The world flickered.
Lucien's body slammed against the stone pillar as the molten chains vanished. Blood dripped from his temple, but pain was distant—a ghost compared to the heartbreak burning inside him.
He looked up—through ash, through silence, through the cold fire of betrayal.
Aira stood with her back to him, arms spread wide. The sky bent around her, stars warping into red spirals.
She wasn't just powerful now.
She was absolute.
Kael groaned from where he lay, barely conscious. "Don't let her… become what she was never meant to be…"
Lucien crawled to his knees. "She's still in there. I felt it. I saw it."
"What you saw," said a voice from above, "was an illusion. The flame remembers no love."
Nyros stepped from the clouds, wings dark as void silk, crowned with shards of burning dusk. His eyes fixed on Lucien.
"You should have let her go."
Lucien stood shakily. "I won't."
His voice didn't waver.
His spine didn't bow.
Because love doesn't kneel to monsters.
Aira turned then—slowly, like a statue waking from sleep.
But there was something in her eyes.
Flickering.
Wavering.
Lucien took a step forward. "You saved me once. In the woods. When I was broken."
Another step. "You held me when the voices in my head told me I was nothing."
Another. "You are not his puppet. You are Aira. My Aira. The girl who feared the dark but danced with fire anyway."
Her fingers twitched.
For a moment, the flame stuttered.
Then—
Nyros screamed. "No!"
He raised a blade of obsidian lightning—but Kael, bleeding and bruised, summoned the last of his strength to blast Nyros back.
Lucien rushed forward, reaching her.
Touching her hand.
Their palms met—and the bond ignited.
A pulse of gold-red light burst between them, cracking the altar in half.
I remember," she whispered. "Lucien…"
But it was too late.
Nyros cast his final curse.
And it hit her chest.
Dead center.
Aira gasped—her body thrown back. The mark of the Ashborn Queen burned over her heart, glowing brighter than ever.
She collapsed.
Lucien screamed, running to her.
Kael fell to his knees, defeated.
The sky turned black.
The wind died.
Everything was still.
Lucien cradled her. Her eyes were open, staring into nothing.
"Don't leave me," he whispered. "Don't fade now…"
But she didn't speak.
Didn't blink.
Didn't move.
And then—her lips parted.
"Run."
A second later—
Her body exploded into flame.
A shockwave of raw power radiated outward, swallowing Nyros, the sky, the altar—everything.
Lucien's scream was lost in the roar.
Lucien's voice cracked.
He screamed her name until his throat bled, until the earth itself seemed to echo back a hollow silence.
But the flames swallowed her.
Aira—his Aira—disappeared into the storm of fire and ash.
"No," he choked, clawing through the inferno, each step searing, each breath agony. "No, no, no—don't you leave me. Don't you dare."
A shadow loomed.
From the center of the explosion, a figure emerged.
But it wasn't Nyros.
It wasn't Aira.
It was something else.
Her silhouette walked like royalty.
Her hair flowed like molten gold.
Her eyes… were not human.
The fire bowed to her. The wind held its breath.
Kael coughed, his voice weak. "She… she became the Ashborn Queen."
Lucien froze.
The figure stopped just inches away—face veiled in red smoke, her gaze unreadable.
"Do you know what it's like," she whispered, her voice layered with two tones, one Aira's… and one ancient… demonic, "to remember everything all at once?"
Lucien's heart pounded like war drums. "Aira?"
She tilted her head. A cruel smile curved her lips.
"She loved you, Lucien. But love is a weakness I can no longer afford."
Crack!
She raised her hand. The flames responded, encircling Lucien like hungry wolves.
"I gave her back one memory before she vanished… one memory to haunt your soul."
Lucien trembled. "What did you show her?"
Her lips brushed his ear as she whispered:
"I showed her how you lied."
Lightning split the sky.
Lucien reeled. "What…?"
"She saw the secret you buried.
The deal you made.
The truth you never told."
BOOM!
The ground erupted, splitting beneath his feet. The Ashborn Queen vanished into the chasm, her laughter echoing into the void—savage, divine, unstoppable.
Lucien dropped to his knees, staring into the firelit pit.
"What have I done?"
The winds howled like a fury unleashed from the depths of the abyss.
Lucien's heart hammered in his chest, his breath shallow, suffocating with every passing second.
"Aira…" he whispered again, barely audible over the roar of the flames. "Where are you?"
His eyes searched the fiery chasm, but there was nothing. Nothing except for the faint echo of a voice—soft, like a memory, but it cut deeper than any blade.
"You'll never escape it, Lucien."
The voice, Aira's voice, but twisted, fractured—pained.
Lucien's hands clenched into fists, nails digging into his palms. He couldn't understand. She was gone, lost to the flames—wasn't she?
He couldn't allow himself to believe it. Aira wasn't gone.
But then, the ground beneath him trembled once more, sending a crack of terror through his spine. His feet slipped as he steadied himself against the fiery gusts that whipped around him.
And then—
The Ashborn Queen appeared once more.
Her figure rose from the inferno, a silhouette of dark power, her face hidden beneath the crimson veil of fire, her presence cold, unyielding.
But this time, it wasn't just her presence that shook him.
This time, her eyes—fiery and bright, ancient with a darkness Lucien could barely comprehend—stared back at him. She was Aira.
No—she wasn't.
She was the very essence of the fire that had taken her, her soul forever entwined with something darker, something that had been unleashed when she crossed the line.
"You shouldn't have interfered, Lucien," she said softly, almost sadly, yet with such power in her voice that it made his heart freeze.
Her words weren't just words—they were commands. Commands that felt like chains tightening around his chest, locking his every breath.
He gritted his teeth. "I didn't—didn't mean to. I did it to save you."
She laughed. A laugh that chilled him to the bone.
"To save me? You never understood. You saved her… but in doing so, you condemned us both."
Lucien shook his head, his world spinning with confusion, the weight of her words crashing over him.
"Condemned? Aira—tell me what you mean! What have I done?"
But she didn't answer.
Instead, she raised her hand and with a flick of her wrist, the flames responded—wrapping themselves around Lucien like a prison of pure heat, clawing at him with a force that he couldn't fight against.
"You broke the promise," she said coldly, stepping forward, the inferno parting before her like the sea before a god. "You made a deal. And now you have to pay the price."
His eyes widened in horror. The promise. The deal.
The lie he'd buried deep inside his soul. The lie that had never left him, and now, it had finally come to the surface.
"No…" Lucien whispered, his voice trembling. "No! I didn't—"
But before he could finish his sentence, Aira—or whatever she had become—stepped forward, her form radiating such power that it sent a shockwave through him, the very air crackling with magic.
"You did."
And in the next heartbeat, the flames intensified.
Lucien screamed.
But nothing happened.
The world around him went silent.
No fire. No screams. No sound.
Just the hollow beating of his heart.
And then—
A new voice echoed in the silence.
Not Aira's. Not the Ashborn Queen's.
This voice was softer, warmer—but it still carried an edge of danger.
"Lucien."
His head snapped toward the voice.
There, standing on the edge of the chasm, was a shadowy figure. A man. One that Lucien had seen before, but never thought to remember.
Kael.
"Kael!" Lucien gasped. "Get out of here! You can't—"
But Kael raised his hand, his voice low but commanding.
"Lucien, you still don't get it, do you?"
Lucien's breath caught in his throat as Kael stepped into the light. His face was pale, drawn, his eyes filled with something that Lucien couldn't recognize.
"The truth… is far darker than you think. And the cost of your betrayal? It's not just Aira's soul at stake here. It's all of us."
Lucien's blood ran cold.
Before he could respond, Kael turned his gaze to the Ashborn Queen.
"We have to stop this… before it consumes everything."
And with that, Kael lunged forward.
Lucien's body tensed, adrenaline flooding his veins, but the world shifted. The ground shook again, sending him crashing to the earth.
The last thing he saw was the Ashborn Queen—Aira's eyes locking with his.
And then—
Darkness.