The Cradle pulsed with unstable light.
Darius stood still, his breath ragged, eyes bleeding motes of divinity and ash. The shattered shard still glowed faintly on the floor near the Twice-Killed Queen's feet.
Something had broken.
Something deeper had awakened.
She approached him slowly, footsteps echoing through the raw dimension. Beneath her boots, the floor whispered names: lost allies, broken promises, murdered futures. Darius said nothing as she came closer.
"You remember me," she said softly.
His voice cracked like stone split by frost.
"I remember… grief."
The Queen reached out, her hand trembling. "And… love?"
His silence was answer enough.
But then he looked at her—not as a god or king, but as a man buried beneath millennia of ruin.
And when her hand touched his cheek, the Womb trembled.
Their lips met with quiet fury, as if the years had starved them of this touch.
