Location: Skyfortress Aegis – Command Quarters, Upper Spire
The door sealed behind them with a quiet hiss, cutting off the echo of the hangar and the shadow of Mara's voice.
For the first time in hours, there was silence.
Lucien didn't speak. He just stood there in the low light, looking at her like he was checking for damage only he could see. His jaw was tense, his shoulders rigid, like his body hadn't realized the fight was over—at least for now.
Aeris broke the silence first.
"You're staring."
"I'm making sure you're still you," he said without flinching.
---
She tried for a smirk, but it didn't hold. "What does that even mean?"
"It means," he took a step closer, "that five minutes ago, you almost let someone put a leash on your mind. And if I had been two seconds slower…" His voice dropped, gravel-soft. "I don't know if I'd have gotten you back."
His closeness pressed heat into the space between them. She could smell the faint burn of gunpowder clinging to his coat, could feel the warmth radiating off him after hours in the cold steel corridors.
---
"I was never going to stay in that vision," she whispered.
Lucien shook his head slowly. "You think that. But I saw your eyes, Aeris. You looked… gone."
Her chest tightened, not in fear—but in something that felt dangerously like longing. "And you brought me back."
"Always," he said, the word rough and certain.
---
When his hand lifted to brush a strand of hair from her face, she didn't move away. His fingers lingered against her cheek, warm and steady, anchoring her in a way nothing else could. Her pulse kicked.
"This is dangerous," she murmured.
"We've been living in dangerous since the day we met," he said.
---
The air between them thickened. His other hand found the small of her back, pulling her an inch closer. She could feel his breath now, the faint hitch in it.
Aeris's hand found his collar, gripping it lightly—not to push him away, but to keep him there.
"Lucien…"
Her voice was barely a sound.
---
He leaned in, close enough that his lips brushed the corner of hers without quite claiming them. The tension was unbearable, the kind that made her forget for one dangerous heartbeat that there was a war outside these walls.
"Say it," he murmured. "Say you'll stay with me."
"I'm not leaving," she breathed.
---
Their foreheads touched, the moment on the verge of breaking into something more—when the lights above them flickered, hard. The walls vibrated with a low, mechanical hum.
Both of them froze.
The sound wasn't from the engines. It was inside the Aegis.
---
Aeris stepped back, breath unsteady. "They're here."
Lucien's eyes narrowed. "The Forgotten?"
A voice whispered through the comm system—soft, feminine, and hauntingly familiar.
"Little Queen… you can't hide from your crown."
The temperature in the room dropped. Aeris felt it in her bones, the pull, the calling.
Lucien was already grabbing his rifle, but his other hand caught hers and squeezed, hard.
"We end this," he said.
"Together," she finished.
And in that one word, she knew—no matter how much they tried to resist it—this war was going to pull them closer than either of them could survive.
---