The ruins whispered.
Stone bled beneath them, carved by centuries of agony and fire. The dark corridor they had entered was no passage—it was a tomb. Of memory. Of oaths. Of gods who had bled just as mortals did.
Kael walked in silence, his blade sheathed but his hand still stained with the remnants of the last battle. The stench of shadowblood clung to him. He didn't try to wipe it off. Let it stay. Let it mark him. Let it brand him as one who had seen the end and walked away with it still burning in his chest.
Elyra moved beside him, her flames dim but pulsing—like a dying heart still too furious to stop. She hadn't spoken since the last scream had faded from the battlefield. The silence wasn't avoidance—it was survival. Words were brittle in moments like this. They shattered when you tried to use them.
And behind them, Vespera trailed like a wraith with steel for bones and fire for breath. Her eyes were on everything. The walls. The shadows. Them. Always watching, calculating. Her presence was not comfort. It was consequence.
They reached the shattered altar at the end of the corridor—an ancient chamber beneath a ruined dome, lit only by the trembling flicker of Elyra's inner flame. Broken sigils curled along the stone like old scars. The fresco above them depicted a world that no longer existed. A sky unfractured. A sea unstained by godblood. Hope rendered in color long since faded.
Vespera stood at its edge for a moment, her eyes unreadable.
Then she turned and disappeared into the darker halls beyond.
Silence fell.
Kael sat heavily on a step near the altar, his jaw clenched, every movement tight with something too brittle to name. Elyra stood near him, unmoving.
"You're bleeding," she said at last, voice barely a breath.
He didn't look at her. "From which wound?"
Her lips twitched—not quite a smile. She knelt before him, her hand ghosting near his arm. "Let me."
He flinched—not from the touch itself, but from how gentle it was. It was a thing he had forgotten. A relic of another life.
Her fingers brushed the blood at his wrist. He didn't stop her.
"I hate this place," she murmured.
"Me too."
She looked up then. Her eyes burned—not bright, not blinding. But constant. "Not just the Pale Flame. All of it. The war. The lies. The gods that left us behind."
Kael's gaze met hers, unflinching. "We're what's left."
Her hand stayed on his arm, and for a moment, neither of them breathed. The weight of everything they'd done, everything they'd lost, pressed down like the ruins around them. And still, her fingers didn't move.
"You're still shaking," she said softly.
"So are you."
He reached up, slowly, cupping her cheek. The touch wasn't confident. It wasn't clean. It was fractured and hesitant. But she leaned into it.
"Tell me not to," he whispered.
But Elyra didn't speak.
Instead, she kissed him.
It wasn't careful. It wasn't orchestrated or delicate. It was messy, desperate, and real. Lips that trembled. Breath that caught. Teeth that clashed. Their pain became pressure, became heat, became hunger.
His hands moved to her back, dragging her closer. Her body folded into his like she belonged there, like the ruin around them had been built for this collapse.
Armor shifted. Buckles scraped. Clothing became an afterthought. Elyra straddled his lap, her hands tangling in his hair, mouth devouring his like he was the first breath after drowning.
"I shouldn't," she gasped between kisses.
"Neither should I."
But gods help them, they couldn't stop.
Elyra pulled back, just enough to look at him. "You want this?"
He didn't answer with words. He kissed her again—slow this time. Reverent. Like she was the last beautiful thing in a world gone to ash.
And then he laid her back across the stone altar, gently now, like the fury had burned out and left nothing but truth.
He kissed every scar. Every breath. Her skin was fire under his lips, and yet he needed more. She arched beneath him, her fingers threading into his hair, her thighs parting with a silent invitation that needed no words.
He entered her with a groan, and the world tilted.
It wasn't rushed. It wasn't violent. It was the kind of joining that broke and mended at once. Her gasp was the sound of surrender. His was the sound of awe. Every motion was a prayer. Every thrust, a confession.
They moved together like storms colliding. No rhythm but the one they made. No light but the one they summoned from each other. It was raw. It was sacred. Her hips rose to meet him, her body clenching around him like she'd known him for a thousand lifetimes.
He whispered her name against her collarbone.
She cried his into the hollow of his throat.
They shattered together.
Not once. But again. And again. And again.
And when it was done, when the ruin had quieted and their breath was the only thing echoing through the darkness, Kael collapsed beside her.
They lay tangled together. Naked. Quiet. Alive.
Elyra's fingers traced a line down his chest.
"Still terrified?" she whispered.
He nodded. "But I'd walk through fire for it again."
Her head rested on his shoulder. "Then don't let go. Not yet."
And Kael didn't.
He held her.
Even as the storm rumbled beyond the ruins.
Even as Vespera returned, her boots silent on stone, her expression unreadable.
She paused only for a second, watching the two tangled in the aftermath of a moment the world had no right to witness.
And then she turned away.
Because she, too, had once known love.
And it had left her ashes.