Infinity: Reborn

Lilith fed the elf a red vial as she walked, telekinesis carrying both unconscious bodies behind her like trailing cargo. The liquid vanished down his throat. His wounds began knitting—flesh drawing together across the massive gash in his side.

The sheer volume of potions she carried would have bankrupted most players, but she’d never allowed her supply to run low. A necessity, given her limitations. Demons resisted divine healing, and sorcerers possessed only two healing spells—both barely more effective than the weakest potions.

She had so many that depletion wasn’t yet a concern, though eventually replenishment might become an issue. Perhaps using her meagre healing magic would be wiser in situations like this.

The trees opened. Sera knelt beside Mathias, whose breathing had steadied. The robed figure stood nearby, radiating wariness like a cornered animal.

Lilith settled the elf and paladin on the frost-covered ground ten feet away. She tore through space with her fingernail, reached into the pleasant cold, and withdrew a simple wooden chair. It materialized as she pulled it free.

She sat, crossing one leg over the other, and regarded the two figures before her.

“Explain,” Lilith said. “What exactly happened here?”

“Your Majesty, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Sera’s words tumbled over themselves. “I know you’re probably furious, and you have every right to be, but I couldn’t think of any other way to—”

“Sera.” Lilith raised one hand. “I am not angry with you. Yet.”

Sera’s mouth closed.

“However.” Lilith gestured at the clearing. “I crossed half of Landskavia because of you, only to arrive and find two dead Solarians, one paladin about to execute a wounded elf, and Mathias bleeding across the forest floor.” Her gaze shifted to the robed figure. “Along with someone who smells distinctly of necromancy and seems rather displeased by my presence.”

The figure stiffened.

Lilith addressed her directly. “Who are you?”

“The one who kept this fellow alive.” The voice emerged flat, feminine beneath the wrappings. She pointed at Mathias. “You’re welcome.”

A chuckle escaped Lilith’s lips. She liked this one already.

“Very well. The fact that you travel with Sera has earned you enough courtesy for a proper introduction.” Lilith inclined her head. “I am Lilith Nocturia, Empress of Nocturne.”

The robed figure went very still.

“Your turn,” Lilith prompted.

“Fibula.” The word came reluctantly, as though dragged against her will.

“She’s my friend,” Sera interjected quickly. “I promise she’s good. She just has trust issues.”

“You keep interesting company, Sera.” Lilith’s tail swayed once. “I never imagined you the type to travel with necromancers.”

Fibula’s hands clenched. “Do not compare me to those scum.”

Lilith raised one eyebrow. “The spell you cast on Mathias—that was Deny Death, was it not? A necromancy spell.”

A pause.

“Touché.” Fibula’s tone carried grudging acknowledgment. “But I am not one of them.”

Her wrapped hands rose to her hood. She pulled it back, then unwound the cloth covering her face.

A bare skull stared back at Lilith. Empty eye sockets gleamed with faint cold light where eyes should have been.

Lilith showed no reaction. She’d suspected as much—the aura of death surrounding Fibula, the way her clothes hung on her frame, the chosen name that couldn’t possibly be her original one.

“Why so wary of me, then?” Lilith asked.

“You’re a demon.” Fibula’s jaw moved with each word, animated by magic rather than flesh. “Forgive me if I don’t prostrate myself in gratitude.”

“Fib, please—” Sera started.

“She has every right to caution,” Lilith interrupted. “We’ve just met. She knows nothing of my character beyond your assurances.” Her gaze returned to Fibula. “Though I find your prejudice somewhat ironic, given your current state.”

Fibula’s skeletal hands twitched.

“But that’s a conversation for another time.” Lilith uncrossed her legs, then crossed them the opposite way. “What I want to know is what exactly happened here. Start from the beginning.”

* * *

Cold bit at Mathias’s face. His chest ached with each breath, ribs protesting movement. The frost-covered leaves beneath him crunched as he shifted.

Voices filtered through the fog. Multiple speakers, their words muffled and indistinct.

He focused on breathing. In. Out. The simple rhythm anchored him to consciousness.

One voice carried an unfamiliar cadence—feminine, flat, wary. Another belonged to someone male, speaking in halting Common with an elvish accent. A third he couldn’t quite place, though something about the tone tugged at memory. The fourth he recognized instantly.

Sera.

His eyes opened.

Orange firelight danced across the clearing. Sera sat cross-legged beside a bonfire that hadn’t been there before, her tail coiled around her waist. Next to her perched a blue-skinned woman with horns and wings—the succubus from Umbra, whose name he’d never learned. An elf in bloodstained leathers sat opposite them, arm wrapped in fresh bandages.

And beside the elf sat a skeleton.

Not a corpse. A skeleton. Animate, sitting upright, its robed form tilted toward the fire as though warming bones that couldn’t feel temperature.

Mathias’s breath caught. His hand jerked toward where his dagger should have been.

His gaze swept further. Hugo lay unconscious ten feet away, hands bound behind his back, sword nowhere in sight.

“You’re awake.” Sera’s voice pulled his attention back.

They were all looking at him now.

“Easy.” Sera shifted closer, hands reaching to support him as he tried to sit. “Don’t move too fast.”

Pain lanced through his torso as she helped prop him against a tree trunk. The wounds had closed—sealed by magic or alchemy, leaving only soreness where mortal injuries should have killed him.

The blue-skinned woman uncrossed her legs and turned to face him fully. Recognition struck like lightning.

The Empress.

“Mathias Whitefield.” Her voice carried that same melodic quality he’d heard once before, distant and echoing. “I’ve heard many interesting things about you.”

He swallowed. His throat felt raw.

“Such as your employment with the Purifying Flame.” Her head tilted, horns catching firelight. “A spy, embedded in my city for weeks.”

Sera’s hand on his shoulder tightened.

“I confess, I never expected to meet you here.” Lilith gestured at the clearing, the bodies, the frost-covered leaves stained with blood. “In Landskavia. Fighting alongside an elf against your own compatriots.”

The elf—Venali, the prisoner he’d freed—met his gaze briefly before looking away.

“Venali here told me a few interesting things,” Lilith continued. “He even vouched for you. Surprising, given your former allegiance.”

Former. The word settled over him like a shroud.

“So.” Lilith leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. “Why did you betray them? What changed your mind?”

Mathias looked at Sera. Her amber eyes searched his face, confusion and hurt warring in their depths.

“I think everyone here deserves the truth,” Lilith said quietly. “Especially Sera.”

The fire crackled. Frost crunched beneath Mathias as he shifted his weight, buying seconds he didn’t have.

He’d imagined this conversation a hundred different ways. In Umbra, perhaps, or some neutral ground where he controlled the setting and timing. Where he could choose his words carefully, prepare his justification, steel himself for whatever came after.

Not here. Not bleeding and broken with a skeleton watching him and his former commander unconscious six feet away.

Mathias took a deep breath. Phantom pain flared across his ribs.

Cold air scraped his lungs. Mathias met Sera’s gaze, then shifted to Lilith’s violet eyes.

“I was sent to Umbra as a spy,” he began.

* * *

Seraphina listened as Mathias explained everything. The monastery. The Purifying Flame’s indoctrination. His parents’ execution. Gallivan’s admission. The weeks embedded in Umbra, watching demons live ordinary lives that shattered every lie he’d been taught.

Her chest tightened with each word.

The flames crackled between them. Mathias’s voice stayed steady, recounting facts as though discussing someone else’s life. No excuses. No justifications. Just the truth, laid bare like a wound.

When he finished, silence settled over the clearing.

Seraphina’s hands curled into fists. Heat rushed through her veins, pulse hammering in her ears. The same hands that had tortured her—the same zealots who’d violated her, broken her—they’d raised him. Shaped him. Turned a grieving child into their weapon.

And she’d trusted him. Opened herself to someone who belonged to them.

Her tail lashed once against the frost-covered ground.

But beneath the anger, something else twisted. Relief that he sat there breathing, alive despite the bloodstains on his clothes. Gratitude that he’d turned on his own unit rather than let them reach her.

She looked at his face. The amber eyes that had watched her in Umbra’s markets. The careful distance he’d maintained even while seeking her company.

The wall between them had never been unfriendliness. It had been guilt.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

Mathias blinked.

Seraphina pushed to her feet and crossed the space between them. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into an embrace that made him stiffen.

“A complete, absolute idiot.” Her voice cracked. “Thirty years. It took you thirty years to see what was right in front of you.”

His breath hitched. Slowly, hesitantly, his arms came up to return the embrace.

“But you saw it.” She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. “You finally saw it. That has to count for something.”

“Sera—”

“Don’t.” She released him, settling back on her heels. “Don’t apologize again. I heard you the first three times.”

The anger still simmered beneath her ribs, hot and acidic. But it wasn’t directed at him anymore. Not really. The Flame had taken a traumatized seven-year-old and weaponized his grief, his self-loathing, his desperate need for purpose.

Mathias had been a victim long before he became a spy.

Lilith cleared her throat. “Well. Since everything appears to be resolved—shall we return to Umbra?”

Seraphina turned. The Empress stood, brushing frost from her clothes with one hand.

“Prepare yourself, Sera,” Lilith added.

“Now?” Seraphina straightened. “We’re leaving now?”

“I have mountains of paperwork waiting for me.” Lilith’s expression didn’t shift. “And I suspect Hugo over there will provide some interesting intelligence once he wakes.”

Seraphina hesitated. Her gaze drifted to the darkened forest beyond the firelight. Three settlements still waited—people who needed to hear about sanctuary, about hope, about a place where they wouldn’t spend every night fearing they might not wake up.

“I haven’t finished what I came here to do,” she said quietly.

Lilith studied her for a moment. “The Solarians won’t let you be. Not after their entire unit was annihilated.” She gestured at the bodies. “But if you wish to stay, I won’t stop you. Though I’ll be taking Mathias and the paladin with me. We have plenty of things to discuss.”

Mathias opened his mouth—then closed it.

Fibula shifted, robes rustling. “Go.” The skeleton’s voice carried no inflection. “I’ll tell the others you’re well.”

Seraphina looked at the figure who’d guided refugees for longer than she’d been alive. Who’d saved Mathias’s life without hesitation despite not knowing him.

“If I’m going,” Seraphina said slowly, “you should come too. See Umbra yourself. Then you’ll understand I wasn’t exaggerating.”

Lilith raised an eyebrow.

“If the Empress agrees, of course,” Seraphina added quickly.

“One more won’t make a difference.” Lilith’s lips curved slightly. “Though I draw the line at ferrying entire settlements.”

Fibula’s skull turned toward Seraphina. For several seconds, the skeleton said nothing.

“Fine,” Fibula muttered, bone fingers adjusting her hood. “But I’m not staying long.” The skeleton paused. “Also, if this turns out to be another ruin, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

Seraphina grinned. “You won’t regret it. I promise.”

Venali cleared his throat from across the fire. “If possible… I would like to join as well.”

Lilith’s gaze shifted to the elf. Amusement flickered across her features. “Not planning to gather intelligence on my empire, are you?”

“That is one of the reasons,” Venali admitted.

A laugh escaped Lilith—genuine, unguarded. “Fair enough. You can join us.”

She turned toward the group. “Everyone ready?”

Seraphina glanced at Mathias. He nodded once, exhaustion written in every line of his body.

“Ready,” Seraphina said.

Lilith began speaking—syllables that rolled and purred, vowels drawn out with breathy intensity. The language wrapped around Seraphina like silk against bare skin.

The forest vanished.

Stone replaced soil beneath her boots. Purple light bathed polished floors. Obsidian walls stretched upward into vaulted ceilings.

Seraphina’s knees wobbled. She caught herself against a nearby table.

Mathias staggered sideways. Fibula stood frozen, skull tilting upward toward the massive windows. Even Venali blinked rapidly, fingers flexing at his sides.

They stood in the Imperial Spire’s royal quarters.

Seraphina exhaled slowly, pulse still racing from the impossible transition. No warning. No sensation of movement. Just forest, then palace.

She straightened, meeting Lilith’s gaze. The Empress watched them with faint amusement.

“Welcome to Nocturne,” Lilith said.