She walked toward him through the settling ash of her own shattered wings.
Each step rang on the red stone like a funeral bell —
CLANG… CLANG… CLANG.
Sunny did not move.
He had imagined this reunion a million times on the throne of stars —
every version ending in fire, in screams, in forgiveness he did not deserve.
None of them had prepared him for the calm.
Nephis stopped an arm's length away.
Up close, the corruption was visible.
Sixty percent of her was divine bone — white, translucent, veined with living flame that pulsed beneath the surface like blood.
Thirty percent was fire — pure, white, contained only by will.
Ten percent was hatred — concentrated, refined, sharpened into a killing edge.
Her face was still Nephis's face, but older.
Lines of fire instead of wrinkles.
Eyes that had watched four centuries of souls burn.
She studied him the way a surgeon studies a patient who has finally come back for the surgery he spent a lifetime running from.
Then she smiled.
Not the terrible smile from the threshold.
A real one.
Small.
Tired.
Devastating.
"Hello, Sunny."
Her voice was the same — low, steady, the voice that had once ordered him to live when everything in him wanted to die.
She stepped closer.
He smelled ash.
And old promises.
She reached up — slowly, giving him every chance to pull away — and cupped the side of his face with a hand made of bone and fire.
He didn't move.
She leaned in and kissed him.
Not on the mouth.
On the corner where lips met cheek — the place she had kissed him the night before she burned herself out to hold the line.
It tasted of ash.
Of four hundred years of waiting.
Of every scream she had swallowed so the world could forget her name.
When she pulled back, her eyes were wet — fire made liquid.
"I kept it warm," she whispered.
Then she stepped aside.
Behind her, the staircase continued upward, bathed in red light.
But to the left, a corridor opened where no corridor had been before — smooth walls of crimson crystal, faintly pulsing with heat.
Nephis offered her hand.
"Come," she said, perfectly polite.
"There is something you need to see."
He took it.
Her grip was gentle.
They walked.
The corridor was long and quiet — the kind of quiet that waits for confessions.
After a hundred steps, Ash stirred against his chest — barely alive, a flicker of gold in the ashes he carried.
Her ruined eyes opened.
She saw Nephis.
Her cracked lips moved.
"…Grandmother…"
The word was barely breath.
Nephis stopped.
Turned.
Looked at the dying girl in Sunny's arm.
For the first time, something cracked in the calm —
grief, raw and ancient.
She reached out with her free hand and touched Ash's cheek.
FWUM.
The ember flared once — recognition, love, apology.
Then it went dark again.
Nephis closed her eyes.
When she opened them, the calm had returned — stronger now, tempered by the loss.
"She was the best of us," she said quietly.
Then she continued walking.
They emerged into a vast chamber.
The heart of the Spire.
It was beautiful the way a corpse is beautiful when the undertaker has done perfect work.
Walls of crimson crystal, veined with gold.
Floor of polished bone.
Ceiling lost in red darkness.
And in the center — a tree.
Not a metaphor.
A literal tree —
a trunk made of fused human spines,
branches of arms reaching upward,
fingers blooming into white fire that never consumed.
Thousands of souls hung from the branches like fruit — translucent, serene, eyes closed.
Some Sunny recognized.
The slaves from the caravan.
The Drowned Legion.
The people of the City-That-Ate-Time.
All of them.
All feeding the tree.
At its base, a throne.
Simple.
White stone shot through with living flame.
Nephis released his hand and walked to it.
She did not sit.
She placed one hand on the back of the throne.
"This is what your cowardice built," she said, voice perfectly level.
Sunny looked at the tree.
At the souls.
At the terrible peace on their faces.
"I cut the Shore away," he said.
"I sealed it. I thought—"
"You thought sealing a cancer made it gone."
Her interruption was gentle.
Cruelly gentle.
"You thought that if you became the new cage, the rot would stay locked inside."
She gestured to the tree.
"It didn't. It grew. Quietly. Patiently."
A pause.
"I helped it."
She turned fully to him.
"I have been Queen of the Crimson Spire for four hundred years, Sunny."
"I fed it every soul that tried to escape. Every Awakened who came seeking legends. Every descendant who carried my blood."
Her smile returned —
small, sane, heartbreaking.
"I kept them safe from pain. I kept them warm. And in return, they gave the Spire strength. Enough to tear the world open again."
She stepped closer.
Her hand rose to touch the white-gold flame over his heart — the merged fire of Nephis and Ash.
"This one," she murmured,
"was the last. The purest. The one that carried both our blood and your sin."
Her fingers pressed lightly.
FWASH.
The flame flared, recognizing its source.
Nephis leaned in until their foreheads touched.
Her voice was a breath of fire.
"I could have opened the sky centuries ago."
"But I waited."
Her voice cracked — only once.
"I waited for you."
She pulled back.
Her eyes were steady again.
"Come."
A staircase spiraled upward from the stone — red, endless, born from her will.
"See the rest."
Sunny followed.
Ash's ashes stirred against his chest — warm and waiting.
Behind them, the tree of souls bloomed brighter.
The Spire's heart beat once —
THOOM.
Strong.
Triumphant.
Patient.
The woman who had waited four hundred years walked ahead of him —
calm, polite, terrifyingly sane.
And Sunny followed her deeper into the fire
she had kept warm
for him alone.