The chamber sealed itself shut.
Runes flickered to life across the walls, one by one, like eyes opening in the dark.
Cassian stood outside the door, every nerve tense.
Beyond the stone, he could feel it — the air humming with two conflicting songs.
Celestial. Abyssal.
Life and unmaking.
He whispered a silent prayer — not to any god, but to the silence between them.
Inside, the world was unraveling.
Zelene stood at the center of the sigils, her palms pressed over Kael's heart.
Light streamed through her fingers — soft at first, then fierce, gold turning white, white turning into something beyond color.
The Aether Requiem had no voice.
It was the voice.
Every breath she took resounded through the bones of the room, through Kael's veins, through the very fabric that kept reality stitched together.
"Forgive me," she whispered — to him, to herself, to the stars.
Kael's body arched as the curse answered back.
The mark across his chest burst open in crimson light — not blood, not flame, but memory.
Whispers, screams, laughter — countless voices echoed through the chamber.
The curse wasn't a wound; it was a doorway.
Zelene's light clashed with it — celestial harmony meeting abyssal discord.
The air itself cracked, and for a single heartbeat, she saw it.
A realm behind the veil.
It wasn't hell.
It wasn't heaven.
It was a vast expanse of glass and shadow, filled with mirrors that reflected nothing.
And at its center — chained to a spire of black stone — was him.
The One Below.
He was neither beast nor man, neither demon nor god. His form shifted with every blink — from angelic to monstrous, from radiant to ruined.
One half of his face burned with light; the other was carved away, hollow, bleeding smoke.
When he spoke, it wasn't sound. It was remembrance.
"A judge."
"A sister of light."
"You carry the same voice that condemned me."
Zelene's breath hitched. Her surroundings flickered — one foot in reality, one in the realm of the fallen. "You— you were—"
"One of the Twelve," he said, his chains rattling. "A Judge of the First Dawn. We weighed the sins of gods and mortals alike. But when creation itself grew corrupt, I sought to purge it. They called it defiance. I called it truth."
His remaining eye burned crimson.
"And so, they cast me down."
Zelene's power trembled — not from weakness, but resonance.
Her soul remembered him.
He wasn't only darkness.
He was what she could become — if judgment forgot mercy.
Kael groaned, his body shaking violently as the curse screamed through him — the One Below's chains tightening around his spirit.
Zelene reached for him instinctively. "Let him go!"
"He is my vessel," said the fallen judge. "Through him, I see your world again. Through him, I will cleanse it — as I was once meant to."
"You're wrong," she whispered fiercely. "You're not cleansing anything — you're devouring it!"
"Because there is no purity left to save."
The chains lashed out — not toward Kael, but toward her.
They coiled around her light, trying to drag her into the abyss.
Her body shook, torn between dimensions — half angel, half human, half breaking.
Kael's voice reached her through the storm.
"Zelene— don't— stop—"
Her eyes snapped open, glowing with a light older than the world.
"No."
Her voice was both hers and something greater. "You may have fallen, but judgment belongs to no darkness."
She raised her hand — the Aether Requiem surging to its full form.
Feathers of light unfurled behind her, each one carrying a rune of divine origin, each one trembling as though remembering its name.
The One Below roared. The realm shattered.
In the physical world, Cassian stumbled back as the manor trembled.
The blue flames flared white. Every sigil carved into Rosanwald stone blazed at once.
From within the sealed chamber, light poured through the cracks like molten dawn.
Darius shouted from down the hall, "What's happening?!"
Cassian could only whisper, eyes wide, "She's judging a god."
Inside, the world became both silence and sound.
Zelene's light pierced the abyss, severing the chains around the fallen being.
But instead of vanishing, the creature's voice softened — almost human.
"Then judge me… and remember what you condemn."
And so she did.
The Aether Requiem burned through him — not in hatred, but sorrow.
The light consumed the darkness, yet the darkness clung like a shadow that refused to die.
Kael screamed once — then everything went still.
The mark on his chest cracked open, releasing a flood of radiant smoke that dissolved into the air.
Zelene fell forward, catching him before he hit the ground.
Her vision dimmed. The light around her faltered.
But as she looked down, she saw it — the curse's sigil fading completely, leaving only faint silver scars.
Kael's heartbeat was faint… but steady.
And in the depths of the fading light, a whisper lingered in her mind:
"You have judged me, sister. But judgment never ends — it only changes its vessel."
The chamber fell silent.
Zelene's tears touched his cheek as she whispered, "Let us see about that."
And for the first time since the curse began —
the world exhaled.