Montgomery often lingered in Schwartzgrad's graveyard devoted to the heroes of the motherland. The old motherland. Perhaps because he found a natural kinship with the dead. A bullet fired, set in motion by a traitorous friend, had robbed him of his leg. A second bullet, this time fired from an admirable enemy, had left Montgomery wheelchair bound.

Despite this, unlike the men buried around him, he had revived twice. Providence ensured he would continue to persist as the living dead. Using the cranks on both ends of his handles, Montgomery rolled to a stopped in front of where Friedhold rested. There was not even a name on the stone, just a simple block on the earth.

Above his head, a dark sky rendered its judgment on Montgomery through a singular crack of thunder. A little rain did not bother him as it pattered against his black coat. He reached up removing his spectacles.

"Well, old friend. Here we are, after so long. As I promised."

As usual, Friedhold did not answer. His spirit had long departed from the world. Freed at last from its tyranny. Even in the gloom of the cemetery, the torch he had lit burned brightly in Montgomery's eyes.

"The edge of oblivion is beautiful, but it is the dawn, I wish to see." He looked up at the sky, feeling the drops of rain on his cheeks. "Fate won't release me, Varrick. And I am so very tired."

Heavy footsteps announced the arrival of fate. A labored breath confirmed it was Saeoth, who cast a long shadow of her chosen lord. Draped in a heavy white cloak, only her piercing, bloody eyes peered out from the darkness. What was concealed beneath was a vestigial body, the chrysalis for what she sought to become after so many centuries. The unknowable face of the Valkyrurian old lords, who brought the spear to Europa and crushed it beneath the weight of their so-called civilization.

In her thirst for extinction, Saeoth had consumed their last surviving legacy. A rotting Valkyrurian princess chained in the dark, transformed into a terrible weapon to render judgment upon a world that had rejected their rule. What emerged from that tomb was no longer Saeoth, and yet was still Saeoth. Her hate, remained unaltered.

Broken wings of clear crystal flexed, causing the cloak to flutter as she lurched forward. "Do not weep for yourself, my beloved." Saeoth reached him, sinking to her knees to alleviate their aching. "For you are so beautiful to me… hallowed Lord of Crows." She placed her broken hands on his withered cheeks, the two staring into each other's eyes. "You… You are the sole inheritor of my progenitor's legacy. Forgive me, I've forced upon you a terrible burden "

Montgomery touched her gnarled hand. "Why did you choose me? No lies this time."

"Because." Saeoth paused, swallowing, and in doing so, a crystal protruded through a piece of skin around her throat. "We're both the living wounds of Europa. Echoes of the cannonades unleashed in the name of those called themselves her master." Her head lowered until she rested on his lap. It was heavy, like an artillery shell, but he cradled it all the same.

"I forgive you," he said, running his fingers along the broken ridges of her scalp. "The power I coveted was that to mold matter and mind like wet clay." Montgomery laughed, solemnly. "I should have expected a Jotunn to answer my prayer."

Saeoth's lips peeled back, creating a twisted grin beneath the cloth obscuring her face. "Fret not, our road is fast approaching its final fork. This wretched form will not hold me much longer…" She coughed. "But when Max marches again, I intend to meet Selvaria as what she can never be…"

Montgomery could only guess at what she meant. His finger circled where an ear once would have been. "Thank you, Sae—"

"Please, that is the name of a slave." Saeoth reared upward. Her size was menacing, but he felt no fear as she leaned forward. The syllables, she whispered, caused Montgomery's fingernails to numb and a dark welt to form on the center of chest, just above his heart. From it, scars bubbled out of his skin like a spider's web.

He sat dumbfounded only for the moment. Squeezing the arms of his wheelchair, Montgomery nodded. "It is… a regal name. Fit for a monarch or a… fool." He exhaled sharply, returning his glasses to his face. "Once more than, comrade? Shall we stand against the cursed sun?"

Saeoth walked behind him, placing both claws on the wheelchair's back. "As always, my love. For a future without a past and a Europa without the Valkyrur."