The cracked monolith yawned open like the mouth of a god swallowing its secrets. Shadow and flame poured from the fissure, swirling together into a vortex of color and chaos.
Selene hesitated on the threshold. The heat kissed her skin, the energy prickling along her bond mark, which now curled across her collarbone like a dark vine rooted in her soul.
Kieran extended his hand toward her, eyes unwavering. "There's no turning back after this."
She stared at his hand—strong, scarred, steady—and then into his face, where danger and devotion danced like twin flames.
"No one ever really turns back," she said softly. "They just live pretending they never crossed the line."
She took his hand.
The moment their fingers touched, the rift roared to life.
It wasn't just a step—they were pulled through.
Light vanished.
Sound folded in.
And then—nothing.
Not darkness. Not silence. But absence.
Like the world had stopped remembering them.
Then suddenly, they were standing on solid ground—but it wasn't Aelreth.
It wasn't any place Selene had ever seen.
The sky was torn in halves: one side a burning crimson, the other a deep, unnatural void. The ground beneath them pulsed like a living heart, veins of glowing runes threading through black stone.
All around them, ruins of a forgotten civilization towered like bones of giants. Statues with no eyes. Temples without names. And in the distance, an obsidian throne suspended in mid-air—glowing with the same eerie light as the mark on Selene's skin.
Kieran let out a slow breath. "The Rift."
Selene looked around, awe and dread curdling in her gut. "This place… it was built for the bond."
"No," Kieran said, his voice low. "It was born from it."
A sudden shriek split the air, and figures emerged from the broken temples—wraith-like beings wrapped in cloaks of shattered light and darkness. Not demons. Not spirits.
But reflections.
Each one wore the face of a lover. A betrayer. A version of themselves.
Selene's blood chilled. "They're… us."
Kieran reached for his dagger, the shadows already curling around him like armor. "They're what we could become—if we let the bond consume us."
One of the wraiths stepped forward—her face on its head, but twisted, hollow-eyed, grinning with cruelty.
"He will leave you like they all do."
Selene flinched.
Another wraith—Kieran's reflection—laughed darkly. "You'll burn her to the ground, just like your ancestors did."
Kieran growled low in his throat. "They're feeding off our doubts."
Selene raised her hand. Fire surged from her fingertips—clean, pure, angry. "Then let's give them something else to feast on."
Together, they stepped into battle—bonded not just by obsession, but by choice.
By fight.
By flame and shadow and the refusal to be broken by what tried to define them.
As the first wraith lunged, Selene met it with a blast of fire, and Kieran struck like a blade in the dark.
And in that moment, they weren't destroyers.
They were defiers.
And the Rift trembled under the weight of what they might become.
---