The world was still ringing from the last strike.
Stone lay shattered around us in jagged plates. The air tasted of metal and ash, crackling with leftover magic where my violet fire had clashed against Kaelith's shadow and flame.
He stood in the middle of it all as if nothing had happened.
Not even breathing hard.
Armor black as night. Cracks of molten red pulsed faintly beneath the plates, like a caged volcano. Shadow curled lazily around his boots, drinking in the light that tried to reach him.
My lungs burned. My arms shook.
The violet fire still flickered along my skin, braided with familiar heat and the cooler shimmer of water-light—but the bridge inside me felt thin. Frayed.
Kagutsuchi's voice snapped in my skull, sharp as a spark on dry tinder.
"On your feet, little flame. You do not let a pretender see you bow."
I dragged in a breath and straightened, shoulders screaming in protest. Blood trickled warm down my side where one of Kaelith's shadows had scored across my ribs. My fingers flexed around the dagger hilt.
He watched me.
Not with rage.
With… interest.
"Mortimer is far more generous than the others, you know," he said conversationally, as if we were discussing politics instead of standing in a graveyard made of his making. "Look at what he has given me."
He lifted one hand.
Shadow surged up his arm in thick coils, then exploded outward in a wave—tendrils whipping around his fingers as flames guttered red-black inside them.
"One god," Kaelith said, "and I bend death. I command armies. I take what I desire."
His gaze slid over the battlefield—over the dead who moved when he breathed, over the broken bridges, the shattered wards, the Skyguard holding the line only by sheer desperation and Tadewi's wind.
Then his eyes locked on mine.
"And what have they given you?"
The other gods shifted at the edge of my awareness.
The water god's voice rolled through me, deep and low, like a river under ice.
"All we can."
Kagutsuchi hissed, sparks flying at the edges of my mind.
"Ungrateful husk. We gave her threads because she is not built to hold the whole storm. He thinks power is only measured in how loud it screams."
The old voice was softer, worn with a sadness that never seemed to leave.
"Careful, child. He wants you to look at what you lack, not at what you have."
Kaelith took a step closer.
"All they do," he said, voice silky, "is drip strength into your veins in threads. A trickle. A scrap of what they hoard. You bleed. You burn. You break. And for what?"
Shadows rose lazily behind him in a wall, forming the suggestion of wings.
"They demand you fight for their balance," he went on. "Mortimer demands nothing of me. He gave me power. Purpose. Freedom. I do not wait for crumbs from a table of cowards."
I held his gaze, let myself really look at him.
At the armor that did not move when he did, as if it had grown into his body. At the way the shadow clung to him not like mist but like chains. At the way his eyes—once gold—burned a steady, unnatural red.
I thought of the sea of dead at his back. Of Skyguard pulled up with strings in their limbs. Of Tadewi's people running because there was nothing left here to stand on that wasn't already claimed by shadow.
"Look at what he's given you?" I echoed, my voice hoarse. "Fine."
I lifted my chin.
"You sold your soul," I said. "And for what? Death. An army of puppets. A crown made of corpses. You call that freedom?"
His jaw tightened.
For half a heartbeat, the red in his eyes flickered.
"I lost my soul," Kaelith said quietly, "long before Mortimer found me."
There was something in his tone then—something like regret, cracked and dry. A man who remembered the exact moment he stopped being salvageable.
The water god's voice sighed, cold and heavy.
"That admission is the closest thing to mercy you will ever wring from him."
The old primal murmured, "There was a boy before the king. That boy inherited a throne but lost his innocence. Mortimer only picked up what was left."
A faint whisper slid between them, thin as cold breath on glass.
…soon…
Kaelith's mouth twisted.
Then the softness—if it could even be called that—snapped out of his expression like a candle pinched between fingers.
His face shifted back into the thing Mortimer had carved over it—hard, cruel, hungry.
"Enough," he said.
He moved.
I barely saw him.
One heartbeat he was ten paces away.
The next he was on me.
Shadow dragged behind his blade—a black, screaming arc that howled as it carved through the air. I threw myself sideways, violet fire flaring around my arms. The edge of his strike clipped my shoulder.
Agony seared down to the bone.
I hit the ground, rolled, came up with one hand already outstretched.
Fire leapt from my palm, orange-gold and wild. Water-light surged from the cracks in the stone beneath us, racing to meet it. The two met mid-air, braided, and erupted into a violet lance that shot straight at his chest.
He raised a gauntleted hand.
The lance hit—and shattered into a spray of embers against a barrier of woven shadow.
Kagutsuchi spat.
"Stop feeding him the same strike. Change the rhythm."
"I'm a little busy," I snapped under my breath.
Kaelith flicked his fingers.
Shadows rained down like spears.
I dove, rolled, wings flaring to deflect what I could, violet heat blazing along the membranes to burn away any tendril that tried to cling. Three spikes still caught me—one scraping across my calf, one tearing a line along my ribs, one ripping a hot path over my forearm.
Pain flared.
Blood steamed against the cold air.
"Up, child," the old primal urged gently. "You have grown. Show him."
I pushed to my feet.
He was already on me again.
His blade came from the side this time, a low, vicious sweep aimed at my knees. I jumped, tucked, flipped over the strike, letting wind catch under my wings to carry me. As I twisted mid-air, I stabbed downward with both hands, violet fire shooting from my fingertips in a focused beam.
It hit the ground where he'd been.
He wasn't there anymore.
Shadow wrapped around my ankle like a hand.
It yanked.
The world stuttered.
The stone slammed up into my back, knocking the breath from my lungs. Before I could scramble up, shadow ropes snapped around my wrists, my other ankle, my waist—dragging me down, pinning me to the cracked terrace.
Kagutsuchi roared in my skull.
"ENOUGH! BURN IT—"
"I'm trying!" I gasped.
I summoned fire.
It answered—slower than before. Hesitant.
Water-light surged after it, a second tide.
I forced them together.
Violet flared around my pinned limbs, burning through the shadow bonds one by one. They shrieked as they dissolved, leaving oily afterimages on my skin.
Kaelith's shadow blade stabbed down for my throat.
I rolled.
Stone shattered where my neck had been, a jagged crater opening up in the terrace.
He pulled the sword free in a shower of debris, shadow licking along the edge.
"You are stronger than a human has any right to be," he said. "Their scraps have made you almost impressive."
Almost.
I shot to my feet, fury cutting through the pain.
"You're right," I said. "I'm not human."
I flung my hands out.
Not just forward—downward.
The water god answered, currents surging up through the broken stone under his boots. I yanked, and a geyser of freezing light erupted beneath him, catching him mid-step and hurling him sideways.
At the same time, I reached for the strange, thin threads inside me—the ones that didn't belong to fire or water. The ones that hummed in the spaces between everything.
The bridge.
I pulled.
The violet blaze that exploded from my chest this time was brighter than before, shot through with streaks of white-gold. It surged after Kaelith's falling body, slamming into his side and detonating in a shower of sparks and shadow.
He hit a pillar, stone cracking from the force.
For a heartbeat, my knees almost buckled with relief.
Then the smoke cleared.
He stepped out of it.
A chunk of his armor had cracked along the ribs, molten red light glaring through the fracture.
His eyes burned brighter.
"Better," he said.
Then he was on me again.
We traded blows—fire against shadow, light against rot, will against something that had forgotten what it was to be anything but hungry. I ducked under a swing aimed at my head, slammed my fist into his side, violet fire bursting on impact. He grunted, but the shadows around his armor thickened, absorbing the worst of it.
His blade raked across my thigh.
My leg went hot, then numb.
He backhanded me with his gauntlet, shadow-hard.
The world spun.
I hit the ground and skidded, stones tearing at my palms.
The water god's voice was tight now, strained.
"We are giving you as much as we can. The bridge is too narrow. Your spirit control is not strong enough. If we force more through, you'll tear."
I spat blood, forced myself back up on one knee.
Kaelith stalked toward me, every step measured.
"So this is what their favor looks like," he said. "Threads. Drips. A girl held together by borrowed light."
Kagutsuchi snarled.
"We do not own you. We lend. He takes. That is the difference."
"…come…"
Mortimer's whisper curled at the edges of my hearing.
Closer now.
Almost inside.
Kaelith raised his blade again.
"You could have joined us, Primal," he said. "You could have had endless power. No more fighting for a balance that will never hold. No more bleeding for a world that does not deserve you."
He lunged.
I dragged everything up at once.
Fire ripped through my veins, raw and wild. Water surged with it, colder and sharper than before. Violet ignited where they met, a flare so bright it drowned my vision in white.
We collided.
My bare palm caught the flat of his blade, violet-light pouring around the metal. For a heartbeat, we held—locked there, power screaming between us, light against dark, my teeth bared inches from his shadow-veiled face.
The old primal dragon's voice rose, almost pleading.
"Hold, child. Just a little—"
Something snapped.
Not outside.
Inside.
The bridge in me—those thin threads connecting me to the gods—jerked taut, then buckled under the strain. Pain ripped through my skull, hot and blinding. My knees hit stone. My grip slipped.
Kaelith wrenched his sword free and stepped back.
I tried to call more.
Nothing answered.
The gods' voices flickered.
Withered.
The water god's presence dimmed to a faint echo. Kagutsuchi's sparks guttered, reduced to embers. Even the primal's steady hum felt distant, buried under static.
Only one voice grew clearer.
"…come…"
Shadows erupted from Kaelith's outstretched hand, slamming into the ground around me. They surged like a tide, rearing up into walls, closing around me in a cage of liquid night.
I staggered back until my shoulders hit solid darkness.
It was like being shoved into cold oil.
The shadows climbed my legs, my arms, my throat.
I tried to summon fire.
Violet.
Water.
Anything.
A few sparks flared along my fingertips—sad, fragile things swallowed instantly by the hungry dark.
Mortimer's voice swelled, velvet and cold and echoing as if whispered from directly behind my ear.
Come.
All at once, the temptation hit.
The exhaustion.
The fear.
The bone-deep, soul-deep ache of never being enough, of always running, always bleeding, always being a breath too late to save the people I wanted to save.
Mortimer poured images into my mind—things I hadn't known I'd wanted.
A world with no more dead armies. No more war between nations. No more gods demanding balance at the cost of mortal lives.
Power that did not drip in threads, but surged like a flood.
All I had to do was stop fighting.
"Do not listen," the water god said, voice as thin as mist now. "His gifts are chains."
Kagutsuchi roared, sparks flying futilely against the darkness pressing in. "FIGHT HIM, LITTLE FLAME. BITE. BURN. DO NOT BOW."
"Child," the primal murmured, grief-laden, "this is his oldest trick. He offers what you already have, twisted."
The shadows reached my chin.
My lips.
It would be so easy to say yes.
To stop hurting.
To stop failing.
To stop—
"LYRA!"
The shout tore through the darkness like lightning through stormcloud.
It wasn't in my head.
It was everywhere.
The cage of shadow around me shuddered, threads of dark peeling away as if struck from outside.
Light flared in front of me—white-blue, warm, familiar.
Hands closed around my face.
Raiden's.
He forced the shadows back with sheer proximity, lightning snarling around his fingers where they touched my skin. His palms cupped my cheeks, thumbs brushing the edges of the darkness as if scraping soot from glass.
My eyes snapped open.
He was right there.
Closer than breath.
Electric arcs crawled across his shoulders, wrapped around his wrists, danced between our skin. The static lifted my hair, lifted his, making the white strands and black locks float around us in a wild halo.
His eyes—silver-blue—were blown wide, ringed with red from exertion, from smoke, from everything.
"Stay with me," he rasped. "Don't you dare go dark on me."
The bond between us blazed.
I felt everything.
His exhaustion—dragging at his bones like lead.
The ache in his muscles from holding storm after storm.
The burn at the edges of his mind from dancing so close to burnout that even now he was only upright because Lyra—
Because I—
Had given him that last little spark.
He felt me, too.
The hollowness where the god-voices had been.
The raw scrape of my soul after holding too much light and still being found wanting.
The shadows still clinging to my shoulders and throat, licking at his hands where he held me.
We were both hanging on by threads.
His lightning faltered.
A few arcs flickered and died, leaving the shadows free to press closer again. They slid along the edges of his fingers, curling eagerly toward my skin.
Kaelith watched from beyond the edge of the darkness, eyes gleaming.
Mortimer's whisper twined through the air, thicker now. Pleased.
…two…
I saw the moment Raiden understood.
The moment he made the choice I had never wanted him to have to make.
His jaw clenched.
His hands tightened slightly on my face, thumbs pressing just enough to anchor me there, to make me feel the warmth of him, the reality of him.
"Don't," I whispered, breath shaking. "Raiden, don't you—"
He leaned in, foreheads nearly touching, lightning casting strange shadows over his features.
"You," he breathed, voice breaking like something inside him finally giving way, "you're the little thief who slipped past every wall I built…and stole my damn heart before I even noticed it was gone."
His thumb trembled along my cheek.
"And gods, Lyra…I love you. I love my little thief."
Something inside me cracked.
Heat flooded my cheeks, my chest, my ribs. The shadows pressed closer, hissing at the words like they burned.
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
Just a sob—raw, ugly, broken.
I wanted to say it back.
I wanted to say it so badly my throat hurt with the effort.
But all that tore free were choking breaths and a sound that made me hate myself.
He smiled.
Soft.
Sad.
Like he understood anyway.
Of course he did.
He always had.
He dipped his head and kissed me.
It wasn't gentle.
It wasn't perfect or poised or anything a story would pretend a kiss like this should be. It was desperate, shaking, all teeth and salt and the taste of ozone and blood.
The world narrowed to the point of contact.
His mouth.
My mouth.
The place where we met and everything else fell away.
Lightning crawled over my skin, tingling, sharp and hot. The shadows recoiled from his power, then surged again, hungry, reaching for this new point of connection, this bright, uncontrolled blaze between us.
I thought the warmth on my lips was tears.
I didn't question it.
Didn't think beyond the trembling press of his mouth on mine, the way grief and love tangled in the space between us.
I certainly didn't notice the smaller warmth—the flicker deep in my chest that leaned toward him instinctively, slipping into the places only he could reach.
Not then.
All I felt was the kiss…and the way something in him seemed to catch the warmth and hold it.
I just clung to him.
One hand twisted in his shirt. The other clawed at his shoulder. I kissed him like I could hold him here with that alone, like I could keep the shadows from reaching him if I just didn't let go.
The darkness didn't care.
It crawled higher.
Along his arms now.
Up his wrists.
Over his knuckles.
It met his lightning head-on—and instead of recoiling, it twined with it.
His power flickered.
The white-blue of his usual storm bled red at the edges, then black, shadows wrapping around each bolt like veins.
The ground shuddered.
Cracks spidered out from where we knelt, red light glowing faintly in their depths—Mortimer's presence pushing up through the stone.
Raiden broke the kiss.
I chased him without meaning to, breathless, devastated.
He rested his forehead against mine.
Shadow had climbed to his elbows now, staining the veins beneath his skin dark. Lightning sparked inside the creeping corruption, fighting, resisting, even as Mortimer's stain pulsed deeper.
"Rai," I choked. "Please—please don't—"
Tears blurred my vision.
He lifted one hand—slowly, as if it already weighed more than it should—and brushed his thumb under my eye. His touch was still warm. Still him.
"Hey," he whispered. "Look at me."
I did.
"Listen." His voice threaded directly into my mind now, gentler than the storm raging around us, than the shadows trying to drown us both. Words pressed into the bond with careful, aching clarity.
I know.
Fresh sobs tore up my chest, useless against the weight pressing in.
His mental voice held steady.
I will love you forever and always.
Mortimer's presence rose like a tide.
The shadows surged.
They wrapped higher—up his biceps, over his shoulders, licking at his throat. His lightning flared in a last, furious burst, the white-blue fighting against the red-black, snarling in my ears.
The bond spasmed.
Pain shot through my ribs, hot and sharp, as if someone had driven a hook into the connection between us and yanked.
Then—
Darkness seeped into it.
Not a clean break.
Not severed.
Smothered.
Like someone had dropped a veil of ink over a lantern. The light was still there, but dim, distant, buried under something heavy and cold.
"Raiden," I whispered.
The shadows climbed his neck.
For a heartbeat, his eyes met mine.
Red.
Both.
"I've got you," I lied, reaching for him as if sheer will could drag him back out. "I'm here—I'll pull you out—I'll—"
The old primal's voice curled around my heart, breaking.
"Not yet, child. Not this time."
Mortimer's laughter echoed, rich and satisfied, from somewhere beyond the veil of shadow now coiled around Raiden's spine.
The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed most of him was his mouth shaping one more word.
Lyra.
Then the shadow crept over his eyes.
His lightning turned fully red-black, crawling over his skin like molten ink.
The ground at his feet split wider, red light roaring up around him.
And I could only watch—
helpless, shaking, empty—
as the man who had just told me he loved me began to disappear into the very darkness we'd sworn to fight.