The roar swallowed them.
Ethan's lungs seized as the world cracked apart, his apartment collapsing into threads of mist and light. He staggered forward and his boots struck solid stone, stone that pulsed like a heartbeat beneath his feet. The Tower. He was back.
At the same instant, Elara's vision shattered into brilliance. The quiet city street ripped away, dissolving into darkness and shifting walls of glass. Her knees buckled as the pull wrenched her into place, and when her breath steadied, she was standing once again in the Tower's endless heart.
This time, though, it wasn't the same.
The air was thick with stormlight, every breath laced with the sharpness of metal and rain. Lightning crawled across the sky, if it could be called a sky, splitting the void with veins of violet fire. Below, chasms stretched wider than she remembered, their depths filled with shifting shadows that writhed like serpents.
And there, spanning the abyss, lay the bridge.
It gleamed faintly in the storm, its glass-like surface etched with runes that pulsed in rhythm with their marks. Broken fragments hovered near its edge, suspended in the air like shards of a shattered mirror.
Ethan's mark burned against his wrist. He pressed a hand over it, grimacing, but his eyes fixed ahead. Somewhere beyond this storm, he knew, Elara was here.
"Elara…" he whispered.
As if in answer, her own mark seared beneath her skin. She gasped, clutching her wrist, and felt it pulse with a beat that was not her own. His beat. Ethan's.
Her throat tightened. "Ethan."
The Tower shuddered at the sound, and in the distance, the bridge began to tremble.
Both of them stepped forward, unaware they were walking the same path, pulled by the same storm.
The silence broke.
From the void, whispers rose like a thousand voices murmuring in unison. Words without language, promises without meaning, crawling into their ears, their bones, their thoughts. The storm above deepened, clouds swirling into a vast spiral, lightning hammering down with every pulse of their marks.
The Tower wasn't just waiting.
It was hungry.
The bridge stretched farther than either remembered, a silver span suspended over nothing, its runes glowing faintly with each step.
Ethan's boots struck the glass-like stone, the echo vanishing too quickly into the storm. His grip tightened on Elara's sword, the steel humming faintly as if it knew where it belonged. He kept his eyes forward, even as shadows curled at the corners of his vision, whispering Sofia's name.
Not real. Not here.
He pushed on.
Far ahead, Elara moved with the same determination. Her blade gleamed faintly in the unnatural light, the mark on her wrist burning brighter with every heartbeat. She ignored Rowan's smirk flickering in the storm, ignored the phantom sound of his voice calling her back.
Not real. Not anymore.
The storm thickened, clouds roiling in furious spirals above. Lightning split the void in jagged forks, striking the abyss below. The shadows writhed in response, stretching upward like black waves trying to swallow the bridge whole.
Then,
"Elara!"
Her heart jolted at the sound. She froze, eyes wide, turning toward the voice that cut through the storm. For a heartbeat, she thought it was another trick, another phantom conjured to break her.
But then she saw him.
Through the storm's fractured light, across the trembling span, Ethan stood. His figure was blurred by the distance, but his mark burned clear, flaring in perfect rhythm with her own.
Her breath caught. "Ethan…"
The storm howled at the name, as if the Tower itself recoiled from it. The bridge groaned under their feet, cracks splintering out from the runes, jagged and fast.
Ethan took a step forward, his chest tight. "It's really you."
The bridge convulsed. A fissure ripped across the span between them, spraying shards of light into the void. The abyss below surged upward, shadows shrieking like a chorus of a thousand broken voices.
Ethan staggered, barely holding his balance. "Elara! Don't stop, keep moving!"
She tightened her grip on her sword and ran. The bridge shook with every step, runes flaring, collapsing, flaring again. Her lungs burned, her legs trembling, but she didn't slow.
Ethan moved toward her too, his pulse matching the bridge's wild rhythm. Each time he glanced down, the abyss seemed closer, hungrier. His chest heaved with a single thought: Don't let it take her. Not again.
The storm screamed. The bridge began to fall.
The storm above shattered into a thousand voices, lightning slashing the sky into jagged pieces. The bridge cracked wider, runes flickering like dying stars beneath their feet.
Ethan's boots slammed against the trembling span, each step a fight to stay upright. He could barely hear his own breath over the storm, but Elara's figure across the abyss was clear, burning into him like a beacon.
"Elara!" he shouted again, raw and desperate.
Her legs carried her forward, heart hammering. She wanted to answer, to tell him she saw him, that he wasn't alone, but the storm clawed the words from her throat. All she could do was run.
The fissure between them split further, widening into a gaping maw. Shadow poured upward, thick and writhing, trying to devour the gap, to consume the bridge entirely.
Ethan gritted his teeth, swinging the sword down. The steel sang, releasing a shockwave of light that blasted the shadows back for a heartbeat. The bridge steadied just enough for him to keep moving.
Elara mirrored him, thrusting her blade into the stone. The runes around her flared brilliantly, forming a path across the crumbling span. She tore it free and sprinted forward.
The Tower roared.
A bolt of black lightning slammed into the bridge between them. The span split apart, one half sinking, the other rising.
Ethan skidded to a halt as the bridge beneath him tilted sharply. The abyss yawned, swallowing chunks of stone. His mark burned like fire. He reached out, hand straining toward her.
"Elara!"
Her blade nearly slipped from her grasp as the ground heaved under her. She stumbled, knees striking the stone, and for a terrible second she almost slid into the void. Her chest seized with terror.
But when she lifted her eyes, she saw him. Ethan, arm outstretched, fighting to reach her through the chaos. Not a phantom. Not a lie. Him.
Something in her broke open.
"ETHAN!"
The scream ripped free, raw, shattering, cutting through the Tower's roar. It echoed off the storm, louder than thunder, burning the air with the weight of her defiance.
Her mark flared blinding silver. His flared in response. The storm recoiled violently, the shadows shrieking as the Tower itself convulsed.
For a heartbeat, it felt like the whole realm shattered under the force of her voice.
The bridge collapsed completely.
And the abyss claimed them both.
The Tower heard her.
Elara's scream split the storm, her voice raw, unrestrained, carrying Ethan's name like a blade through the thunder. For an instant, silence rippled outward. The lightning froze in the sky, the rain hung suspended, and the bridge itself seemed to pause in mid-collapse.
Ethan staggered, the echo of her voice searing into him. His wrist mark burned in answer, flaring so bright beneath his skin that he dropped to one knee, clutching it.
"Elara…" His lips formed the word like a prayer.
Then the storm retaliated.
A roar split the air, deeper than thunder, a sound like stone grinding against stone. The abyss below heaved upward, black waves rising as if the void itself were alive. Shadows spilled across the broken bridge, clawing at the edges, trying to smother the fragile thread between them.
The bridge shook violently. Whole sections tore free, falling into the abyss with a scream of snapping chains.
Ethan forced himself upright, the sword heavy in his hands, its blade sparking as though alive. He could see her now, far across the collapsing span, her hair plastered to her face by the rain, her sword raised in defiance. The sight nearly dropped him to his knees again.
"Elara!" he shouted, forcing his voice through the storm.
Her eyes locked on his. For a heartbeat, everything else vanished, the Tower, the storm, the abyss. Only them, standing on opposite ends of a dying bridge, pulled together by something neither world could sever.
The bridge gave another violent shudder. Cracks spiderwebbed through the stone, whole slabs tumbling away. Ethan ran.
Every step was a battle. The wind slammed against him like a wall, rain stung his face, and the shifting planks beneath his feet tried to hurl him into the abyss. But he kept going, teeth gritted, eyes fixed on her.
Elara did the same. She leapt over gaps that widened beneath her, swung her blade to shatter shadows that lunged from the storm. The mark at her wrist flared brighter with every step, guiding her, dragging her forward.
And then.
The bridge cracked straight down the middle.
The gap yawned wide, opening between them, stone and chain screaming as they tore apart. Ethan skidded to a halt at the edge, boots sliding against slick stone. Across the void, Elara did the same, her chest heaving, the distance between them suddenly impossible.
"No!" Ethan roared. He lunged, as if sheer will could carry him across. The abyss answered with a blast of wind that hurled him backward, nearly tearing the sword from his hands.
Elara's mark seared. She stepped to the edge, staring at the impossible gap, the abyss writhing below like a sea of claws. Her pulse thundered in her ears, Rowan's voice echoing inside her mind: You'll betray him. You'll lose him. Just like you lost me.
Her grip faltered, then tightened.
"Not again," she whispered.
She raised her sword high, its blade catching the lightning. The glow from her crescent mark poured into the steel until it burned like a star. With a cry that shook her lungs raw, she drove the blade into the ground.
The bridge screamed.
Stone and chain writhed like living things, pulled by the surge of light. For an instant, the broken halves lurched toward one another, drawn by her defiance. The abyss roared in protest, shadows clawing upward to tear it apart again.
"Ethan!"
Her voice carried across the gap, filled not with fear but with command. She was not calling for rescue, she was summoning him.
Ethan's mark blazed in answer, a searing wing of light along his wrist. The sword in his hands ignited with the same fire, the shard in his pocket pulsing in rhythm. He felt the pull, stronger than gravity, stronger than the storm itself.
He ran.
The final stretch of bridge crumbled beneath his feet, but the light carried him forward, a leap born not of strength but of faith. For one breathless moment, he was suspended above the abyss, nothing but darkness yawning below.
Elara thrust her hand forward, her sword still buried in the stone, light pouring from her mark into the bridge. "Ethan!" she screamed again, her voice cracking.
Their fingers brushed, then caught.
The impact nearly tore her shoulder from its socket, but she held on with a cry, dragging him toward her as the storm unleashed its fury. Lightning split the sky, striking the bridge in a dozen places at once. Chains snapped, stone shattered, shadows screamed.
Together, they landed hard on the trembling span, their hands still locked, marks blazing bright enough to blind.
The Tower roared, a sound of rage and denial. The storm collapsed inward, the bridge unraveling into shards of stone and light, sucked into the abyss like dust into a vortex.
Ethan and Elara clung to each other as the ground vanished beneath them.
And then.
Silence.
They were falling, but not into darkness. Light engulfed them, pure and blinding, a storm reversed. The abyss itself cracked open, swallowing the bridge, the storm, the shadows, until nothing remained but the two of them and the marks that bound their wrists in fire.
Ethan tightened his grip on her hand, breath ragged. "I've got you."
Elara's lips parted, her voice breaking through the white void, fierce and unyielding.
"Ethan!"
Her scream carried not despair but defiance, a vow hurled against the Tower itself.
The world shattered.