Chapter 282 - The Endling Throne

The Riftborn King's retreat left a silence that felt ominous rather than peaceful, that suggested not resolution but pause, not ending but intermission between acts of tragedy that hadn't finished playing out. Dante's bones still burned with Selena's flame, his body adjusting to presence of fire in marrow, his storm learning to coexist with anti-light that now defined as much of him as tempest ever had. They sat together in the throne room, maintaining each other through shared circulation, through blood pact, through accumulated violations that had become the architecture of their love.