She looked at the window.
Outside, through the gap in the curtains, the sky was the pale washed grey of early morning.
It was, objectively, not a remarkable sky.
She looked at it for a long time.
“Can we go to an actual ocean?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Several.
I’ll take you to whichever one you like best.”
She turned back to him, and this time the thing in her expression had become the smile, quiet and genuine and a little wondering smile.
“Alright,” said Ingvild.
“Show me.”
He placed the Queen piece with both hands and a steadiness he felt in his chest as much as in his arms.
It was nothing like the rings.
The rings had been negotiations—with the Gears, with the lingering essence of their past wielders, with his own precision.
This was something else entirely.
The Queen piece was the highest-value in the set for a reason, and when it touched Ingvild’s sternum, there was no bargaining.
It simply recognized something and returned home.
The Devil’s transformation washed over her like a gentle incoming tide—not forceful, not overpowering, just complete.
He saw her soul’s frequency shift and settle, the current of sleeping sickness sputtering against the new framework of her reborn form before fading away, scattered, unable to cling to something that was no longer quite what it once sought.
The air in the hideout grew thick, charged with something ancient and restless.
He felt it before she did—a ripple in the fabric of reality, coiling low in her chest like a serpent stirring from a long sleep.
Then it erupted.
A shockwave of raw, untamed power burst from her body, hurling furniture across the room and cracking the stone floor beneath her feet.
Dust and debris spiraled outward in a violent ring.
He braced himself, boots sliding back an inch before he dug in, muscles locked against the force.
But he didn’t flinch.
His hand rose in an instant, fingers tracing a sharp arc through the air.
Dimension Lost answered his call—a shimmering sphere of folded space expanding around them both, swallowing the blast before it could reach the outside world.
The bubble hummed, distorting light and sound, containing the surge within a pocket of null reality.
Outside, the underworld terrain remained blissfully unaware.
No alarms.
No intruding eyes.
No witnesses.
The shockwave subsided.
She stood in the center of her room in the barrier, trembling, eyes wide and unseeing.
She was startled and a little afraid.
“What is happening?”
“It’s just your Sacred Gear awakening,” he said, voice calm but edged with quiet authority.
“Just let go.
As long as I am here, you will not be harmed.”
She held his gaze, searching for a lie.
Finding none, she exhaled—and surrendered.
The power rolled through her in waves, less violent now, more like a tide finding its rhythm.
He watched, ready to intervene, but she rode it out.
Minutes passed.
Maybe longer.
Then, like a storm retreating to sea, it withdrew, leaving her hollow and strangely full at once.
The barrier dissolved into fog.
They were back.
The underworld hideout.
Quiet stone walls.
The faint hum of old wards.
She looked at her hands.
Turned them over.
No glow.
No tremor.
But something had shifted—deep in her marrow, in the spaces between her thoughts.
Then she looked at him.
Then at the window, where the pale grey sky was just beginning to consider turning gold.
“Oh,” she said, quietly.
“Yes,” he said.
And in that single syllable, she understood: the world had just drawn a new line, and she was standing on the other side of it.
She sat up slowly, carefully, with the focused caution of someone rediscovering the rhythms their body once knew.
Each movement was intentional, as though she were mapping the limits of her own skin.
He stayed nearby but didn’t move to assist; she hadn’t asked, and she needed space.
Space to absorb the weight of what had happened.
Space to remember how to feel like herself again.
She made it upright.
Her hands gripped the edge of the mattress, knuckles pale, then relaxed.
She looked at the window for a long moment—at the pale rectangle of light cutting through the gloom.
“Can we open that?” she asked.
He crossed the room without a word and drew the curtains apart.
The morning came in—pale and cold and entirely real.
Light spilled across the stone floor, across the rumpled sheets, across her face.
Ingvild Leviathan, the new Queen, sat in the bed and turned her face toward it.
She closed her eyes.
She breathed.
He stood to one side, arms loose at his sides, and said nothing.
He let her have it.
The silence stretched, not uncomfortable—more like a held breath.
“Do you know what kind of Sacred Gear it is?” she asked, not opening her eyes.
“I have a vague idea,” he replied, his voice low and careful.
She was quiet for another moment.
Then: “It’s related to oceans and singing.”
A pause.
Then, soft and warm: “I cannot think of anything better that might suit you.”
He was smiling.
She could hear it in his voice.
The blush came fast and furious—creeping up her neck, flooding her cheeks, burning at the tips of her ears.
Ingvild turned sharply, hiding her face against the cold glass of the window, the morning light painting her silhouette gold.
This was going to be a beautiful journey.
She pressed her forehead to the pane, let the chill ground her, and whispered to the sky outside:
“I am calling it Nereid Kyrie.”
And somewhere, distantly, the sea answered.
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