The days following He Who Burns' challenge were worse than the challenge itself. Dante remained unconscious, his body healing slowly from the combat's damage while the mark Selena had written on his chest pulsed with dark light, maintaining the forced sleep that had saved him from death through continued fighting. She sat beside him on the throne room floor, unable to leave him, unwilling to return to the throne that waited for her with patient hunger, maintaining their shared circulation while her own strength dwindled with each passing hour.
And her flame was failing.
