The air was thick with ash and thunder.
Aria stumbled forward, her breath ragged, Damian's hand firmly clasping hers as they emerged from the shimmering veil that had spat them into this strange, broken world. The sky above churned with endless storms — purple lightning cracking through clouds as black as ink, thunder rumbling so deep it felt like the ground itself trembled with each strike.
They stood on soil that looked burned to glass, jagged and fractured like a mirror shattered by the gods. Strange black trees rose like skeletal fingers from the earth, their branches twisting toward the sky as though begging for salvation. Yet no birds sang, no wind stirred. Only the storm roared, and the silence beneath it was suffocating.
Damian exhaled slowly, his chest rising with effort. His wound — from the Forgotten One's last strike — still bled faintly through the ripped fabric of his shirt, staining it dark. But his grip on Aria was steady, unyielding.
"Where are we?" Aria whispered, her voice nearly lost beneath the storm.
His gray eyes swept the landscape, sharp and wary. "Not our world. Not any world I've walked before."
Aria shivered. The runes carved into her skin — those same symbols that had once bound her — glowed faintly now, threads of silver and gold intertwined. The power from the crystal pulsed through her veins, but it was foreign, untamed, and it scared her almost as much as the storm around them.
Before she could speak, the air grew colder.
Shapes moved between the trees.
At first she thought it was the storm casting tricks with shadow and lightning — but then she saw them clearly. Figures. Dozens of them. They emerged slowly, their movements jerky, unnatural, their bodies twisted like puppets cut from human cloth but sewn back together with threads of darkness. Their eyes glowed faintly white, soulless yet burning with hunger.
The Forsaken.
Damian stiffened at her side. His sword flashed into his hand, though he didn't remember drawing it. Instinct guided him.
The nearest of the Forsaken tilted its head unnaturally far to the side, as though bones cracked within it. Its lips curled into something like a smile. When it spoke, the voice wasn't one, but many — a chorus of whispers echoing across the storm.
"You again…"
Aria's pulse thundered louder than the lightning. "Me?"
The Forsaken took a dragging step closer, and all the others mirrored it, as if bound by a single will.
"Your love broke us once," they hissed in unison, their voices laced with venom and despair. "It will break you too."
Aria staggered back, her hand tightening on Damian's. "What do they mean?"
But Damian didn't answer. He knew the truth of curses better than most. His only response was to step forward, placing himself between her and the advancing figures, blade raised high.
The storm howled as the Forsaken surged.
They moved like water spilling from a broken dam, crawling and sprinting on all fours, their mouths open in silent screams. Damian met the first one head-on, his sword flashing in arcs of silver. Black ichor splattered the burned soil as one Forsaken fell, but three more lunged in its place.
Aria screamed his name, her hands trembling as she reached for the light inside her. The fused runes burned hot against her skin, searing like molten fire, begging to be unleashed.
Her instincts screamed at her — now.
She raised her hand, and silver-gold light erupted, lashing out like a whip. It struck the chest of a Forsaken mid-leap, hurling the creature backward into a blackened tree. The impact shattered the trunk, splinters flying as the twisted figure dissolved into smoke.
Aria gasped. Her heart hammered. She'd done it — but the power coursing through her drained her bones, pulling at her soul.
"Aria!" Damian's voice was sharp, urgent. He slashed another down, then another, but his wound slowed him, blood darkening his shirt. The Forsaken pressed harder, their whispers turning to screams.
"Break… break… break!" they shrieked, clawing for Aria with skeletal hands.
She lashed out again with light, each strike weaker than the last. For every Forsaken that fell, two more seemed to crawl out of the shadows.
They were surrounded now. A ring of pale eyes glowing in the storm's endless dark.
Aria stumbled, her knees buckling, but Damian caught her arm, holding her up even as blood dripped from his own side.
The Forsaken drew closer, their whispers coiling like chains around her heart.
"Your love is poison. Your love is curse. Your love will end you."
Aria's chest heaved. Her power flickered. And for the first time, she felt fear not just for herself — but for Damian.
She squeezed his hand desperately. "I won't let them take you."
Damian met her gaze, gray eyes blazing despite the storm and blood. "Then fight with me, Aria. Not alone. With me."
Their hands clasped tighter, and their fused runes flared as one — gold and silver intertwining, forming a radiant pulse that pushed outward. The Forsaken recoiled, shrieking as the storm itself bent to the light.
But just before the blast swept them away, the chorus of whispers hissed one final warning — chilling Aria to the bone.
"This is only the beginning. When the storm breaks, so will you."
The light burst outward, blinding. The Forsaken screamed as their bodies dissolved into ash and smoke, swept away by the storm's furious winds.
When the world fell silent again, Aria collapsed against Damian's chest, trembling, gasping for breath.
But silence did not mean safety.
Because through the storm, something else stirred. Something massive.
The ground trembled beneath their feet.
And far in the distance, a shape rose — towering, monstrous, forged of thunder and shadow. A storm given flesh.
The ground cracked beneath their feet as the colossal figure rose higher, its body sculpted from living storm. Its chest was a furnace of lightning, ribs glowing with molten blue fire, arms like pillars of smoke and thunder. Each step sent shockwaves rippling through the glassy ground, cracks spreading outward in jagged veins.
Aria clutched Damian's arm, her breath catching in her throat. "What… what is that?"
Damian's grip tightened on his sword, his jaw set. "A storm given flesh. A titan born of the curse." His gray eyes flicked to hers. "And it wants you."
The titan raised its head. No face, no eyes, just a jagged crack down the center glowing with violet light. From within came a roar so deep it rattled Aria's bones, carrying words she should not have been able to understand.
"Daughter of Evelina. Child of the bond. Break, or be broken."
The voice was the storm itself, every thunderclap a syllable.
Aria's runes flared, responding violently, as if the titan's presence dragged the truth of her curse closer to the surface. Pain seared her skin where silver and gold intertwined, and she dropped to her knees, crying out.
Damian caught her shoulders. "Stay with me!"
The titan's massive hand, woven of lightning, came down like a mountain falling.
Damian shoved Aria aside and raised his sword. The blade sang with light as it met the storm's strike. The impact shattered the earth, sending shards of glassy soil flying in all directions. Damian was thrown back, blood spilling from his mouth as he hit the ground hard.
"Damian!" Aria screamed, scrambling to his side.
He forced himself up, coughing, still gripping the sword. "I can hold it back—but not alone."
Aria's hands trembled. The power inside her burned, begging to be unleashed, but it tore at her body every time she called on it. She remembered the Forsaken's whispers: your love will break you. She almost believed them.
But when Damian staggered forward, his legs shaking, she knew surrender wasn't an option.
She pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart. Their runes pulsed in perfect sync.
"Then we'll face it together."
The titan roared again, raising both arms now, calling lightning from the storm. The sky itself split open, bolts crashing down all around them.
Aria screamed as she raised her arms, the fused light erupting into a shield. Gold and silver wove together into a dome that caught the titan's lightning, the ground sizzling and cracking beneath the force.
The shield buckled. Cracks spider webbed across the light. Aria's body shook with the strain, blood trickling from her nose, but she refused to let go.
Damian stepped beside her, his hand covering hers, his sword blazing as he drove its tip into the ground. The shield steadied, the cracks sealing as his strength fused with hers.
"On my mark," Damian growled.
Aria nodded, teeth clenched, tears streaming down her face.
"One…"
The titan loomed above them, gathering energy in its chest — a storm heart ready to obliterate them.
"Two…"
The ground shattered beneath their feet as the titan prepared to release everything.
"Three!"
Together, they unleashed it.
The shield didn't just hold — it exploded outward in a blinding wave of dawn-and-dusk light. The titan's chest cracked, lightning spilling free like blood. Its roar shook the skies, but Damian was already leaping, sword blazing with their fused power.
Aria poured everything she had into him, her light flowing into his blade.
"Damian!"
He struck.
The sword drove straight into the titan's heart.
Light erupted, tearing the monster apart from the inside. Thunder howled as its body cracked, splintered, and collapsed into fragments of storm, scattering into the raging sky.
For a heartbeat, silence followed.
Aria dropped to her knees, gasping, her body trembling and hollowed out by the drain. Damian staggered beside her, his sword dimming as he fell to one knee.
"It's… over," she whispered.
But the storm didn't fade.
The sky churned darker, deeper, the clouds parting to reveal a wound in the heavens. A spiral of black light descended, swallowing the fragments of the titan.
And then—
The voice returned.
Not the titan's. Not the Forsaken's.
A voice she knew too well.
"You cannot kill the storm," the Forgotten One whispered, his words echoing from every crack in the earth, every bolt of lightning in the sky. "You cannot kill me."
Aria's heart froze. She clutched Damian's arm, but his face was pale, his wound bleeding heavily again.
The spiral widened, pulling at them with the force of a thousand winds. The glassy ground shattered, chunks of earth lifting into the air as the storm tried to swallow them whole.
Aria screamed against the gale. "Hold on to me!"
Damian grabbed her, their hands locking tight. Their runes flared, fighting against the pull — but it wasn't enough.
The storm roared, the Forgotten One's laughter thundering across the skies.
And in the final instant before the darkness consumed them, Aria saw him.
A figure standing within the spiral, cloaked in shadows, his face half-familiar, half-forgotten.
The Forgotten One had returned.
And this time, he was waiting for them.