Darkness.
Not the kind that devours, but the kind that remembers — soft, infinite, and trembling with echoes of light.
Zelene floated weightless through it, her body long gone, her consciousness adrift in something vast and ancient.
There were voices — layered like choral smoke, whispering names of gods forgotten by time.
Then, from the farthest shadow, came a pulse. A heartbeat too low, too sorrowful to belong to anything mortal.
The air bent around it. Light fractured.
"Judge of Aether…"
The voice was not cruel — it was weary. Splintered, like something long broken trying to remember its own shape.
"You call judgment upon what you do not yet understand."
Zelene's form flickered. Her divine mark — faint, like starlight under ice — flared in answer.
"You're the one who cursed Kael," she said. Her voice was steadier than she felt. "You— the One Below."
Silence.
Then a ripple — laughter, hollow and mournful.
"Once, perhaps… I was not below. I was balance — the counterweight to your light, sister of scales. But the heavens forgot their own laws. And judgment without mercy... became damnation."
Zelene's surroundings shifted — she saw glimpses of it:
A divine court shattered by pride. Thrones overturned. A figure wreathed in black fire standing where light once bloomed.
The One Below's voice cracked.
"When the Aether fell silent, I bore the weight of every sin alone. I became the curse because the world demanded someone to bear it."
And in that moment, Zelene felt something — pity.
Because beneath the abyssal ruin, she felt the faint pulse of a judge who had once believed in justice as she did.
"Why show me this?" she whispered.
"Because, Judge of Aether… your Requiem did not end me. It merely awakened what was buried.
And now—"
The darkness trembled, shattering like glass.
"The world will judge you next."
---
Three Days Later
Zelene's eyes fluttered open to the smell of sun-warmed linen and the faint, rhythmic clink of water being poured into a basin.
A maid gasped softly.
"Ah—! You're awake, milady! I— I must call for Lord Cassian—"
The words barely registered. Her body felt heavy, her mind wrapped in fog.
She tried to sit, but her limbs refused to obey.
Before she could protest, the door burst open.
Cassian entered first — tension melting from his face the instant he saw her awake.
Ray followed, muttering under his breath something that sounded dangerously close to a prayer.
Darius lingered behind them, arms crossed, relief hidden behind his usual scowl.
And then—
Kael.
He moved slower than the others, a shadow of exhaustion clinging to him. His bandaged hands trembled faintly, but his eyes — gods, his eyes — found her like gravity itself.
"Zelene…" His voice cracked on her name.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke. The air between them was fragile, filled with everything they hadn't yet said — the curse, the Requiem, the choice that nearly cost them both their lives.
Zelene's throat tightened. "How long…?"
Cassian exhaled. "Three days. You've been asleep for three days straight."
"Three—" she echoed, dazed. "And Kael?"
"I'm still here," Kael murmured, stepping closer. The faint mark of the curse was gone from his skin — but his aura still shimmered with something changed, something born from the remnants of the Aether and Abyss alike.
Ray added, "You nearly burned yourself out. Whatever you did… it tore through you."
He crossed his arms, brow furrowing. "But you're breathing. You shouldn't be."
Zelene tried to sit up, but Kael was beside her in a heartbeat, steadying her shoulders. His touch was careful — reverent.
"Easy," he murmured. "You don't have to push yourself."
She looked at him, searching his eyes for something—anything. The curse's mark was gone.
All that darkness, all that pain — gone.
"...It worked," she whispered. "You're free."
Kael's expression softened — the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. "You did it," he said softly. "You really did it."
But there was no triumph in his voice. Only quiet awe.
Zelene's lips parted — but before she could speak, the memory of that voice — the One Below's voice — echoed faintly in her mind.
"The world will judge you next."
And for the first time, she wasn't sure if she'd truly won…
or simply awakened something far worse.