Three days after the phoenix dream, Selena woke to find Dante gone from their camp in the wastelands. She felt a moment of panic, a flash of fear that he had surrendered to the curse again, that he had walked back into dissolution. But through the eternal flame, she could sense him—not far, not fragmenting, just... different. Changed in some fundamental way.
She found him at dawn, standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ash plains. His storm was there, crackling around him with its familiar crimson lightning, but it was transformed. Where before it had been wild, chaotic, struggling to find purpose or control, now it moved with disciplined precision. Not subdued exactly, but focused. Intentional. Like a weapon that had been properly balanced, a tool that had finally found its correct use.
"You left without saying anything," Selena said as she approached, careful not to startle him.
