively for the small practice blade strapped at his side, a child’s weapon more for show than battle.

She tilted her head, a sly, knowing smile breaking across her transformed face. “You’ll have to fight me. Kill me, if you can. That is the only path a hero has.” His fingers tightened around the hilt. “But I already know,” she continued, circling with a hunter’s ease, “that your sword arm is weak. You're sloppy. Subpar, even for a prince.”

A rush of wind—then a blur.

The maid was suddenly there, a streak of shadow leaping between the trees.

“You can’t hideeeeeeee." her voice rang in his ear, low and sharp. “Running buys you nothing.”

She raised a hand, fingers stretching into long, dark talons that caught the moonlight like polished steel. Before Gallan could react, she slashed through the air.

A sudden sting blazed across his cheek.

The world flashed red.

His breath hitched. Warmth trickled down his skin—his own blood.

This… this is real.

It was the first time he’d ever felt pain that cut straight through to his bones.

Panic surged like fire in his chest.

Gallan stumbled back, heart hammering, the small practice sword slick in his grasp. The sting of the cut burned, sharp and hot, and terror clawed at the edges of his thoughts. Think, Gallan, he told himself. 

Move.

 Survive.

The ogre-maid paced slowly, claws glinting as she closed the circle around him. Gallan gripped his little sword tighter, but the tremor in his hands betrayed him.

She tilted her head, a mockery of pity in her glowing eyes. “Poor little prince,” she said, voice soft and poisonous. “All that training, all that time. And for what?”

Gallan forced a breath. “You… you what are you trying to say.”

A cold smile curved across her face.

“Oh, want me to caress you like usually do before I tell you? Do you believe your father the king and your mother the queen truly need you? Even now they speak of another heir. A new child. Someone stronger. Someone who won’t disappoint.”

His stomach knotted. “Lies.”

“Is it?” she whispered, circling closer. “While you hide in gardens and play at being clever, they are already planning a replacement. A baby who will make you… unnecessary.” Gallan’s chest tightened, the cut on his cheek burning hotter with each word. “You’re lying,” he repeated, but his voice faltered.

The ogre’s grin widened, her claws flexing in the moonlight. “Why waste a crown on a boy who runs and cries? Whose weak and unintelligent." 

Gallan felt the world tilt, the certainty he clung to slipping like sand through his fingers. For a heartbeat his mind went hollow, his thoughts a flat, echoing silence.

She stepped closer, eyes gleaming like molten gold. “Face it,” she whispered, savoring every syllable. “You were born to be replaced.” The words sank into the night, heavier than the darkness itself, and Gallan stood frozen, the weight of doubt pressing like iron on his heart.

"Now Let me eat you." 

The ogre’s grin snapped into a snarl.

“Enough talk,” she hissed. “You’re nothing but my next meal.” With a burst of speed she lunged, claws flashing like black steel.

Gallan raised his practice blade in pure instinct. A faint shimmer flickered along its edge—a thread of pale light so subtle neither of them noticed.

Then the night itself split.

A thunderclap cracked the air, blinding and absolute.

A column of pure white lightning speared down from the heavens, striking the ground between them with a sound like the world breaking. The ogre staggered back, a roar of pain and fury tearing from her throat as sparks danced across her darkened skin.

Gallan blinked against the sudden brilliance. When his eyes cleared, a figure hovered above the scorched earth—a silhouette carved from starlight. Wings, vast and luminous, unfurled across the sky. An aura of power hummed in the air, making the trees bow and the stones tremble.

A literal angel hovered there, eyes like molten silver fixed on the creature below. Gallan could only stare upward, heart pounding, the echo of thunder still ringing in his ears as the night filled with unearthly light.

The brilliance above the garden steadied into form.

A young man—no, something far more—hovered in the moon-silver sky.

His hair blazed like a storm caught in sunlight: mostly white, but shot through with subtle streaks of gold that flickered whenever the lightning around him pulsed. A faint halo of pale fire circled his head, turning every raindrop in the air to crystal sparks.

Long, tapering wings stretched outward, their feathers a radiant white with edges that shimmered faintly yellow, as if each plume held the memory of dawn. The soft beat of those wings sent currents of warm wind through the garden, making the trees sway as though they were bowing.

His eyes shone a piercing silver, calm yet unyielding, carrying both the stillness of a winter sky and the heat of a thundercloud. Lightning threaded across his arms and shoulders like living veins of light, and the air around him smelled faintly of ozone and rain.

He wore simple garments—loose, pale fabric belted at the waist—that glowed from within, as though lit by stars. Every movement was quiet, precise, and impossibly graceful, a presence both serene and terrifying.

This was no distant, abstract messenger.

This was the very storm made flesh—an angel from heavens own wake has arrived.