The sun's first rays touched the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and crimson. Kieran stood at the cliff's edge, his body already beginning to smoke from the distant light.
One more step. That's all it would take.
"KIERAN, NO!"
Marcus's voice shattered the silence. Magic wrapped around Kieran's body, yanking him backward into the shadows of the rocks just as the sun broke fully over the horizon.
"Let me go," Kieran said, his voice dead. "Just let me go, Marcus."
"I can't." Marcus's hands shook as he held the magical bindings. "I won't watch another person I care about die."
"I'm already dead. I've been dead for four hundred years. I'm just... finally accepting it."
Marcus released the bindings but stepped between Kieran and the sunlight. "You think this is what Adrian would want? You think he sacrificed himself so you could give up?"
"Adrian is GONE!" The roar tore from Kieran's throat, centuries of anguish finally breaking free. "He's been gone for four centuries! His soul hasn't returned! Maybe it never will! Maybe the weapon didn't just kill him—maybe it destroyed his soul completely!"
"You don't believe that."
"I don't know what I believe anymore." Kieran slumped against the rocks. "I'm tired, Marcus. So tired. I can't do this anymore. I can't wait another day, another year, another century for someone who might never return."
Marcus sat beside him, both of them hidden from the deadly sunlight. "Then don't wait for him. Wait for yourself. Live for yourself."
"I don't know how. I haven't lived for myself in over a thousand years. Everything I've done, everything I've built, it was all for him. To protect him, to find him, to keep him safe." Kieran's voice broke. "And I failed. I had him, Marcus. I had him as mine, immortal, bonded. And I still lost him."
"So you'll honor his memory by destroying yourself?"
"I'll honor his memory by ending this cursed existence." But even as Kieran said it, he made no move toward the sunlight.
Because somewhere, deep in the broken remains of his heart, a tiny spark of hope still flickered. What if Adrian's soul did return? What if tomorrow, or next year, or in a century, that soul was reborn?
And Kieran wasn't there to find him?
The thought was unbearable.
"Come back to the sanctuary," Marcus said quietly. "At least for today. Don't make this decision in a moment of despair."
Kieran wanted to refuse. Wanted to step into that sunlight and end centuries of suffering.
But he couldn't.
Not yet.
"One more day," he finally whispered. "I'll wait one more day."
It was the same promise he'd made himself every day for four hundred years.