As I awoke I barely registered the sound of the cell door creaking open. My head hung low, shoulders slumped, the iron shackles biting and digging into my raw bloody wrists. Footsteps echoed softly against the stone, light and sure—too light for a guard.
Forcing my head up I saw her through eyes blackened and bruised with dried blood caking them shut but I saw her still.
Auralia.
For a moment, relief surged through the haze of pain and exhaustion. Her silhouette, framed by the torchlight, was just as I remembered—elegant, sharp, familiar. Hope sparked in my chest, feeble but burning. She'd come. She'd found me.
"Auralia…" My voice cracked, dry and hoarse. "I knew… I knew you'd—"
She said nothing.
Her eyes met mine, those green-gold eyes I'd trusted through a hundred battlefields and blood-soaked nights. But there was something wrong with them now. Not cold. Worse than cold—distant. Resigned.
My breath caught. She stepped closer, and something gleamed in her hand. A thin, silver line of steel. Her rapier.
No. No—
"Auralia… wait. What are you doing?"
Her expression didn't change. No hatred. No sorrow. Just stillness. She reached out as if to steady me—and then the blade slid between my ribs with terrifying ease. I gasped, the pain exploding in my chest like lightning. It didn't feel real. A sudden pressure, a violent burning, and then the warm flood of blood down my chest and back.
My knees gave out, but the shackles held me upright, dragging against my arms as I sagged forward, pinned like a puppet with its strings cut. Looking down at the blade embedded to the hilt in my chest—her blade—and then up at her again. My lips moved soundlessly before I managed a whisper.
"…Why?"
For a heartbeat, something flickered in her eyes. Regret, maybe. Pain. But it was gone too quickly.
"I've already committed to forgetting you, Eiran," she said quietly. "In fact you are already a ghost to me."
I wanted to scream, to fight, but the pain was drowning me. My heart thundered once—twice—then faltered. Every beat is weaker. Slower.
She pulled the blade free, and the world followed it. Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, and still I stared at her, desperate to understand. Not like this. Not by her hand. Not her.
With a final burst of strength I look up at her and I can't help but admire her, Auralia Aedove She stood just shy of six feet, her lithe frame wrapped in supple leather armor that whispered with every step. The armor, clearly elven in craftsmanship, was elegant and functional—stitched with flowing patterns that echoed leaves and starlight, reinforced where it mattered, yet never bulky. Beneath it, she wore a tunic of deep forest green, the fabric so fine it seemed to drink in the light. Her face bore the unmistakable beauty of the elvenkind, though softened by human blood. High cheekbones, a gently tapered jaw, and full lips framed her expression, which seemed forever caught between quiet amusement and wary calculation. Her skin was a light olive tone, sun-kissed and smooth, save for a faint scar tracing a line across her collarbone—just visible above the tunic's edge.
Eyes of deep emerald green, flecked with gold, shimmered beneath long lashes. They held a sharpness that belied her age—keen, assessing, as if she were always watching for the blade behind the smile. Her ears were delicately pointed, just enough to mark her heritage, often hidden behind the loose waves of her chestnut-brown hair. It fell past her shoulders, with hints of copper that glinted when caught by the sun. She wore it half-braided, strands tied back with silver thread in a nod to elven tradition. In her hand a rapier given to her by the emperor of Vagga, its hilt finely wrought and clearly well cared for. The blade itself, though not ornate, held a quiet menace—the kind of weapon that spoke of speed over strength, precision over power. She moved with a predator's grace, balanced and fluid, her every motion purposeful. To those who passed her in the crowded roads of cities or the quiet underbrush of ancient woods, she might appear as nothing more than a traveler. But those who looked closer saw the contradiction in her—an air of nobility and danger, of beauty and blade.
Feeling the effect of the venom that coated her blade, I can only think "No this can't be how my story ends, I can't let it end like this!" As I look her in the eye I see the unshed tears behind them and I know that the pain I feel in this moment is nothing compared to the pain of what she has done and that she will be haunted by this for the rest of her life.
It's cold.
Not the kind of cold that clings to your skin—but the kind that starts in your chest and spreads outward, slow and final. I can't feel my legs anymore. The shackles are the only reason I'm still upright.
She's still there. Auralia.
My friend. My ally. The one I trusted when there was no one else left.
The pain in my chest is sharp, but it's not what hurts the most. It's the look in her eyes—like I'm already gone. Like this is something she had to do. I want to ask her why. I want to scream at her. But there's no strength left for rage.
So I just breathe. Shallow. Strained. Blood slicks my lips and tastes like iron and regret. I look at her, and for a moment, I don't see the assassin or the executioner. I see the woman I once fought beside, the one who made the world feel a little less cruel.
She won't speak. Maybe she can't. Maybe if she does, she'll fall apart, but I won't give her silence. My voice is barely a whisper, but I speak anyway. The truth, plain and bare.
"I was never the villain of our story, my love."
My lungs burn. Each word cuts deeper than her blade ever could.
"Nor was I the hero."
I swallow blood. My arms tremble in their chains.
"I was simply a man… forced into a role… so that another could play the role they were given."
The room is spinning now. Darkness creeps in, heavy and slow. But I hold on just long enough to say what matters most.
"But I loved you. Even when I shouldn't have."
And then… I let go.