When Kael opened his eyes, the world was wrong.
The sky above him was fractured—half obsidian, half gold, as though day and night had forgotten where they belonged. The ruins of the temple floated in pieces around him, suspended in midair like shards of memory. Every breath he took tasted of lightning and ash.
And Lyria—no, the goddess—was kneeling before him. Her body glowed faintly, a silhouette of starlight and smoke, the remnants of her divine form bleeding into the mortal plane.
For a long time, neither of them spoke. The silence was heavy, trembling with everything that had been said and everything that couldn't be.
When Kael finally found his voice, it was rough, raw, and almost broken.
"Are you… still her?"
Her head lifted slowly, eyes shimmering with fragments of galaxies and sorrow. "I don't know," she breathed. "She's still inside me. But she's fading."
