The Gate of Kal’Tas loomed ahead, its pilrs rising from the earth as if they tethered the mountain to the heavens. Carved into the mountainside, its massive doors stood twice the height of any fortress Zeek had ever seen. Statues of angelic guardians lined the path, wings unfurled, eyes carved into eternal judgment; he could almost see them twitching at the edges of his periphery. The wind here howled through the pass, catching the banners and prayer ribbons tied to the stone pilrs in frantic snaps.

  Zeek stood beside the lead cart, his fingers tracing the worn grip of his dagger. His gaze was fixed on the guards moving between caravans—dressed in cream and gold, their helmets topped with halos, their spears tipped with silver.

  “We’ll need to take the subtle approach,” Zeek muttered.

  Verris scoffed beside him, arms crossed. "Subtle? When’s the st time we did anything subtle?"

  “This isn’t about preference," Amon said quietly from the back of the cart, hood drawn low over his face. "If they see who I am, the gates won’t open."

  “Worse,” Zeek added, “they might call for the inquisition. Estus doesn’t take kindly to bloodlines from Kemet."

  Verris grumbled. "So, what, we just dress him up like a trader and hope for the best?"

  Heka appeared then, silent as a shadow, her smoke curling from beneath the hood of her traveling cloak.

  “No,” she said. “We simply make him someone else.”

  Amon looked at her, amusement fshing across his face. "And how, pray tell?"

  “Smoke and mirrors,” she said, “as the magicians like to pretend.”

  “Parlor tricks?” Zeek shifted uncomfortably. “This isn’t the time for sleight-of-hand.”

  “Simpletons,” she spat, “You are in the presence of a Shu-Ra, hold your tongue!”

  She pced a hand on Amon, tracing from the top of his hood down to his chest, the smoke curled up his neck and around his face like a whispering veil. For but a moment, it shimmered, then settled into pce, reshaping the angles of his jaw, dulling the fire in his eyes, turning him into someone else—still regal, still composed, but unrecognizable.

  The guards began shouting, calling forward the next cart for inspection. Their moment had arrived.

  Inside the canvas-covered wagon, Amon sat in silence, hood drawn, face altered. Heka leaned slightly against him before melting into his garments, hiding his frame as much as her presence would allow. Zeek and Verris waited near the front of the cart, prepared to intervene if things went south.

  Two guards approached. One was younger, cautious. The other older, gruff, eyes sharp as a razor’s edge.

  “State your names and intent,” the older one barked.

  “Trade and pilgrimage,” the old hunter replied smoothly. “Grain, fabric, and skins for the markets. Seeking Estus’ grace and gold.”

  The older guard moved toward the cart, eyes shifting between Zeek and Verris before lifting the fp.

  “Travelers?” he asked, eyes scanning the shadows.

  “Holy pilgrims,” Verris said. “Seeking divine forgiveness. Sins upon sins.”

  The guard frowned, stepping closer. "Lift your head," he said, eyeing Amon.

  Amon flinched but didn’t move.

  “Now."

  The smoke thickened subtly as Amon lifted his head.

  The guard stared, squinting at the altered face. A brief pause seemed to go on for an eternity as tension rose like floodwater. Amon held a dull look, his ft expression looking through the guard entirely.

  “…Looks sick,” the guard muttered. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Desert fever,” Zeek said coolly. “Healing slowly. He hasn’t spoken much.”

  The younger guard hesitated. The older one lingered, suspicion spreading across his face like frost on gss. Anxiety seemed to dance in the air with each passing second. His hand moved slowly toward the edge of the hood.

  Heka’s smoke coiled inward for just a heartbeat—transparent daggers forming just behind the guards.

  “Sir,” the younger guard interrupted, pointing toward another wagon that had begun to drift off course.

  The older one hesitated, staring at Amon for a moment longer, then grunted. “Fine. Move along.” The daggers disappeared in a silent breeze.

  They stepped aside, rushing towards the wagon that had left the path.

  As the wagon rolled past the gates, the group let out a collective sigh, allowing the stress to dissipate.

  They barely made it a hundred feet past the checkpoint before the chaos began.

  Screams echoed down the stone corridor. Another caravan had been set upon—figures in tattered robes lunging from the shadows with daggers drawn and chants on their lips. One screamed a guttural prayer in a long-forgotten tongue.

  “Cultists,” Zeek muttered through clenched teeth. “They found us.”

  Verris drew Regalia with a grin. “Finally.”

  The attackers were scattered but rabid. Cattle ran in all directions, people following suit, fleeing as a wave of recognition sweep down the wagon train. Guards scrambled toward the assaints, allowing time for a horn to bellow through the mountain pass. A silence fell in the horn’s wake, mere moments before the metallic cng of weapons cshing filled the air.

  Zeek’s jaw went sck.

  The angelic statues lining the road to the gate began to shake, tremors cracking their exterior to reveal pale, radiant skin underneath. One by one the marble angels awoke from their slumber, wielding weapons of all varieties, before taking flight toward the would-be intruders. One cultist let out a yelp before he was id low under the weight of an angel’s Warhammer. Still, there were too many for so few angels to restrain in so little time.

  They broke through.

  Regalia drank deep, growing its crimson shell as Verris crushed the first cultist’s ribs. Zeek’s daggers fshed as he dropped into the fray, disarming two and crippling a third. Amon and Heka stayed close, her smoke erupting into bck arrows that pierced through the air with blood-curdling screams. Amon gripped a scythe as bck as night, fashioned from Heka’s essence, swinging in rge arcs, rending the bodies of those in its wake.

  The guards we finally finding their footing as the angels continued their assault, forming a phanx of tower shields that burned like molten steel. As the rabid attackers became more desperate to reach their mark, they threw themselves on the guards’ burning shields, allowing more of their number to climb over, like a wave of bodies crashing against a wall before overcoming it entirely. Their eyes were bloodshot, mouths nearly foaming, as they trample the fallen guards who’d colpsed under the weight of their scorched comrades. One knight fought, swinging his sword wildly as the cultists rushed past before one stopped to wrench his arm from its socket. The knight shrieked for but a moment before his wild-eyed assaint bit his neck, tearing his throat open, then left him, motionless, pursuing Amon with singur focus.

  Heka, seeing that knight’s demise, eyed his killer with malicious rage. She remembered her st encounter with them, and the beast within her stirred, banging against the restraints she’d only recently forged to keep herself in check. Her eyes filled with bckness, smoke falling from them like a stream of bloody tears; she was losing control. Her breath quickened as she tried to gain a hold of herself, creating an opening in her defenses.

  It happened in an instant.

  The rabid man gred at Heka with hungry, greedy eyes. A manic hysteria had covered the man entirely, his expression a mixture of rage, adoration, and madness. He twisted her wrist to near breaking, smiling wildly. He opened his mouth to take a feverish bite out of her shoulder, teeth gleaming, his maw two serrated rows of pointed teeth. He leaned in to tear into her flesh—

  Time shattered.Heat rolled off Amon like a second sun, both sweltering and inescapable. A white-hot blink of fme split the cultist from brow to belly, his open mouth but a breath away from Heka’s skin as fme erupted along the center of his face, a white-hot scythe nearly buried beneath him. One molten hand tore half of the man’s body away, throwing it aside before grabbing the other half and melting it into a boiling pile of molten flesh. Another cultist lunged, and the scythe sang across his gut, spilling singed and steam entrails before the feet of his assaint.

  Heka looked up to see Amon, it’s a molten orange glow, heat radiating from the golden lines etched into his flesh. His fmes pped at her wrist, cleansing where she had been restrained, and running across her neck.

  “Are you alright, my love?”

  “I…I’m sorry I…”

  His glowing hand wrapped around her waist and pulled her close, his other hand outstretched, forcing the scythe to spin forward, burning and tearing through their attackers as he defended his startled queen.

  “There is no need to apologize, my queen. I should have noticed sooner.” He ran his finger under her eyes, wiping away the smoke still streaming from the pitch-bck orbs he now saw staring back at him. “They will not separate us again,” he said smoothly.

  “Thank you, my king.”

  “And they will pay dearly for this bsphemy.”

  “Bsphemy?”

  “No man dare touch my queen and live.” With that, he summoned back the scythe, and walked into the fray, holding it aloft as if it was but a trinket in the hands of a giant.

  “Verris,” Zeek yelled, “We need to leave now!”

  Regalia was pulsating. A massive orb had former around her as she’d continued to devour more and more while Verris rampaged near-indiscriminately. The runes that stored her power were crackling as they held in pce the size of her head, crimson and covered in curved, protruding spikes and shards.

  “I’m busy,” Verris said, nearly consumed by Regalia’s bloodlust.

  “We need to go, Verris, Regalia can’t handle much more.”

  Recognition returned to his eyes as he looked at Regalia, resting heavily on the ground. Blood soaked his boots, his clothes, and spttered across his face; Regalia had still been drinking more and more as he’s crushed the bodies of anyone within spitting distance, forming a small mound of corpses around him.

  “Alright, I was losing interest anyway.” Verris moved the crackling runes around Regalia’s head to store what energy she’d been able to drink for their next encounter, her crimson shell dissipating before he pced her back on his hip.

  The fight was brief but brutal. By the time the guards regrouped, the attackers had either fallen or vanished into the cliffs.

  The party didn’t wait for questions. They vanished into the smoke and dust, slipping through the confusion with their path to Estus wide open.

  Whatever the cult had left behind—it wouldn’t stop here.

  The gates had opened.

  And the journey had only just begun.

  JP-Haseo