Strongest Incubus System

The girl remained restrained between Ingrivid and Ester, but the surprise on her face disappeared quickly. She returned to a neutral expression, closing her eyes for an instant as she adjusted her posture. Damon noticed the effort. Seraphine would not have sent an unprepared agent to remain alone inside an enemy mansion. The girl had been trained to resist pain, poison, pressure, and questioning, but she had not expected him to identify the map’s activation without touching it. That brief reaction had already given Damon something he needed: certainty that Seraphine did not know every limit of the Heavenly Ice Body.

"Ingrivid, check whether she has another containment mark," Damon said, keeping his eyes on the white plate. "I do not want to discover during the interrogation that her memories can be destroyed."

The agent laughed without humor as Ingrivid moved her away from the desk.

"You learned quickly for someone who spent half the year asleep."

"I had plenty of time to think," Damon replied. "You had plenty of time to prepare poisons, and you still lost all of them."

Ester removed the blade attached to the girl’s belt and began examining the seams of her clothing. She found two needles, a flexible blade strapped to the forearm, a small tube containing white powder, and a coin cut in half. Elizabeth picked up the coin with a cloth and examined the symbols engraved on its inner surface.

"An encrypted message," she said. "The other half is probably with someone outside the mansion."

Damon finally stepped away from the plate and looked at the agent.

"Name."

She did not answer.

"Seraphine left you here to die if you were discovered. Elias had poison and a mark prepared to destroy his own memories. I imagine you have something similar."

Her face did not change, but Ester found the answer several seconds later. She moved aside the tied hair and revealed a very small symbol behind the girl’s right ear, drawn on the skin with greenish ink.

"A rupture mark," Ester said. "If someone activates it remotely, it could cause bleeding inside the skull."

Morgana stiffened.

"Can it be removed?"

"Perhaps. Not here, and not quickly."

The agent gave a small smile.

"Then you have little time."

Damon walked toward her without hurry. The difference in height between them was small, but the situation made the girl appear even younger. That did not confuse him. He had already seen children used as keys, hostages, and tools. Seraphine knew how to turn appearance into protection.

Damon would not fall for it again.

"Little time for what?" he asked. "To ask your name or prevent your death?"

"To open the map."

"You seem very concerned about a choice that, according to you, I would make anyway."

The remark struck again. The agent glanced toward the plate for less than a second. Damon followed the movement and understood that the map required something beyond cold. The blue vial spread across its surface had not been enough. His presence had not been enough either.

There was a third step.

"She needed me to touch it," Damon concluded.

No one answered immediately. Elizabeth watched the agent, waiting for another reaction. The girl remained silent, but she could no longer hide everything.

Damon returned to the desk.

"Activating it from a distance showed only one line. The beginning of the mountain. If I touched it, the map would complete the image."

"Do not touch it," Ester repeated, more firmly this time.

"I will not."

The agent exhaled through her nose.

"You think you can reach the fortress without accepting the connection. You cannot. The map does not show roads. It shows memories. It needs to pass through your consciousness."

Damon looked at her.

"Finally, a useful answer."

"That was not an answer. It was a warning."

"They came from the same mouth. I will use it either way."

Aria approached the plate without crossing the distance Damon had marked. She examined the wood, the broken vial, and the black line that had completely disappeared.

"If the map uses memories, it may be connected to Xue Lian’s preserved consciousness."

"Or to whatever remains of her," Nera said from the doorway.

Everyone turned.

She was in shackles, accompanied by two guards. Morgana frowned at Ingrivid, but the knight explained before the reprimand came.

"I ordered Nera removed from the prison as soon as the attack began. The cell was no longer secure."

Nera looked at the white plate and lost her usual controlled expression for an instant. She took two steps closer before the guards stopped her.

"The Tomb of the First Snow," she murmured. "This is the first real fragment I have seen."

The agent stared at Nera with immediate hatred.

"Traitor."

Nera answered without changing her tone.

"You are twelve years old and had three hidden poisons. Do not speak to me about loyalty."

"I am seventeen."

"That makes your situation worse, not better."

Damon looked from Nera to the agent.

"Do you know each other?"

Nera examined the girl’s face and then the mark behind her ear.

"Not personally. But I recognize the training. A disciple of Caelis Vorn. He usually chooses children without families, breaks their identities, and rebuilds them into something useful."

The agent’s jaw tightened.

Damon noticed.

"Did your name come before or after the training?"

Silence.

"Does Seraphine call you by a name or a function?"

The girl tried to break free from Ingrivid. She failed. The reaction was small, but far stronger than any response to the previous threats.

Nera understood.

"He is right."

"Quiet," the agent said.

Damon remained in front of her.

"Elias knew he would be discarded. You still believe you are different. Seraphine left you inside a surrounded mansion with a mark capable of killing you from a distance, waiting for me to touch the map. If it worked, she gained the route. If it failed, she lost a disciple no one knew existed."

"You do not know what she promised me."

"Then tell me."

The agent closed her eyes. Her resistance no longer appeared to be only training. There was conviction in it.

Fear as well, buried beneath too many layers.

"She promised to give me back my name."

The sentence was quiet, but everyone heard it.

Damon did not answer immediately. The information was strange, but concrete. Caelis Vorn destroyed identities. Seraphine used that absence to control agents, promising to return something she might have stolen herself.

"What name does she use now?" Elizabeth asked.

The girl opened her eyes.

"Iris."

"Is that your real name?" Damon asked.

"It is the name I earned."

Nera released a tired breath.

"Then it is not."

Iris tried to lunge at her, but Ingrivid tightened her hold on the girl’s arms. Damon raised one hand to stop the situation before it turned into pointless provocation.

"Seraphine will not give you anything back," he said. "She will activate that mark as soon as she realizes you were captured."

Iris smiled.

"Then ask your questions while you still can."

"No. First, we remove the mark."

Ester looked at Damon.

"I said it might be possible, not that it would be safe."

"Can you keep her stable while Nera helps?"

Nera had not expected to be included.

"I am not a healer."

"But you know Vorn’s methods."

"I know some of them."

"Then you are already more useful than standing there watching."

Ester examined the symbol behind Iris’s ear again.

"If I interrupt the mark’s flow without knowing the key, it may activate. I need somewhere to discharge it."

Damon looked at the white plate.

The answer came before he could dismiss it.

"Use my root."

Ester slowly turned her face toward him.

"No."

"Not to open the map. To absorb the discharge."

"You only just recovered some control, and now you want to connect your root to a mark created by Caelis Vorn."

"I want to prevent Seraphine from killing the only agent who knows how the frame works."

"There is a difference between protagonism and suicidal tendencies."

"I did not say it would be safe."

"That sentence never helps."

Damon approached the agent and examined the mark. The energy inside it was small, compressed, and prepared to rupture all at once. It did not resemble the Heart. It was a human mechanism, created to destroy.

That made the risk easier to understand.

"If the discharge is glacial, I can absorb it," he said. "If it is not, I cut it off before it reaches the root."

Ester crossed her arms.

"With which lock? The one that broke in the mine?"

Damon looked at his own hand.

"With the body."

"That is not a technique."

"Not yet."

Nera approached as closely as the guards allowed.

"It could work. Vorn’s mark uses artificial cold to paralyze the brain before the rupture. If Damon pulls only that layer away, Ester can cut the rest."

"Could," Ester repeated. "Another excellent word for funerals."

Iris looked at Damon as though he were more incomprehensible than dangerous.

"Why would you do this?"

"Because I want your answers."

"Is that all?"

"I also want to see Seraphine’s face when she discovers another one of her pieces did not die as planned."

Iris remained silent.

Morgana approached Damon.

"You decide the risk to your body, but not alone. Ester sets the limit. If she says you cannot continue, you stop."

Damon nodded.

"Agreed."

Ester did not appear satisfied, but she began preparing the procedure. She ordered Iris taken to the center of the room, away from the plate, and told the guards to bring a wooden chair. Nera explained the symbols used by Vorn while Ester drew three containment lines around the mark. Elizabeth removed every piece of metal from the area. Aria recorded each step, even though her hands were tense.

Damon sat behind Iris. Ester positioned his left hand near the mark without allowing direct contact and tied his wrist with a strip covered in stone powder.

"You pull only the surface cold," she said. "Nothing beyond that. If you feel pressure inside the root, let go."

"Understood."

"If you hear the Heart, let go."

"Understood."

"If the plate reacts, let go."

Damon looked at the frame on the other side of the room.

"That was specific."

"Because your life has a tendency to connect problems that should remain separate."

Iris took a deep breath. For the first time, she appeared genuinely afraid.

Damon spoke close enough for her to hear.

"Do not move."

"If this fails, I die."

"Then we have the same incentive."

Ester began.

The first symbol went dark when she pressed two fingers against the base of Iris’s neck. The green mark glowed. Damon felt a line of artificial cold escape the girl’s skin and advance toward his hand. He pulled slowly, without using the root as a source of force. He merely allowed the Heavenly Ice Body to receive the temperature.

The pain came immediately afterward.

It was not intense, but it was sharp. The artificial cold tried to climb his arm and find the center of his chest. Damon closed the meridian in his shoulder, diverting the discharge toward his skin. Fine crystals appeared over his fingers.

"It is climbing," Ester said.

"I know."

"Let go."

"Not yet."

"Damon."

"The mark is still active."

Nera watched the pattern.

"Two more seconds. The second circle is losing color."

Ester cursed but kept the cut prepared.

The white plate vibrated.

Damon felt it.

The cold received from the mark recognized the map, and a black line appeared again. This time, it did not show only the outline of the mountain. A blue point appeared at the base, followed by a narrow passage drawn through the stone.

Iris opened her eyes.

"That should not be happening."

Damon kept his hand steady.

"I have been hearing that often."

The mark behind her ear cracked.

Ester cut the flow.

Damon pulled his hand back at the same instant. The remaining discharge exploded into a thin layer of ice across the floor without reaching his root. Iris fell forward, breathing with difficulty, but alive. The green mark had disappeared, leaving only a small scar.

Ester seized Damon’s wrist and examined the circulation.

"You allowed it to climb too far."

"But we cut it."

"You allowed it to climb too far."

"Record the complaint."

She pressed exactly where it hurt.

Damon took a deep breath.

"Recorded."

Everyone turned toward the plate.

The map did not disappear.

The black mountain remained drawn over the white background, with the blue passage crossing its base. In the lower corner, ancient symbols formed a sentence. Nera approached and read it slowly.

"The first door does not open for the heir. It opens for the one who rejects the inheritance."

The room became quiet.

Damon looked at the sentence and then at Iris, who was still trying to recover her breath. Saving one of Seraphine’s agents instead of sacrificing her for answers had activated part of the map. It had not been blood, power, or obedience.

It had been a decision contrary to the method everyone expected from him.

Nera stared at Damon.

"The trial has already begun."

He rose slowly and walked toward the plate. This time, Ester did not need to tell him not to touch it. Damon maintained his distance, studying the blue passage that now pointed toward a place different from the mines of Arven.

Aria quickly compared the image with the regional maps.

"That mountain range is not in the north."

Elizabeth approached.

"Where is it?"

Aria turned the map and examined the contours.

"Much farther away. Beyond the eastern borders, perhaps past the known human territories."

Damon felt the cold inside his chest stabilize. The fortress was not beneath Arven. The Heart was only a resonance key, not the final destination.

Iris raised her head.

"Seraphine believes the path begins in the mines."

"She is wrong," Damon said.

"She is never wrong."

"She just lost you."

The agent became quiet.

Damon looked at Morgana.

"The transfer continues today. The children and Nera will travel by separate routes. Iris stays in Arven, hidden and under protection. Publicly, she died during the attempt."

Morgana understood.

"Seraphine will believe the mark worked."

"And she will continue believing the map did not open."

Elizabeth looked at the blue route.

"While we follow the true path."

Damon shook his head.

"Not yet. First, we finish Arven."

Everyone looked at him.

Damon touched his own chest, feeling the root remain quiet. For weeks, every discovery had created a new urgency. That was exactly how Seraphine guided him.

He would not repeat the pattern.

"Havelock, Vara, Maeve, the internal agents, the Council, and the mines all need to be dealt with," he said. "I will not abandon Morgana with half a war still open to chase a distant mountain."

Morgana held his gaze.

"The fortress may be the only way to control the Heart."

"Then we will buy time. We close the mines, destroy the bells, remove the children, and make Seraphine lose her network in Arven. When I leave, she will have no one here to threaten."

Ester crossed her arms.

"And you will be recovered."

"Perhaps."

"You will."

Damon accepted with a small nod.

Then he looked back at the map. The blue passage crossed the mountain and ended before a door drawn in black. Above it, another sentence began appearing one letter at a time, as though the plate still responded to his presence.

This time, Nera did not need to translate it.

Damon understood it directly.

The cold that chooses its own path cannot be chained.

He read in silence, feeling something inside him recognize those words without obeying them. Perhaps it was Xue Lian. Perhaps it was the root. Perhaps it was only his own decision finally taking shape.

Seraphine believed Damon would follow the map because he would not resist his curiosity.

She was partially right.

He would follow it.

But only after destroying everything she had built in Arven.

And when he reached the Tomb of the First Snow, he would not arrive as a successor, a tool, or a key.

He would arrive as Damon.