The first thing I noticed when I woke was the silence.
No ringing in my ears. No shudder of rubble collapsing around me. Just silence—thick, suffocating, almost palpable. My eyelids fluttered open to a roof that wasn't the cathedral's shattered skeleton of stone but the endless expanse of a star-streaked night sky. The ruins had stilled. The shards that had once pulsed like fractured hearts now flickered faintly, drifting sparks like dying fireflies in the darkness.
Lysander sat beside me, his back straight against the rubble, his newly reforged blade across his lap. Silver fire coiled softly around his shoulders, illuminating the sharp lines of his face, but his eyes weren't on the weapon. They were on me. Watching. Waiting. Alive. Whole.
Relief should have flooded me. It should have hit like warm water after a storm. But instead, the hollowness came first. It pressed into my chest like a weight, dragging the air out of my lungs, leaving me… unmoored. Empty. The bond throbbed between us, iron-strong, taut as a drawn bow, but inside me, there were gaps I couldn't fill.
I tried to remember my mother's face. Blank.
I tried to picture the village I grew up in, the warm smell of the baker's bread, the clamor of children in the streets. Nothing.
I tried to remember why I had kept moving all this time—what had driven me to survive, what I had once wanted. But the thought slipped away, like smoke curling through my fingers. Gone.
Lysander's voice broke the silence. Quiet. Controlled. But there was a sharp edge beneath it, one that made my heart stutter.
"You're awake."
I swallowed hard. My throat was raw from screaming, from shouting, from holding in the last piece of myself.
"…Yeah," I rasped.
His silver eyes narrowed slightly, the firelight flickering across them. "What's the last thing you remember?"
The bond pulsed, warning me he already knew. Still, I clawed through the void in my head, desperate to hold onto something solid.
"I remember Kade. The fight. The shards." My voice cracked, fragile as glass. "I remember you falling."
"And before that?" His words cut through the air, deliberate, precise, like the sharp edge of a blade.
I froze. Because before that—it was just black.
"I…" My chest tightened painfully. "…I don't—"
His hand shot out, gripping my wrist. Not cruel, not harsh, but firm, desperate. The bond roared between us, alive, fiery, unyielding. His eyes locked on mine, silver and fierce, an anchor in the void.
"You gave it up," he said, his voice trembling, though his grip remained unrelenting. "You gave yourself away to drag me back. I told you never to do that again."
The fire inside me wavered. I shook my head, lips parting for an excuse, but none came. He was right. I had nothing left. The hollowness pulsed again, vast and echoing.
"You should've let me die."
The words tore out of him like embers from a smoldering fire. His jaw was tight, his shoulders rigid, but his voice cracked at the last word.
I flinched, but my hand closed over his wrist anyway, gripping just as hard. "Don't say that. Don't you dare."
The bond flared, hot, raw, and alive. I could feel the truth of it—how much it had hurt him, how my possible erasure had cut him deeper than any blade. But beneath the fire, there was something darker. A whisper at the edge of my mind.
And then I realized: not all of the ichor had died with Kade.
It was in him.
The silver fire around Lysander flickered faintly with black veins, subtle spiderwebs threading through the light, wrong in a way that made my stomach churn. His wounds had closed, but the corruption had sunk deeper, hidden in the cracks of his soul.
I felt it in the bond now. A thread of rot, faint, coiled deep inside him. Not overwhelming yet. Not consuming. But there. Waiting.
Fear tightened my chest colder than anything I had ever felt in the cathedral.
He saw it in my eyes before I could hide it. His grip on my wrist loosened slowly, and he leaned back, resting the blade across his lap again, gaze fixed on the night sky.
"It's still in me," he said quietly, almost a whisper.
The silence after was unbearable.
I couldn't lie. Couldn't deny it. The bond would expose me if I tried. I sat there, fingers curling into fists, nails biting into my palms.
"We'll fix it," I whispered, fierce despite the hollow inside me. "We'll burn it out. Together."
His laugh was soft, bitter, like smoke curling from cold embers. "You gave away pieces of yourself for me. And now I'm tainted. Do you see the cruelty of it?"
I swallowed hard, forcing the fire in me to push back against the despair threatening to pull him under. "Then we'll fight it. Both of us. I don't care how much it takes."
He finally looked at me fully. In his eyes was a storm—fury, grief, longing, guilt—crashing against mine until it was hard to breathe.
"You don't even know who you were anymore," he said, voice rough. "And still you say that."
The hollow inside me ached, yawning wider. But I met his gaze anyway. "Then let who I am now be this: the one who doesn't let you fall."
The bond flared, sealing between us, an oath of fire and ash.
But beneath it all, the ichor pulsed faintly in him, a shadow biding its time. And though neither of us spoke it aloud, we both knew: this was only the beginning.
The cathedral was gone. Kade was dead. But the war he carried had only just begun—and now it lived inside Lysander.
The night pressed down around us, heavy and silent. Stars shimmered overhead, distant and cold, indifferent to the ruin below. I could hear my own ragged breathing, each inhale a razor through my lungs, each exhale a hiss that seemed far too loud in the stillness.
Lysander didn't speak at first. He simply sat there, shoulders tense, blade resting across his lap like a weight he refused to let drop. The silver fire that clung to him pulsed faintly, coiling around him like liquid light, but the black veins threading through it whispered danger, subtle and insidious.
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to move closer. My legs trembled beneath me—not from the claw wound or exhaustion, but from fear. Fear that the bond had saved him, yes… but at what cost? How much of him had been lost to the ichor that still lingered?
I reached out, letting my fingers brush his forearm. The silver light danced under my touch, warmth—and cold—flickering together. "Lysander," I whispered, voice small, fragile. "Talk to me. Tell me what's happening in there."
His eyes met mine. For a heartbeat, they were soft, almost human again, but then the shadow flickered in them. The black veins pulsed faintly with each blink, a rhythm that set my heart on edge.
"It's still there," he murmured, voice low, almost a growl. "I can feel it, creeping through me. A thread. Nothing strong yet… but it's hungry."
My stomach twisted. I had seen what hunger like that could do. Kade hadn't just died. He had transformed. The ichor didn't just consume flesh; it consumed will, reason, soul. If it had rooted in Lysander… I didn't want to think about what that meant.
I tightened my grip on his hand. "Then we fight it," I said again, firmer this time. "We've survived worse. We'll survive this too. Together."
He shook his head slightly, a faint, bitter laugh escaping. "You… you gave pieces of yourself to save me. And now I'm tainted. Do you understand the cruelty of that?"
I swallowed. It hurt to hear it, to feel the weight of what I had done pressing back on me. But I had no regrets—not a single one. The fire inside me pushed against the emptiness. "Then we'll fight it. Both of us. I don't care how much it takes, Lysander. I don't care if it costs us everything."
For a long moment, he said nothing. The wind stirred faintly through the ruin, carrying the scent of dust, scorched stone, and something darker—residual ichor, still whispering beneath the cracks. My heart hammered in my chest, each beat echoing through the night.
Finally, his gaze met mine again. The storm in his eyes had shifted, softened slightly—not gone, but tempered. "You don't even know who you were anymore," he said, voice rough, almost vulnerable. "And still… still you fight like this."
I swallowed the ache that clawed at my chest. "Then let who I am now be this: the one who doesn't let you fall."
The bond between us flared, strong and unbreakable, humming like a second heartbeat. Silver fire and shards of light pulsed around us, weaving a fragile cage of life and warmth. But beneath it, I could feel the ichor stirring, a shadow moving in tandem with his own heartbeat, subtle but persistent.
We sat like that for hours, though it felt like minutes—two souls bound by fire, ash, and something darker. My hand never left his, gripping, anchoring, reminding both of us that neither would be left alone.
Finally, Lysander spoke, quieter now, almost a whisper meant for the stars. "We'll need time. Patience. I can burn it out… but the ichor doesn't surrender easily."
I nodded, pressing my forehead to his shoulder, letting myself breathe for the first time since the cathedral fell. "We have time. We have each other. We'll burn it out together."
The shards around us flickered once, faint, as if acknowledging our oath. The black veins in the silver fire recoiled slightly, shy shadows against the bond's glow, but I knew—they were still there. Waiting. Patient. Hungry.
And I clenched my teeth, staring into the darkness that had once been our cathedral. Kade was gone. The Aberration's threat was over—for now. But the war he had carried had planted seeds. Seeds that now lived inside Lysander. Seeds that whispered, just faintly, promising that the battles were far from over.
I didn't care.
We were ready. Together.
And as the night stretched on, thick and suffocating, the bond between us pulsed, a silent vow of fire, ash, and unbreakable resolve.