The spear was still warm from her hand when she wrenched it free.
Sunny felt the wound close with a soft shhhk, like a mouth sealing after speaking its last secret. No blood spilled. The coat stitched itself whole without even the courtesy of a scar. Only the taste of old iron on his tongue confirmed anything had pierced him at all.
Ash stared at the place where her spear had been—in him—golden eyes narrowing into burning slits.
"You didn't even bleed."
Sunny shrugged. "I ran out a long time ago."
The City-That-Ate-Time watched from every terrace, every rope bridge, every bone window. Thousands of branded foreheads. Thousands of eyes filled with fire and hunger and history. Not one voice rose. Not one breath dared be loud.
Ash took two steps back and planted the spear butt against the stone.
[SFX: KRA-CK!]
The echo tore through the inverted ziggurat like a gunshot fired through the bones of a giant.
"Then let's see what does bleed."
She moved.
No warning.
No stance.
Just murder.
The spear became a streak of white fire—more comet than weapon. It screamed downward, then snapped upward with inhuman precision. The air peeled away from it in curling ribbons.
Sunny stepped aside.
A breath.
A whisper.
The spearhead passed a hair's width from his throat.
[SFX: SHRRRRP—!]
The stone behind him split open like wet paper.
Ash followed with a shoulder check meant to snap ribs. Sunny absorbed the hit, felt the impact travel down his spine, and turned with it. Her knee flashed upward toward his groin—he pivoted. Her wrist twisted in his grip—he felt bone grind but she didn't drop the spear.
She spun into him, elbow slamming the side of his head with enough force to break brick.
Sunny's vision detonated into white.
He tasted stars.
She was already mid-motion again—reversing the spear, butt-spike stabbing straight for his eye.
Sunny laughed.
Just once.
Short. Cracked. Wrong.
And the shadows answered.
Blackness erupted from beneath his feet. Dozens—hundreds—of obsidian blades shot upward, spearing toward Ash's legs, torso, throat.
She twisted mid-air, flames rolling over her skin like liquid armor.
[SFX: SHHHAAA-THOOM!]
Every shadow blade shattered on contact.
Molten gold sparks rained from her heels as she landed, spear spinning, carving a perfect burning circle around herself—ten meters wide, white at the edges, gold at the heart.
Within that ring there was nothing except her.
And him.
THE INHERITED FLAME
Ash straightened. The fire coating her body condensed into articulated plates—armor made of living sunlight. Her silver hair drifted as though caught in the pull of a white dwarf.
Her voice was steady, too steady:
"My Aspect is Inherited Flame.
Every drop of blood Changing Star spilled on this Shore burns inside me.
Every scream she swallowed.
Every promise you broke."
She leveled the spear at his heart.
"I was born to kill you, Traitor Saint. Or die proving you're only a Nightmare Creature wearing his face."
Sunny tilted his head.
"And if I'm not?"
Ash's smile was a knife made of memory.
"Then the real Sunless is already dead…
and you're just what ate him."
The ring of fire snapped shut.
[SFX: FOOM!]
Heat swallowed the world.
She lunged.
He moved.
Spear. Shadow. Fire. Silence.
Ash fought like Nephis had fought in her prime—relentless, perfect, merciless. Every thrust a killing blow. Every step poetry written in scars.
The spear sliced his cheek.
Tore a ribbon from his ribs.
Punched through his thigh and nailed his shadow to the stone for a heartbeat.
Sunny didn't block.
He danced.
Shadows bent around her flame. They parted like smoke, reformed behind her, lunged and withdrew in a rhythm that belonged more to tide than man.
He struck only when the world forced his hand.
Open palm to throat.
Elbow to temple.
Knee to solar plexus.
Each blow calibrated to hurt—not kill.
Her reactions sharpened.
Her flame brightened.
Her blood—red, human—fell as molten gold droplets when it hit her fire.
Minutes passed.
Or hours.
Time was dead here anyway.
THE MOMENT THE FLAME STUMBLED
Finally—
Ash overextended.
Only by a fraction.
Only enough.
Sunny stepped inside her guard.
His hand closed around her throat.
Shadows surged—not to crush, but to hold.
Her feet left the ground.
The spear clattered away.
Her flames roared, swallowing him, trying to erase him from existence.
Sunny let them burn.
The pain was clean.
Old.
A familiar friend.
Ash choked, clawing at his wrist. Sparks burst where her fingers met shadow. Her legs kicked once, twice—
Then went still.
Not dead.
Listening.
Sunny leaned in until their foreheads touched—skin to skin, flame to shadow.
His voice was gravel learning how to whisper:
"I carried her soul in my chest for four hundred years.
I felt it cool.
I felt it forgive me.
I felt it choose to stay."
Ash's eyes widened.
Sunny opened his coat.
Beneath it, over his heart, a faint white flame flickered—gentle, steady.
Nephis.
It flared once, recognizing blood.
Ash's flame recoiled, guttered, trembled.
Sunny lowered her gently.
She collapsed to her knees, coughing gold-steamed blood.
The fire ring died in a sigh of sparks.
THE CITY SINGS
Silence.
Then—from the lowest terrace—
An old woman began to sing.
A slave song.
The last one they had sung before the march to the Crimson Spire.
One by one, every voice in the city joined.
The City-That-Ate-Time became a cathedral of grief and fire.
Ash looked up at him through blood and tears and horror.
"You…
you really are him."
Sunny crouched, meeting her eye to eye.
"I'm what's left."
She wiped her mouth, hand shaking.
"The Spire is waking."
Her voice cracked.
"It dreamed us. Built us. Built all of this.
It's calling your name in a voice made of corpses."
Sunny turned to the horizon.
The Crimson Spire pulsed once—
[SFX: THOOM…]
—like a dying god trying to rise.
Sunless.
Sunless.
Sunless.
Ash pushed herself upright.
She retrieved her spear.
The blade flickered, uncertain.
"I still hate you."
Her voice was raw.
"Don't expect me to kneel."
"I never did."
She nodded once.
Turned her back.
Began walking toward the drowned road that led to the Spire.
After three steps—
without looking back:
"You coming, Traitor Saint?"
Sunny followed.
The city sang them out.
THE PATH OF MONSTERS
The broken battlements of a half-sunken castle jutted from the black water like ribs of a dead god.
Ash stood at the highest point.
Wind whipped her silver hair sideways.
She planted her spear.
"Only a monster can kill a god."
Sunny stepped beside her.
The white flame on his chest brightened.
"Then let's go be monsters."
Far away, the Crimson Spire answered—
[SFX: BOOM-THOOM-KRNNNNK…]
A heartbeat of red light that shook the world.
Ash extended her hand.
Not in friendship.
Not yet.
Just alliance.
He took it.
Her grip was warm.
Human.
Alive.
Together they stepped off the battlements and began the long walk toward the thing that had waited four centuries to finish what they began.
Behind them, the City-That-Ate-Time continued singing.
Quieter now.
Proud.
Mourning.
Hopeful.
A hymn for monsters.