The battlefield had gone silent.
Not the kind of silence that brings peace. No—this was the silence that came after. After the screaming. After the magic. After the breaking of gods and hearts.
Ash floated in the air like falling snow. The throne room—the Pale Flame's sanctum—was little more than broken stone and ghost-light. The ceiling had collapsed inwards, revealing a blood-moon sky that flickered, pulsed. A dying world.
Kael stood at the center of it all.
Barely upright. His body was cut and bruised and steaming from magic still clawing beneath his skin. The Starborn fire still crackled faintly in his veins, refusing to dim. Refusing to let him forget what he had become.
But none of that mattered.Not when she wasn't moving.
"Elyra."
His voice cracked. Raw. Unfiltered. Human, for once.
He dropped to his knees beside her, fingers trembling as he reached out—not to awaken her magic. Not to force her up like a soldier.
But to touch her. To remember she was real.
Her body was scorched from the blast that had ended the Pale Flame. Her chest rose and fell in tiny, shallow breaths. Her hair was matted with sweat and blood, streaked with starlight. Her lashes fluttered as if she dreamed of something far away—something softer than this cruel world had ever offered.
And Kael... Kael couldn't breathe.
Because in the ruins of gods and fire, he realized something far crueler than war.
He loved her.
Not in the way poets speak of. Not in the way children dream of. But in the way broken men fall when they finally understand what it means to need something more than vengeance.
To need someone.
And it terrified him.
"Elyra," he whispered again, brushing her cheek with the back of his fingers. "If you leave me now... I will burn this world until there's nothing left."
Her eyes opened slowly. Like a dawn hesitant to rise.
"You'd really do that?" she rasped. "Burn the world?"
Kael gave a broken laugh, his forehead dropping to hers. "For you? I'd tear down the stars."
Her hand found his. Weak, but alive. "Then maybe... don't tear down anything yet."
—
They sat there for a long time.
The throne room crumbled further, stone falling like forgotten memories. Vespera leaned against the far wall, silent, wounded—but watching with something cold and unreadable in her eyes. She didn't interrupt.
She knew better than to disturb this.
Kael's thumb traced over the edge of Elyra's jaw. Her lips were cracked. Her eyes still glowed faintly with flame. She looked like a goddess undone—and he had never seen anyone so beautiful.
"You scared the hell out of me," he murmured.
"Wouldn't be the first time," she smirked weakly. "Won't be the last."
"You almost died, Elyra."
"And you almost let yourself feel."
That cut deeper than any blade. Because it was true.
He had kept her at a distance for so long—wrapped in walls of steel and silence. He had told himself it was for protection. For focus. For the mission. But now, with her lying in his arms, bleeding and brilliant and alive, he saw what a lie that had been.
He hadn't been protecting her.
He'd been protecting himself.
Because loving her meant risking everything.
"I don't want to be afraid anymore," he said, his voice low. "Not of this. Not of you."
Her breath caught. "Then stop running."
He leaned in. Slowly. Carefully.
Like the world might break if he moved too fast.
But when their lips finally met, the world didn't shatter.
It healed.
Her mouth was warm and soft and real, and when she kissed him back, it wasn't gentle. It was fierce. Desperate. Like she had been waiting lifetimes for this.
Their hands found each other's scars. Their hearts, finally unclenched. And in that kiss—amidst the rubble and ruin—they made a vow deeper than any spoken in battle.
A vow not just of fire.
But of love.
Of home.
—
They lay together beneath the broken sky, bodies pressed close, sharing warmth in the cold.
"Kael," she whispered.
"Hm?"
"Next time you try to play the hero, I'm punching you in the throat."
He laughed—a full, wild sound he hadn't known he still had in him. "Deal. But only if you promise not to almost die again."
"No promises," she murmured, curling into him. "But if I do... I want it to be with you."
He held her tighter.
And for the first time in his life, Kael wasn't thinking about the war. Or vengeance. Or what came next.
He was just thinking about her.
—
But outside that throne room, the shadows moved again.
Watching. Listening.
And far to the north, a second fire was awakening.
Because while they had killed the Pale Flame...
They had not killed what he served.
Not yet.