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He woke to fire.
Not the kind that burned the world — the kind that burned within it.
The air around him trembled, rippling like heat above glass, as the mark on his chest throbbed violently.
It had never pulsed like this before.
Not even the night he'd first awakened.
Lucien gritted his teeth, bracing his hands against the cold stone floor. His veins shimmered faintly — one side glowing silver, the other bleeding into black. The light and shadow warred beneath his skin, spiraling toward his heart in violent rhythm.
He tasted iron.
He tasted her.
"Elaris…" The name escaped like a broken prayer.
The serpent's voice was everywhere — in his blood, his bones, his thoughts. It hissed and whispered in the tongue of creation, curling through his mind with words he should never have understood:
> Vovet Sanguinem. Custodit Fatum.
Blood remembers. Blood obeys.
He stumbled to his feet, staggering toward the mirror carved into the wall — an artifact of the Vaelrith crypts. His reflection flickered between two selves: the celestial heir, eyes of molten gold, and the other — the shadowed one, eyes like stormfire and ash.
The mark on his neck — the divine sigil — split open, revealing beneath it a serpent coiling upward, mirroring Elaris's new mark.
Lucien slammed a hand against the mirror, shattering it. The fragments scattered like shards of light, each one reflecting a different version of him.
"I told you," murmured a voice behind him — low, ancient, and amused.
Lucien froze. "Show yourself."
From the corner of the chamber, shadows thickened — forming the shape of a man cloaked in black, his face half-hidden by a hood of smoke.
"I warned you what would happen if she took the serpent's vow," the figure said. "Now, you are bound to her through both light and ruin."
Lucien's breath was ragged. "You're not real. You're—"
"I am the echo of what you were born to destroy," the figure said softly. "Your father's sin. Your mother's curse."
The room grew colder.
Lucien's pulse hammered in his ears as memories flashed — of divine temples burning, of his mother's hands glowing red with blood and blessing, of his father's eyes turning black as he fell from grace.
"Why are you here?"
"To remind you," the shadow said, "that love is the final gate. And she — Elaris — is the key."
Lucien lunged, grabbing the shadow by the throat, but his hands passed through smoke.
"Stop it!" he roared. "You don't know what she is—"
The shadow's laugh was low and cruel. "Don't I? She carries the serpent tongue now. The same tongue that tempted the first light to fall."
Lucien froze, heart pounding. "You mean—"
"Yes," the shadow whispered, leaning close enough for Lucien to feel the cold press of his words. "The vow was born from rebellion. From love that dared defy divine order. And you, heir of twilight, are its next instrument."
Lucien staggered back, shaking his head. "No. I won't be used."
But his veins burned hotter, gold and black colliding in a violent burst beneath his skin. The serpent mark on his neck slithered higher, curling toward his jaw.
The shadow smiled. "You already are."
Light erupted from Lucien's chest — a blinding surge that split the room in two. The shadow dissolved, laughter echoing through the chamber.
Lucien fell to his knees, clutching his chest. The mark glowed brighter, synchronizing with something — someone.
And far away, through the fire and pain, he felt her.
Elaris.
The bond stretched across the distance like a living thread. Her heartbeat thrummed in his veins. Her breath whispered through his lungs. He could see flashes of her — the serpent scroll, the flames, the vow.
And then he heard her voice — faint but certain, like a promise:
"If love is defiance, then I'll guard it."
Lucien's breath caught. His golden eye flickered into shadow, and his shadowed eye turned molten bright.
His two halves — light and void — stopped fighting. They merged.
The chamber went silent.
When he rose, his aura had changed — no longer celestial or demonic, but something between. The heir of twilight had become what the vow intended: a being that could rewrite balance itself.
Lucien looked at his reflection again — this time in the shards on the floor.
The serpent glowed faintly along his neck.
He smiled, though it wasn't peace.
It was power.
"Elaris," he whispered. "You've bound us both."