Kaiden held her there, disbelief breaking through his composure.
"Why," he demanded, voice shaking for the first time, "are you so desperate to die that you would give yourself to a mindless end?"
Inara's strength was already leaving her.
Her legs buckled.
Kaiden lowered her slowly to the ground without realizing he was doing it.
Darian watched, frozen.
His mother's face blurred as tears flooded his vision.
He remembered her voice, soft, calling him in from the yard.
He remembered her hand in his hair when he was sick.
He remembered her laugh.
"Inara," Kaiden said hoarsely. "Stay. Please."
She didn't look at him.
She looked at her son.
"Darian," she whispered.
He choked on a sob. "Mom…?"
Her lips trembled.
"Be… good," she said softly. "I'm sorry."
She turned her head just enough to look at Kaiden.
"And… I'm sorry," she whispered. "For everything."
Kaiden just stared at the blood on his hands as if it were a mathematical error he couldn't solve.
Then, the silence of the field was broken by a sound that wasn't a shout, it was a low, jagged howl of a man who realized he had won the war but destroyed the prize.
Her eyes lost focus.
Her breath stilled.
Silence fell.
For a long moment, Kaiden didn't move.
He just held her.
Then—
"No."
The word came out quiet. Broken.
He said it again, louder. "No. No, Inara, you don't….."
He shook her slightly, like she might wake up.
She didn't.
His hand..,,still holding Darian, tightened unconsciously.
Darian choked, gasping.
Kaiden didn't notice.
"You don't get to leave," he whispered to the body in his arms. "Not like this. Not again."
The black mist pulsed outward.
The golden void shattered completely.
And Kaiden, the man who had crossed realms and torn through barriers...sat in the ruins holding a woman who had chosen death over him.
Again.
....
The world snapped back.
Vesperyn hit the ground hard, shoulder first, then ribs, momentum slamming him into roots and stones.
The air punched out of his lungs.
He gasped. Nothing came. His chest seized, locked, empty.
Panic flooded him. Breathe. BREATHE.
Finally, a thin, painful wheeze. Then another. His throat opened and he sucked in air that tasted like rot and copper.
His stomach heaved violently.
He rolled onto his hands and knees just in time. Dark red bile splattered across dirt.
He retched again, nothing but strings of saliva and the taste of metal.
When the spasms finally stopped, he stayed there, shaking, one hand pressed against his ribs.
Everything hurt.
He blinked.
Darkness pressed in from all sides. Not night…..wrong. Too thick. The air itself felt heavy, damp, clinging to his skin.
Trees. He could make out shapes now. Massive trunks, twisted branches overhead blocking out whatever sky existed here.
Where…..
"Mom?" His voice came out hoarse, barely a whisper.
No answer.
He pushed himself up to sitting. Pain flared along his side. He ignored it.
"Darian?"
The silence swallowed his voice completely. Not even an echo.
"Darian!" Louder now, voice cracking. "Mom! Where are…."
His knees buckled.
He didn't fall so much as collapse, hitting the mud hard. His hands sank into cold earth.
"Darian, please…." The words broke apart. "Please answer me"
Nothing.
Just trees and darkness and the sound of his own breathing, too fast, too shallow.
He tried to stand. His legs wouldn't hold him.
Tried again. Same result.
So he stayed there, kneeling in the mud like something waiting to be hit.
His hands were shaking so badly he had to clench them into fists to make it stop. It didn't stop.
When he looked down, he saw them.
Tiny fragments of metal scattered in the dirt where he'd landed.
The ring.
Broken.
He stared at the pieces. They caught what little light existed here, glinting faintly.
He'd crushed it.
He'd left them.
The last thing Darian said was "don't leave me."
And Vesperyn had squeezed his eyes shut and abandoned him.
His throat closed. His vision blurred.
Don't cry. Don't….
He was crying.
Silently at first, then with harsh, gasping breaths that hurt his ribs. He pressed his forehead against the mud and let it come, shoulders shaking, fingers digging into the earth like he could hold onto something solid.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that.
His thoughts spiraled, tangling over each other.
Light.Dark Mist.
None of it made sense.
He stayed like that.
Time passed.
Crack.
Vesperyn's head snapped up.
He held his breath, listening.
Silence.
Then,
Crack.
Closer.
Something was moving through the trees.
Not quickly. Deliberately. The sound of weight pressing down on dead wood, methodical and patient.
Vesperyn's heart kicked against his ribs.
He pushed himself up slowly, quietly, mud squelching under his palms. Every sound felt too loud. His breathing. The scrape of his shoes against roots.
Crack.
Closer still.
He couldn't see it. The darkness was too complete. But he could hear it.
Steady. Unhurried.
Oh God!
Something was hunting him.
Vesperyn ran.
His foot caught on a root and he nearly fell, catching himself at the last second. He didn't stop running.
Behind him,
He risked a glance over his shoulder.
At first, he saw nothing.
Then his eyes adjusted.
Something tall and hunched moved between the trees. Its body bent wrong, joints folding in ways they shouldn't. Its head hung low, almost dragging, as if it was sniffing the ground.
Sniffing.
His stomach dropped.
It reached the dark stain on the dirt.
His vomit.
The thing stopped.
Its head lifted slowly.
Whatever passed for eyes fixed on him.
"No," Vesperyn whispered.
The word barely made it out.
He ran harder.
Tears blurred his vision as panic flooded him, hot and overwhelming.
The ground seemed to tilt under his feet. His lungs burned. Every breath scraped painfully through his chest.
Something hit him from behind.
Hard.
Vesperyn went down face-first, the impact driving the air from his lungs. Before he could even process what happened, weight slammed onto his back, crushing him into the dirt.
Rip
Claws punched through his shoulder.
White-hot pain exploded through his arm.
"Aahhhhh," he screamed,raw, animal.
The weight shifted. The claws dragged, tearing.
"Stop…..STOP—" He tried to crawl forward. The thing on his back was too heavy. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. "Please…..someone—MOM"
Hot breath washed over the back of his neck. Wet. Rancid.
Something was sniffing him.
Vesperyn sobbed, fingers scrabbling uselessly at roots and mud. His shoulder was on fire. He couldn't feel his hand. Couldn't tell if he still had a hand.
The creature's weight pressed down harder.
This was it.
This was how he died.
Alone in the dark, face-down in mud, eaten by something he couldn't even see.
He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for teeth.