We sit across from each other beneath the death-willow by the black lake.
The stars are quiet tonight.
Even the shadows seem to hold their breath.
"You loved me," Mire says again, as if repeating it might soften me.
I say nothing.
Because I remember.
He was a student of the order. Quiet. Brilliant. The only one who dared argue with me and still smile after.
And in the final days of my first life when my magic cracked and the gods came for me I tore off a piece of my soul…
And gave it to him.
"You weren't supposed to survive," I whisper. "You were supposed to forget."
"I tried," he breathes.
He touches the mark on his chest. It's glowing now dim, silver, mine.
A sliver of my magic pulses inside him.
I could rip it out. Right here. Right now. One word. One flick of my fingers.
I'd be closer to whole. Stronger than I've ever been.
But
He looks at me the way no one else does. Not as a goddess. Not as a villainess. Not even as a monster.
Just… as a girl who once loved him.
"If you take it," he says quietly, "I die."
"I know."
"If you don't…"
"Then I remain incomplete," I finish.
I move closer. His breath catches.
I press my hand to his chest. Feel the fragment beating like a second heart.
His tears fall.
But mine never come.
Because I am not that girl anymore.
"You're lucky," I say, voice like broken thunder.
"I don't need to be whole to destroy everything."
And I leave him alive.
Incomplete.
Just like me.