After returning to the palace, Serah wasted no time in informing her father, King Tharion, and her mother, Queen Seralyne, about the dire situation. Tharion took the news with an unnerving calmness, his tone casual—too casual for what had just been said. But Serah wasn't surprised. Her father had always been that way—cold, measured, and painfully indifferent to emotions. All he told her was simple, as though it was a routine order rather than the fate of his own son: "Do what must be done. Find your brother at all costs."

Queen Seralyne, however, took the news far differently. The shock in her eyes, the trembling of her lips—it all made the guilt in Serah's chest deepen like a blade twisting into her heart. Serah knew how close her mother and Galen were. Though the Queen loved all her children—Serah, Galen, and their younger sibling, Tharionson—there had always been something special between her and Galen, a bond that even Serah admired. He had always been the one to make her laugh, to ease her worries with his charm and warmth. Losing him, even the thought of it, must have torn her apart.

But even amidst her heartbreak, Queen Seralyne didn't allow Serah to drown in guilt. She never once blamed her daughter, even though Serah was the one who had sent Galen on the mission. Instead, she reached out to her with a tender hand and words filled with hope and quiet strength. "Bring him back, Serah," she said softly, her voice trembling yet firm. "Bring him home." That—those words—were what Serah needed to steady her mind. They became the anchor that kept her from falling apart.

Once the conversation with her parents ended, Serah immediately placed a hold on all her royal duties and shifted her entire focus toward finding Galen. She began by gathering the knights who had been with him on that mission—Fred, Ivar, and Lyra—to discuss everything they had experienced since arriving at the borders.

Their reports were strange from the very beginning. On the day of their arrival, they had expected to find at least a few demons lurking nearby—the mission report had clearly stated there had been multiple and continuous sightings of Advanced Horrors and even a few Gaia demons. Yet there had been none. Not a single one. The area was quiet, almost too quiet, and more unsettlingly, the townsfolk didn't seem frightened or even cautious.

For people who were supposedly surrounded by demon activity, they looked oddly unbothered, confused even, when the knights arrived. Fred mentioned that a few locals had asked why they were even there, as if they had no idea any demon threat existed. But being new to the field, none of them had thought too deeply about it.

Hearing all this made Serah's brow furrow. Something wasn't adding up. She recalled that when she and Zion arrived at the border just a day ago, the reaction from the locals had been eerily similar—stunned, uncertain, like people who didn't expect visitors at all. That prompted her to call Zion once more and have him give his full account of what he'd observed while stationed there to monitor Galen's team.

Zion's words confirmed her suspicion. He admitted he too found the lack of demon presence unusual. He had personally scouted the entire stretch between Darenville and Qeren and felt traces—faint, lingering energy signatures—of Advanced Horrors nearby, but never saw one. He'd initially assumed they were in hiding, but now, given the current situation, that explanation felt far too convenient.

Taking in every word, Serah's instincts screamed that something was deeply wrong. She ordered all the previous demon sighting reports to be brought to her for review. Hours passed as she combed through pages of records, cross-referencing dates, origins, and messenger logs. Then, with a few knights accompanying her, she visited both Darenville and Qeren in person, questioning locals about whether they had ever filed such reports.

The answers were consistent—and alarming. Every villager denied having made any report of demon sightings. And that made Serah's blood run cold. The entire reporting system in the kingdom followed a very strict chain of command. Citizens first reported issues to their district watchers, who then passed it to the city's local office, then onward to the Zonal Office. Only after the Zone officials deemed it beyond their control would it be escalated to the Kingdom's Headquarters. That process had to be followed. There was no skipping steps.

So if no one from these towns had ever made such reports… then how did those reports reach her desk?

Back at the Zonal Office, Serah demanded every official record of messages and requests sent to the main Headquarters within the past month. For two long hours, they dug through countless parchments and coded transmissions—until finally, they found the report that had triggered Galen's deployment.

And there it was—the truth hiding in plain sight. The report never went through the proper channels. The seal was forged, the authorization fake. Whoever created it had been meticulous, making it appear genuine at first glance but missing the faint traces of official encoding that only trained eyes could spot. Someone had planted a fabricated report inside the system itself.

Serah immediately ordered an investigation to track the culprit responsible for the forgery. For two days straight, her knights scoured every inch of the Zone, questioned every clerk, every courier—but there was nothing. No traces, no mistakes, no one missing or suspicious. Whoever did this had covered their tracks perfectly.

The whole thing had been executed with frightening precision. To forge such a report and leave no trail behind would've taken months of planning. Yet the question that gnawed at Serah's mind was how they had known that Galen would be sent on that particular mission. The odds were far too slim for coincidence. Unless someone within the capital itself had leaked deployment plans—a thought that chilled her blood.

If not, then this entire operation had been an enormous gamble. But who would gamble with such precision?

The more she thought, the less sense it made. But her doubts were soon shattered when new information reached her—two other Zones, 16 and 19, had also sent similar false reports to headquarters over the past month. That revelation cemented the horrifying truth.

This wasn't luck. This wasn't chance. Someone had crafted a web of deception with absolute certainty that Galen would respond to one of those reports. And tragically… he did.

***

Five days had passed since Galen's disappearance, and for Serah, each one felt heavier than the last. Despite her relentless efforts—endless interrogations, cross-checks, and scouting orders—she had found nothing, not even the faintest trace that could lead her to her brother. The palace halls had become her prison, her sleepless nights a punishment of their own making. Her eyes, once sharp and bright, now bore the weight of exhaustion, shadowed and dim. And still, she refused to give up.

Every moment without news twisted at her heart. Every report that ended in nothing found chipped away at her sanity. It had been five long days, and still, there wasn't a single whisper, a footprint, or a clue. The cruel stillness of it all made her imagination run wild—dark, unbearable thoughts creeping in no matter how much she tried to silence them. She pictured Galen hurt, captured, or worse… gone. But each time that thought tried to settle, Serah crushed it beneath the fierce flame of her will.

Even now, sitting behind her cluttered desk, that determination kept her upright. The room was a battlefield of parchment and ink—stacks of reports, sealed letters, torn maps, and messengers' logs spread across every surface. She leaned back in her chair, fatigue pulling at her muscles, yet her body refused the comfort of rest. Sleep would mean surrender, and Serah, the Phoenix of Solara did not surrender.

The moonlight spilled softly through her window, bathing the room in a pale silver hue. It glimmered across her figure, the faint light of night reflecting in her tired eyes. Her fingers brushed across a stack of unopened reports, trembling slightly from the strain of sleeplessness.

"Why can't I find anything?" she muttered under her breath, her voice quiet, yet raw with frustration. "Five days… five cursed days, and still nothing."

Her grip tightened around the armrest of her chair until the wood creaked beneath her hand. She closed her eyes, inhaling sharply, trying to force away the fury rising inside her—fury at herself, at whoever took her brother, and at the world for remaining silent.

In the dim stillness, her thoughts spiraled. She went over every step again and again, wondering what she had missed, what clue had slipped past her. If she only had someone—someone skilled in dark magic—they could trace lingering shadow energy, something ordinary myst users couldn't sense. But dark magic was not allowed in any form anymore.

Then it struck her.

She did know someone who could. Someone powerful enough to pierce through veils of shadow, to sense the faintest residue of dark myst even after days. Her heartbeat quickened as the name surfaced in her mind.

Marcus.

Her fingers twitched, reaching toward the comm-rune bracelet around her wrist. It glowed faintly with dormant blue light, ready to summon his rune channel with a single touch. But Serah froze halfway. Doubt crept into her.

Calling him meant danger. Marcus's existence need to be a secret—he was a dark mage after all. The Kingdom's enforcers would hunt him down in a heartbeat if they knew of him. And Serah couldn't bear the thought of putting him in that kind of danger. Not Marcus. Not the man she loved.

Her hand hovered over the rune, trembling in hesitation. The silence in her office grew thick, broken only by the distant call of a night bird beyond her window.

"Should I…?" she whispered, staring at the glowing band. Every rational thought screamed no—that she couldn't risk him, that she should find another way. But her heart whispered something else.

He would help her. He always would.

And as that thought sank in, Serah's hesitation melted into resolve. She tapped the rune.

A soft hum filled the air as faint sigils of communication illuminated her wrist. It only took a few blinks before the runes pulsed with life—Marcus had answered.

"Serah?"

She didn't waste a second. Her voice came out steady but low, heavy with both exhaustion and urgency.

"Can we meet up?"