One year after their departure, Alaric Vale died.
Officially, of natural causes.
The world kept turning. The glass cities shone as before. Speeches spoke of stability, continuity, progress. And in the silence left by his passing, Seren Vale took command of the Order of Onyx.
The symbol changed.
Subtly.
Almost imperceptibly.
Enough to go unnoticed by the world.
Enough for those who had learned to survive to understand that something had broken.
Five years passed.
Five years during which Elias and Tiana lived far from the cities, far from the towers and the screens. They built their refuge deep within a dense forest, hidden, living by the rhythm of the seasons. A simple place. Fragile. Real.
That night, winter was approaching.
Elias had gone to cut wood before nightfall. The forest was calm, almost sacred. The kind of silence that soothes… until it shatters.
A gunshot tore through the air.
Elias felt the impact before the pain. A bullet passed through his side. He fell, rolled behind a tree trunk, his breath knocked from him. A second shot followed, closer.
Assassins.
His first instinct was not to protect himself.
It was Tiana.
He forced himself up despite the pain and ran through the trees, dodging gunfire by instinct, by memory. His body had never forgotten.
When he reached the house, the door was ajar.
Inside, the world stopped.
Tiana lay on the floor.
Her body was motionless—too motionless. Blood slowly spread beneath her. Her blond hair fanned out across the wood already scorched by the first flames. Her eyes, still open, stared into nothingness with an unbearable calm.
"No…" Elias whispered.
He dropped to his knees beside her, trembling hands searching for a breath that no longer existed.
Then the gunshot rang out.
The bullet struck him head-on. Elias collapsed beside Tiana, the air ripped from his lungs, the world tilting into chaos.
In the second that followed, an incendiary device flew across the room.
The flames spread instantly, devouring walls, roof, memories. The heat became unbearable. Fire climbed toward the upper floor.
Then everything collapsed.
The ceiling gave way with a deafening crash. Earth, roots, and suspended terrariums smashed into the house, forming a living mass of soil and greenery. A natural chaos that absorbed the fall and smothered part of the flames.
The house burned around them.
When Elias regained consciousness, the night was far advanced. He was covered in ash, dirt, and blood. His body screamed with pain—but he was still breathing.
He was holding something against him.
Tiana's body.
He stood.
And he walked.
He walked for hours, perhaps days, unable to think, unable to cry. The forest slowly faded behind him, replaced by the cold asphalt of a city he no longer recognized.
Then his strength gave out.
Elias collapsed on a deserted street, the world fading around him, his dead love still clutched against his chest.