The void erupted.
The clash of flames and shadows was not light and darkness as mortals understood them—it was creation and unmaking colliding. The twin flame surged with the heat of rebirth, while the Endless King's black fire consumed like a bottomless abyss.
For a moment, the universe was blind. Worlds flickered into existence and collapsed in the space of a heartbeat. Stars were born screaming, then swallowed whole. The battlefield itself became a storm of unraveling existence.
---
Visions in the Fire
Alexander felt himself ripped apart—his body, his soul, his memories scattering across eternity. He saw a thousand versions of himself: some kneeling as the King's servant, some dying before he'd ever met Isabella, some ruling empires of ash.
Each vision pulled at him, promising power, warning of ruin.
But one thread bound them all: Isabella's hand in his. Even when the visions tried to tear him away, her fire anchored him.
"Stay with me," Isabella's voice cut through the inferno, strong and fierce, though her own spirit trembled under the weight of countless futures.
She too was drowning in visions. She saw herself as a queen in thrones of flame, as a corpse on blackened soil, as a mother holding a child of fire and shadow. She saw herself crowned, chained, destroyed, reborn—over and over.
And always, Alexander's shadow burned beside her.
---
The King's Last Stand
The Endless King's scream tore across all visions. His essence fought desperately, clawing to drag them down.
"You cannot endure this!" His voice was jagged, breaking into echoes. "Twin flames cannot last. One will consume the other. You will destroy yourselves—just as I did!"
His shadow-fire expanded, stretching into chains that sought to wrap around Isabella's throat, Alexander's chest, trying to sever them.
But the chains burned the instant they touched the fused flame.
Alexander's voice thundered back, deeper than his own, as though the Crown itself spoke through him: "Your eternity ends here."
---
The Breaking of the King
The twin flame surged.
Their fire swallowed the King's black flame, not by destroying it—but by transforming it. For the first time in countless ages, the Endless King's power was not consumed into nothingness, but reshaped, pulled into the cycle of fire.
He staggered, skeletal form cracking, his crown falling in fragments. His scream shifted from rage to something deeper. Fear.
"No… no, you cannot…! I am eternity!"
But the void no longer answered him.
The Hourglass was gone.
---
The Silence After
The storm broke.
In the center of nothing, Alexander and Isabella floated, their crowns dimming but not extinguished. The twin flame had consumed the King's essence, but its cost left them trembling. Their bodies smoked with gold and shadow, and every breath felt stolen.
Around them, the shattered fragments of the Hourglass drifted, glowing softly like stars being born. Each shard pulsed with possibility.
The silence was heavy. Too heavy.
Then came a whisper.
Not the King's voice, but something older.
> "The cycle has shifted. Fire holds the weave. But beware—what is remade can yet be undone. What cannot be stopped is only delayed."
---
The Last Ember
Alexander opened his eyes, barely able to move. He turned to Isabella, whose flame flickered weakly. He touched her cheek, his voice raw.
"We ended him."
Her lips trembled into a faint smile. "No… Alexander. We began something."
And in the distance, one shard of the Hourglass flared brighter than the rest—like a star waiting to awaken.