The ruin still groaned, stone veins splitting beneath our feet. Dahlia's hand seared against my Scar, her palm trembling, yet she held on. Her eyes—no longer glazed or half-lost—cut sharp and alive, burning with the faint shimmer of starfire buried in black glass. But I saw it: vesselhood was coiling inside her, waiting for a crack.
The Scar pulsed through me like molten iron. Every beat was a lash. My veins sang with shadow and moonlight clashing, eating each other alive.
Her breath rattled. Her voice broke against my ear, words edged with defiance and despair.
"This isn't freedom. It's a cost."
The Scar writhed at her admission, coils tightening around my flesh, as though it laughed at both of us. Not mine. Not hers. A chain that belonged to something deeper.
A whisper hissed through the abyss below—older, colder, a voice too vast for bone or blood.
"Vorenn drael shaelth… ultherra coroneth… feasting binds, resistance bleeds…"
