The weight of revelation still hung heavy between them as they left the throne room, the whispers of crystallized secrets fading into memory like half-remembered dreams. Selena's mind churned with everything she had witnessed—Dante's binding to the entities beyond the gate, the terrible price of his power, the trap that had been decades in the making. She felt as though she walked through a world suddenly made fragile, where every shadow might conceal watching eyes and every breeze might carry the whispers of otherworldly masters.
They moved through corridors of carved stone, their footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence. Dante walked beside her, but the space between them felt vast despite the physical proximity. She could sense his internal struggle, the war between his desire to protect her and his need to keep her close. The scars on his arms seemed to pulse with their own rhythm, a constant reminder of the marks that bound him to forces beyond mortal comprehension.
