The silence after the kiss was not relief—it was ruin.
Lyria could still taste the echo of Kael's soul on her lips, sweet and electric, but beneath it now thrummed something alien, something ancient and cruel. His breath brushed against her cheek, cold as the grave. And when his eyes opened—those once-moonlit irises she had loved—they were burning crimson, threaded with veins of shadow that pulsed like serpents under glass.
He smiled. It was Kael's mouth, Kael's lips—but the smile was wrong. Predatory. Infinite.
"Did you truly think," the god whispered, his voice pouring out in layers of tones—Kael's, and something older—"that love could change the ending I wrote?"
Lyria took a step back, her wings trembling behind her. The ruined fragments of Kael's soul floated around them, flickering like dying stars. "Give him back," she said, her voice shaking but fierce. "You don't belong here."
