The wind carried the scent of ash and iron, stirring the remnants of battle around them. Mae's pulse thrummed against her throat, every beat echoing in the chains that still glowed faintly beneath her skin. Sethis stood only a breath away, his presence wrapping around her like a storm contained by will alone.
"You've bound yourself to it," he said quietly. "To the fracture. To him." Mae's fingers tightened at her sides. "I made a choice."
"No," Sethis whispered, stepping closer, his shadows tightening. "You answered a call. One that will not stop until it owns you."
She turned to face him, the violet light in her eyes flickering. "You think I don't know what I've done? You think I don't feel it clawing through me?" Sethis's expression shifted. Anger, grief, and something deeper. "You gave yourself to the thing that wanted to unmake you."
"I ended the war," she said, voice trembling with exhaustion. "The champion fell." He laughed once, dark and hollow. "Fell? Mae, it kneeled. There's a difference." His shadows shivered across the ground, stretching toward her like living things. She held her ground, though her breath faltered. The energy in her veins responded instinctively to his proximity, the fracture's power burning hot against her skin.
"Tell me what you feel," he demanded. "Right now." Mae swallowed hard. "Alive."
"Alive?" His voice sharpened, cutting between them. "Or remade?" She didn't answer. The silence stretched, broken only by the crackle of faint embers scattered across the battlefield. Above them, the sky still bore scars of what had been, a wound stitched with violet fire and shadow. Sethis stepped closer, his hand lifting as though to touch her face, but he stopped just short. "Your light burns too bright," he murmured. "Even the void notices."
Her breath caught. "You're afraid." He tilted his head. "Shouldn't I be?" Mae looked up at him, the corners of her mouth twitching despite the weight in her chest. "You never were before."
"That was before you became the thing I was told to protect the world from." His words cut, but they didn't surprise her. She could feel it now, the shift inside her. The fracture wasn't just part of her; it was awake. Every thought, every flicker of emotion hummed with dangerous energy. It would take only a breath to lose control.
Sethis saw it too. "You're trembling."
"I'm holding back." He exhaled through his teeth, stepping closer until the shadows at his feet merged with the faint glow around hers. "Then stop." She blinked, startled. "Stop?"
"Stop pretending you can carry this alone. Stop pretending you're still only Mae." Her pulse quickened. The space between them thinned until his breath ghosted across her skin. His shadows reached for her like the edge of night itself, curling around her wrists, her waist, her throat. Not choking, but holding.
The fracture inside her reacted violently, power flaring outward in a bright surge of light. Sethis didn't flinch. His darkness absorbed it, folding around the glow until it softened into something else. Balance. "I can feel it," he whispered. "It's feeding from you, shaping itself through you." Mae's lips parted, her voice unsteady. "Then help me control it."
Sethis's hand finally found her face, his thumb tracing the faint burn mark near her temple. "You think I can?"
"I think you already are," she said. For a moment, everything stilled. The world seemed to fade, leaving only the two of them, light and shadow, trembling at the point of collision. Sethis leaned in, his voice lowering to a dangerous murmur. "If I touch you again, I won't stop it this time." Mae didn't move away. "Maybe you shouldn't."
The chains beneath her skin glowed brighter, pulsing in rhythm with his shadows. When they met, light and dark didn't fight. They folded together, swirling in a quiet storm that made the air hum. Mae gasped softly as the energy raced through her, sharp and familiar. Sethis's eyes flickered with something that wasn't just hunger. "You feel that? The world is shifting?"
"It's not the world," she said. "It's us." His hand slipped lower, stopping at the base of her throat. "You're changing."
"I already have." Sethis's shadows flickered, uncertain. He was close enough now that she could see the fractures running along his jaw, faint scars of old battles and older sins. He wasn't untouched by what they had done either. He studied her like a man staring at the edge of a blade. "Do you even know what you are now?"
Mae's answer came quietly, but sure. "Alive. And that's enough."
Something in his expression broke. His shadows withdrew just slightly, retreating like a tide pulling back from the shore. But the look in his eyes stayed, dark, reverent, afraid. "Alive," he repeated, almost to himself. "That's what Kaine said too, before he burned himself out."
Her heart twisted. "Don't."
"You think his sacrifice ended anything?" he asked. "The moment you touched that thing, everything began again. You think the champion kneeling was a victory, but it was a rebirth. The start of something the rest of us can't follow." Mae shook her head, stepping back. "I didn't do this for power."
"No," he said softly. "You did it because you believed you could carry what none of us could. But what if the fracture chose you because you were willing to destroy yourself for everyone else?" She froze. "Then I'll destroy what comes after too, if I have to." Sethis smiled faintly, but it wasn't kind. "You sound like it already owns you."
The words hit her harder than she expected. She turned away, staring at the horizon, where the remnants of violet light met the endless dark. The fracture pulsed faintly in her chest, answering some unheard rhythm in the void beyond. Sethis's footsteps followed, slow and deliberate. "Mae," he said, his voice softer now. "If you truly believe this is the beginning of a new age, then you need to understand what that means. New ages don't begin with peace. They begin with ruin."
Mae's chains flared once more, burning against her skin. "Then let it come. Whatever it is, I won't run from it."
"You might not get the choice." She turned to face him again. His eyes were no longer shadowed by fury, but by something quieter, fear, or maybe prophecy. "What do you mean?" Sethis glanced toward the distance, where the fractured sky shimmered faintly. "It's not over. The champion isn't the end. It was the vessel. The fracture's first echo. And now that it's touched you, it will spread. Everything that fell today was only a fragment of what's waking."
Mae's blood ran cold. "You're saying there's more."
"I'm saying the war you thought you ended hasn't even begun." The words hung heavy between them. Mae's pulse roared in her ears, her body trembling under the weight of what she already knew was true.
The air shifted again, so subtly she almost missed it. A sound, deep and low, reverberated across the ruins. The ground beneath them quivered, the same way it had when the champion first stirred. Sethis's head snapped toward the sound, his shadows flaring wide. "It's too soon," he hissed.
Mae looked out over the horizon, her eyes narrowing as a faint pulse of light blinked within the ash, rhythmic and deliberate, like a heartbeat answering her own. Her voice came out in a whisper. "Something's calling." Sethis's expression hardened. "Not something. Someone."
She turned toward him, but before she could speak, the light in the distance flared brighter, taking shape as a figure rose from the fractured earth, draped in chains that gleamed with reflected violet fire. The ground cracked again. A familiar voice echoed across the dark. "Did you miss me?"
Mae's heart stopped. Sethis's shadows recoiled in disbelief. "No. That's impossible." But the voice was real. The shape was real.
And as the figure stepped forward, the glow caught across his face, Kaine's face, alive and smiling in the ruin's light.