They didn't speak of the Crown again—not out loud.
Elaria carried it beneath her ribs, a flame with no smoke, no source. Kael bore it in the shifting darkness of his wings. They had become part of something old, something the world had forgotten. A prophecy shaped not by gods, but by desire. By ruin.
And now, the Gate waited.
This one stood atop a forgotten plateau where nothing grew. A perfect obsidian arch etched with one thousand names.
The names of every bearer who had ever touched the Hollow Flame.
Kael found his first. Elaria found hers second.
Then—
Beneath theirs, freshly carved, the same name: Kalaria.
"We're one now," Kael said.
Elaria touched the name. Fire licked her fingertips. "Let's see what one becomes."
The Gate pulled them into a dreamless place.
Not night. Not void. A realm outside reason.
There were mirrors here, stacked in impossible spirals. Each showed a version of them.
Kael, mad with power, burning entire cities.
Elaria, crowned Empress of Flame, her heart blackened.
Together, as tyrants. Apart, as monsters.
The mirrors whispered.
This is what you will become.
Elaria raised her sword, smashed one.
Kael crushed another.
But for every mirror destroyed, three more rose.
Then a voice slithered through the nothingness.
"You cannot destroy your fate. Only rewrite it."
From the shadows stepped the Mirror-Queen.
She was them.
Elaria's smile. Kael's eyes. A fusion twisted by lust and ambition.
"You took the Crown, but you never chose the path. The Gate of Names shows all roads."
Kael growled, wings unfurling. "We choose love."
"Then bleed for it."
The Mirror-Queen attacked.
Not with blades—but with memories.
She sent visions slamming into them.
Kael watched his mother die again, chained to a mountain while he burned helpless below.
Elaria saw her childhood home, the night it was taken—her screams muffled by the ash of her village.
They fell to their knees.
This is who you are, the Queen purred. All power comes from pain.
Elaria rose first.
"But love doesn't end with pain."
Her sword flared, carved from every kiss they'd shared, every breath between battles.
Kael rose beside her. His claws ignited with the heat of their nights together—their wild, blistering, desperate need.
They fought.
Steel against illusion. Fire against despair.
Their Mirror-selves joined the fight. For every strike, Kael felt his rage deepen. For every wound, Elaria felt her old guilt.
But they didn't break.
Not this time.
They kissed mid-battle. Raw. Bleeding. Triumphant.
And the Gate shuddered.
When the Mirror-Queen fell, her body shattered into stardust.
The Gate opened again—but this time, it didn't pull.
It asked.
Who are you?
Kael answered. "The last dragon who remembers love."
Elaria answered. "The woman who made fire remember mercy."
Together: Kalaria.
And the Gate wept.
They awoke in a temple of twilight.
Columns of light. Pools of memory. Trees that sang.
The Temple of Names.
At the center, an altar.
Upon it, two rings forged of living flame.
"Are we being married by fate now?" Elaria asked, touching one.
Kael grinned. "Or by ourselves."
He placed the ring on her finger. It melted into her skin—no weight, just warmth.
She did the same.
Their bond surged. Not just lovers. Not just warriors. Something divine.
And the world felt it.
All across the lands, dragons stirred.
The Hollowborne screamed.
And the final Gate began to open.
But with it came a price.
The more they touched each other, the more they risked dissolving.
Not death—merging.
Two souls, one fire.
Elaria felt it first during their next kiss. Her thoughts blurred. His heartbeat echoed in her bones.
Kael felt it when they touched in sleep. Her dreams became his. Her memories overlaid his past.
They were becoming legend.
And legends don't survive as mortals.
They stood atop the last mountain, looking down at the Gate of Ending.
A spiral of stone and flame. Singing with voices of every bearer before them.
"If we step through," Kael said, "we might never return."
Elaria took his hand.
"Then let's leave a story worth remembering."
Behind them, the world trembled.
Ahead of them, eternity.
They walked forward.
And the sky burned.