Selena's wings were the first to go completely.
Those magnificent silver feathers, marked by shadow from their merger, threaded with the scars of every battle they'd fought—they crumbled as Dante watched, disintegrating into ash that didn't fall but dispersed into the bonefire still burning through reality. Each feather that dissolved took a piece of her with it, a fragment of the being she'd been, consumed by the transformation she'd created.
"No, no, no," Dante chanted, his arms around what remained of her, trying to hold together a form that was rapidly losing coherence. Through their binding, he could still feel her—could sense her consciousness, her love, her terrible satisfaction at what the bonefire had accomplished—but her physical presence was evaporating like morning mist under harsh sun.
