The blazing Nest of Blazing Lust finally fell silent, but the air still lingered with the ashen scent of intertwined desire and divine oracle. Ilea, wrapped in Lucian's cloak, slept in his arms, her breathing shallow, the runes on her skin seeming to fall into a brief slumber.
Lucian lowered his head to look at her, his gaze complex. His fingertips still carried the warmth from her body, that response welling up from despair, deeply etched into his bones and blood.
"You belong to the light, and to me," he murmured, his voice as cold as iron, yet laced with un un possession.
But this moment of tranquility was soon shattered.
From beyond the palace ruins, a thunderclap splitting the sky erupted abruptly. A pitch-black shadow plummeted from the fractured dome, accompanied by shrieks, fragmented whispers, and the chanting of decaying stars.
"The Moon-Sunderer King... is not dead."
Lucian suddenly rose, gently placing Ilea behind a golden pedestal, drawing the sacred silver blade from his back, and fixing a cold gaze on the coalescing shadow.
The shadow writhed in mid-air, gradually taking shape as a hooded priest cloaked in a crescent moon, wielding a bone-sunder scepter. His face was hidden behind a gray bone mask, but those crimson eyes seemed to pierce souls, staring directly into the deepest recesses of desire.
"Do you think a single union can erase the Fallen Star Rune?" he laughed, his voice like shattering stars exploding in the mind.
"Ilea is merely a 'vessel.' Her true identity—is the Heart of the Moon-Sunderer."
A chill ran through Lucian's heart. He finally understood why the rune had run wild in her, why she'd awakened amid flames yet was no longer the pure phoenix maiden. Her bloodline had always been a sealed prophecy.
"You're wrong," Lucian said coldly, his eyes ice-blue. "She is Ilea, not your utensil."
"Then let us see if 'love' can overcome the curse."
The shadowed priest waved his hand; the bone-sunder scepter crashed down, and the ground split open instantly. A rune array rose from the earth's core, enclosing Ilea within it. She woke with a start, and in the blink of an eye, agony surged through every limb.
"Ah...!!"
She screamed and struggled as runes flared to life on her chest, abdomen, and back—those places once kissed by Lucian now became the starting points of the curse's activation.
Lucian roared and charged into the array, but a surge of holy light hurled him back, blood spilling from his.
"You cannot save her, unless you are willing—to trade your soul for her curse."
The shadow smiled grimly. "Love her? Then die."
Lucian staggered to his feet, gazing into Ilea's eyes—filled with pain yet still clear. He thought of their first meeting on that snowy night, their whispers by the sacred spring, the sound of her moaning his name amid blazing lust.
He laughed, a laugh like madness.
"Then come. I fear no death."
He slowly unfastened his armor, blood flowing through the etched lines of the holy seal. Lucian stepped into the array, pressing his lips to Ilea's forehead, murmuring the forbidden incantation:
"By the knight's spirit, by love as covenant, exchange destiny, rebirth fate."
The runes instantly retaliated—thunder and fire intertwined, heaven and earth trembled. Ilea's pupils quivered as she felt the curse within her, devoured by blazing flames, beginning to peel away and shatter...
But across Lucian's back, a new sundered rune bloomed—a mark where burning wings merged with a lunar eclipse.
He bore the full weight of her blazing lust and Fallen Star curse.
"Lucian!!" She cried out, lunging for him, but a wall of light blocked her path.
The shadowed priest laughed as he faded into the distance: "Your suffering...has only just begun."
And Ilea knelt in the center of the array, staring at Lucian crumpled in a pool of blood, his body covered in cracks. For the first time, from the deepest depths of her heart, she truly awakened.