The throne of bones did not move.
Nephis sat within it—living flesh and charred skeleton superimposed like two truths overlapping—and regarded Sunny with the patience of someone who had already waited four centuries and discovered that waiting had become a reflex.
The white fire around them dimmed, softening into a hearth-warm glow.
She rose.
*WHUM…*
The skeleton rose with her, perfectly synchronized.
She extended her hand.
Sunny took it.
Her grip was steady. Warm. Devastatingly familiar.
She led him into the fire.
*fwoosh—shhhhhh*
The flames parted like curtains of molten silk, revealing a corridor that had not existed moments before.
Walls of living light.
A floor polished into bone-white mirror.
A ceiling that opened onto a sky that was not a sky at all—only the slow, failing heartbeat of something impossibly ancient.
They walked.
No words.
Only the echo of their footsteps and the distant, arrhythmic *THOOM… thoom… THOOM…* growing with every meter.
The corridor ended at a door.
Not a door.
A single, massive feather—white once, now grey with old gold veining its length—hung suspended, shivering with each pulse.
Nephis touched it.
*shhhHRRRRIP*
The feather parted like water.
They stepped through—
—into the heart.
The true heart of the Crimson Spire.
A cavern so vast it had horizons.
Suspended in the center was a star.
A white star, no larger than a mountain yet heavier than memory itself, bound by seven chains of divine metal that pierced its blazing surface and anchored into the world's bones.
The chains glowed a dull, exhausted red.
Close to breaking.
The star was dying.
Its once-godly radiance flickered—now nothing but the color of spent embers. With every pulse, waves of heat rolled outward, illuminating rivers of molten gold flowing upward into the Spire, feeding it.
This was the source.
The first Dawn Flame.
The stolen heart of a dead god.
The heart Nephis had sustained for four hundred years.
With souls.
With hatred.
With herself.
Nephis walked to the edge of the platform.
Sunny followed.
The heat here was gentle. Like a farewell.
She spoke without turning.
"Do you know what I felt the first time I touched it?"
Her voice was quiet. Almost conversational.
"Peace."
She faced him.
Her eyes—ancient, gold, burning—held the weight of centuries.
"Absolute, perfect peace. For a single heartbeat, there was no pain. No fear. No guilt. Only light."
She gestured to the dying star.
"I thought… if I could give that to everyone, even once… it would be worth any price."
Her fingers brushed one of the chains.
*GROOOAAN…*
The metal trembled at her touch.
"I was wrong," she whispered. "The price was too high. But I had already paid it."
She stepped into the full radiance of the failing star.
The light melted across her—soft, divine, mournful.
"Look at me, Sunny."
He did.
Sixty percent divine bone.
Thirty percent living flame.
Ten percent hatred.
She was the price.
Her wings—fire and ruin—unfurled behind her as she spread her arms.
"I kept it alive," she said. "With every soul I fed it. Every piece of myself I tore away. Every year I waited for you."
She turned to the star, bathed in its ebbing brilliance.
"I can still do it. One last burn. Gentle. Clean. A world washed in dawn."
Her smile was almost hopeful.
"No more cages. No more lies. No more pain."
Then she extended her hand.
"All you have to do is help me break the last chain."
The star pulsed—
*THOOM—!**
Brighter. Pleading. Alive.
Sunny stepped toward it.
Toward her.
Toward the promise of peace.
The heat grew warmer.
Kinder.
He stood at her side.
Looked down into the heart of a dying god.
Felt its longing—its promise of an end to everything that hurt.
He raised his hand.
Nephis watched him with the eyes of a woman who had waited lifetimes for this single moment.
His fingers brushed the nearest chain.
Warm. Alive. Asking.
He looked at her.
"I understand," he said.
Her smile trembled—relieved, grateful, ancient.
He wrapped his fingers around the chain.
And then—
*SKRRAAASH—*
Shadow surged.
Not to break.
To reinforce.
To take the weight.
Nephis froze.
Sunny pulled.
Not to free the star—
—to carry it.
*WHUMMMMM—!**
Shadow poured down the chain.
Into the dying star.
Into the fire that had lived inside Nephis for four hundred years.
He took it.
All of it.
The star screamed—
*KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!!**
A sound like galaxies being crushed into birth.
The chains shattered.
*KRRRRRSHHHH—!**
The star collapsed inward—
White light folding into black—
And sank into him.
Nephis reached—
Too slow.
The heart of the Spire went dark.
The platform trembled.
The world held its breath.
Nephis stood before him, eyes wide.
Burning.
Human.
"What… what have you done?" she whispered.
Sunny stood in the dark, the weight of a god's heart settling into his chest—next to Nephis's ancient flame. Next to Ash's ember. Next to every piece of everyone he had ever failed.
He exhaled.
Smiled—small. Tired. Free.
"I took it from you," he said.
"So you don't have to burn alone anymore."
The darkness shuddered.
Then it ignited.
Not white.
Not gentle.
Black fire—shadow braided with dawn.
The true heart of the Spire beat once—
*THOOM—!**
—and belonged to him.