The sky bled.
It wasn't a metaphor—it was literal. Threads of crimson light wept from the wounded heavens, dripping down through a veil of black clouds that trembled with thunder and whispered voices. The eclipse had begun. The old world, the one Kael had spent centuries defending, was dissolving beneath it.
And she—Lyria—stood in the middle of it all, silent and motionless, her face half-illuminated by that dying light.
Kael had crossed battlefields before. He'd stared death in the eye, faced gods, monsters, and his own cursed reflection. None of it compared to the sight of her now—reborn from the ashes of what he'd destroyed, her power humming like a heartbeat that belonged to both heaven and hell.
He moved toward her, slow, careful. The air between them crackled, dense with unspoken things—desire, regret, a love too deep to name.
"Lyria," he breathed, the sound barely escaping him.
