The binding between Selena and Dante settled into permanence, becoming as fundamental to their merged nature as the original fusion that had occurred when she'd dissolved into his storm. They existed now as doubly bound—merged through love and chained through fear, unified by choice and connected by violation. The throne pulsed with satisfaction at this development, at having absorbed not just one being but two, at holding them both in its terrible embrace.
But something else was responding to the binding, to the completion of their mutual captivity, to the recognition that they had both fully accepted their roles even while hating what those roles required.
The bloodfire that flickered through the throne's structure began to gather, to concentrate in a space just beyond Selena's reach. It pooled and coalesced, drawing heat and light and essence from the throne itself, from the bonefire that animated the Throne of the Unliving, from the very substance of authority made manifest.
