The Grand Atrium had become a coliseum of velvet and vengeance.
By dusk the marble floor was gone, replaced by a living map of Elyssara: oceans of sapphire glass, mountains of black sand, and one glowing crater where the glass coffin used to hang.
Above the crater floated three crystal thrones (one storm-blue, one ice-white, one coal-red) arranged in a perfect triangle around a single pedestal.
On the pedestal: Alexander's heart, literally.
A fist-sized storm-cloud pulsing with white lightning, tethered to his chest by silver chains of raw desire.
Five thousand crystal orbs hovered like fireflies, broadcasting to every surviving screen on the continent.
The Choir children sat cross-legged on air, six tiny conductors, wands of pure sound raised.
Their song was a low, filthy heartbeat that made every adult in the atrium shift in their seats.
High Arbiter Seraphine appeared in hologram form, six wings now molten gold.
Her six mouths spoke in perfect, filthy unison:
"Welcome to the Auction of the Last Thunder.
One storm.
Three bidders.
One rule: the highest bid wins Alexander's eternal bond, and the right to stand at Arya's left hand when Jonathan comes to burn the sky.
Let the bidding begin."
The crowd roared.
Dragons roared louder.
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Bidder One: Liora Frostfang
She strode in wearing a gown of living ice that melted and refroze with every step, revealing flashes of thigh, nipple, the soft curve of hip.
Her hair was a waterfall of liquid nitrogen.
Her smile could freeze a volcano.
She stopped beneath the storm-heart, raised one pale hand, and snapped her fingers.
A thousand ice sculptures rose from the floor (perfect replicas of every lover Alexander had ever had, posed mid-orgasm, mouths open in silent screams).
She kissed the nearest statue.
It shattered into a blizzard of diamond dust that swirled into a single word above the pedestal:
ETERNAL WINTER
Liora's voice was frost on skin.
"I bid a winter that never thaws.
Every dawn you wake inside my ice, hard as glaciers, begging for spring.
Your storm will learn to love the cold."
The crowd gasped.
Half the orbs fogged up.
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Bidder Two: Cassia Emberkin
Cassia entered on a river of liquid coal, barefoot, coal tattoos crawling across her skin like living lava.
Her gown was literally fire (crimson, gold, hungry).
She walked straight through Liora's blizzard; the flames hissed, devoured the diamond dust, and turned it into rubies that rained onto the map.
She leapt onto the pedestal, straddled the storm-heart, and ground against it slow, deliberate, filthy.
Lightning arced from the cloud into her spine.
She threw her head back, moaned, and the moan became a volcano that erupted behind her (real lava, real ash, real heat).
The volcano spelled a single word in burning letters:
ASH AND ECSTASY
Cassia's voice was smoke and sin.
"I bid a thousand nights of burning.
Your storm will be my kindling.
Every time you come, a city is reborn in fire.
Choose me, and we'll fuck the world back to life."
The crowd lost its mind.
Dragons set their own wings on fire just to feel something.
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Bidder Three: Arya Allison
She didn't walk.
She arrived.
The gold butterflies from her coffin-shatter had woven themselves into a dress that moved like liquid sunrise.
Every step left footprints of living roses that bloomed, wilted, and bloomed again.
Her hair was a storm of its own (black, gold, violet, every color she had ever bled).
The black rose scar over her heart pulsed with Anthony's tongue-print still glowing.
She stopped between the two thrones, looked up at Alexander's storm-heart, and smiled the smile that had restarted a universe.
Then she did the one thing no one expected.
She turned her back on the pedestal.
She faced the five thousand watchers, the five hundred Winged, the nineteen rescued, the sixteen lovers who had carried her coffin for twenty-one days.
And she spoke (not to Alexander, but to them).
"I bid nothing," she said.
"No ice.
No fire.
No eternal anything.
I bid the truth."
She snapped her fingers.
The map beneath their feet changed.
The oceans became mirrors showing every moment Alexander had saved her:
- the night he caught her falling through the library shelf,
- the dawn he carried her dying body from the Chimera's claw,
- the twenty-one sunrises he stood beneath her coffin whispering her name until his voice cracked.
The mountains became memories of every kiss he'd given freely (no levels, no war, just want).
The crater became a single, perfect image:
Alexander on his knees in the rain, pressing the white rose to the glass, tears mixing with storm-water.
Arya's voice was soft enough to cradle a dragon's egg.
"I bid the storm that already chose me.
Every sunrise he waited.
Every tear he swallowed.
Every heartbeat he gave before I ever gave one back."
She turned to the storm-heart.
"I bid you, Alexander.
Not as a prize.
As a promise.
Take me, or leave me.
But never, ever, bid me away."
Silence.
Then the storm-heart detonated.
White lightning poured down the silver chains, wrapped around Arya's waist, lifted her until she floated eye-to-eye with Alexander himself (who had appeared on the pedestal without anyone noticing).
His storm-runes were quiet.
His eyes were wet.
He cupped her face with both hands.
"Idiot," he whispered.
"You were never for sale."
He kissed her.
Not soft.
Not gentle.
Apocalypse.
The kiss cracked the map in half.
The thrones shattered.
Liora's ice melted into a lake of tears.
Cassia's volcano cooled into obsidian glass.
The System's velvet voice purred inside every skull:
SYSTEM: "Bid accepted.
Bond: UNBREAKABLE.
Level pulse: +5 for every soul who watched.
Warning: wardrobe malfunction in 3… 2… 1…"
Arya's gold butterfly dress exploded into a thousand shimmering wings that wrapped around Alexander like living armor.
She was suddenly wearing nothing but his storm and a smile.
The crowd screamed approval.
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Later, in the war-room, the map still smoked.
Liora and Cassia stood on opposite sides of the table, arms crossed, cheeks flushed.
Alexander leaned against the wall, shirtless, storm-runes glowing soft.
Arya traced a finger through the ash on the map.
"Round two starts at dawn," she said.
"Beasts first.
Bonds second.
Jealousy never."
Cassia snorted.
Liora rolled her eyes.
But both women stepped forward, pressed their lips to opposite corners of Arya's mouth (chaste, fierce, family).
Anthony Felix watched from the doorway, hands in pockets, smile small and secret.
Outside, Jonathan's second beast (a Tier-7 Mirror Widow the size of a cathedral) began to sing across the horizon.
Inside, the harem sharpened their tongues and loaded their hearts.
The auction was over.
The war was just getting started.
And the sky had learned a new word for thunder:
Together.