The air fractures before he arrives.
Not with footsteps. With lightning.
I feel him before I see him.
The way storms feel before they break.
He lands like a fallen star cloaked in dusk, eyes wild with knowing.
Cael.
Wings like obsidian glass.
Voice like thunder mourning a lost war.
"You're beautiful," he says softly.
"I warned you about becoming this."
I tilt my head.
"You warned me.
Then you betrayed me.
And now you're here… to what? Finish the job?"
He smiles like a blade being unsheathed.
"I came to see if you were still mine."
Ashen draws his sword, but Cael ignores him.
Everyone else vanishes from the moment.
It's just us.
Fire and Storm.
Memory and Rage.
"What are you now?" he asks, circling.
"Not Seraphina. Not quite Pale Flame."
"I'm the part of the world that doesn't beg anymore," I say.
"I'm what the gods couldn't bury."
He stops. Looks at me the way no one has like I'm holy and cursed in the same breath.
Then…
He steps closer.
"Kiss me," he murmurs.
"And I'll burn the sky for you."
"If you kiss me," I whisper back, "you die."
He does it anyway.
And for a single second
A blinding, perfect second
The sky forgets to storm.
Time forgets to move.
And I remember what it was to feel wanted without being worshiped.
But then
The ground explodes.
Because our magic is not meant to touch.
The Pale Flame. The Storm Ruin.
Two cataclysms. Two hearts.
One apocalypse.
He stumbles back, bleeding magic. Laughing.
"Still as dangerous as ever," he says, licking gold from his lip.
I smile, tasting blood and starlight.
"And you still think this is love."