The floating penthouse hung three kilometres above Eos-7, invisible, silent, untouchable.
Kael opened a rift with a flick of his fingers and stepped aside.
Liora walked through first.
She stopped in the centre of the black-marble floor and turned a slow circle.
No guards.
No cameras.
Only two moons bleeding red light through floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped the entire space.
One long obsidian table.
Two chairs.
A single bottle of 400-year-old crimson wine and two glasses.
Nothing else.
Simple.
Dangerous.
Perfect.
Liora's void spear materialised in her hand, tip pointed at his throat.
"Explain," she said.
One word. Absolute command.
Kael didn't flinch.
He unbuttoned his coat, let it fall, rolled up his sleeves.
The black ring caught the moonlight.
"Sit," he said gently.
"Or stand. Your choice.
But you will want to hear this."
She didn't sit.
He began anyway.
"Ten billion years ago, there was a 13th Universe.
The first. The perfect one.
We ruled it together."
He raised his right hand.
The ring projected a memory into the air between them (raw soul footage, no system interface).
A throne room made of collapsing galaxies.
A woman with silver hair laughing in the arms of a man with twelve wings of pure night.
Stars dying like fireworks behind them.
Her teeth on his throat.
His hands in her hair.
Their laughter shaking reality itself.
Three seconds.
Liora's spear wavered.
Kael continued, voice steady.
"We were balance.
Creation and oblivion in perfect harmony.
Nothing could touch us.
Then the Narrative Devourers came (higher-dimensional parasites that feed on stories, on tragedy, on heroes killing villains).
They couldn't defeat us while we were together.
So you made a choice."
He stepped closer.
"You compressed the entire 13th Universe (every star, every law, every soul) into your own bloodline and sealed it inside your heart.
Then you tore my soul from my body and threw it into the cycle of reincarnation, erasing both our memories so I could live at least one small, safe life."
Another step.
"I've died thousands of times looking for you.
Betrayed every single time.
This is the first life I woke up with the tools to break the cage."
Liora's knuckles were white on the spear.
"I don't remember any of that," she whispered.
"You will," Kael said.
"Every time we touch, the seal weakens.
Every time we fight together, it cracks.
When resonance reaches 100%, the 13th Universe will unfold from your body, and the Devourers will come with everything they have."
He stopped one metre away.
"I'm not asking you to love me tonight.
I'm asking you to stay long enough to remember why you once did."
Silence.
The moons watched.
Liora's spear dissolved into black mist.
She took one step forward and rested her forehead against his chest.
Just rested.
No words.
Kael's arms came around her slowly, carefully, like she might shatter.
The twelve shadow wings unfolded on their own, wrapping them both in warm, living darkness.
Her scent flooded the room.
Night-blooming cereus.
Cosmic frost.
Home.
Minutes passed.
<< Resonance: 14.8% >>
The system's voice was almost reverent.
Liora spoke against his shirt, voice muffled.
"I came here to kill you."
"I know."
"I still might."
"I know."
She pulled back just enough to look up.
Amethyst eyes wet, glowing faintly.
"But not tonight."
Kael brushed a strand of silver hair behind her ear.
His thumb lingered on her cheek.
"Tonight we eat," he said.
"Tomorrow we start breaking the universe that kept us apart."
He led her to the table.
Two plates appeared (steak cooked rare, blood still pooling, vegetables that cost more per gram than gold).
They ate in silence.
Every time their fingers brushed reaching for the wine, the black ring warmed.
When the plates were empty, Liora stood.
"I should go."
Kael didn't stop her.
She walked to the edge of the invisible balcony, opened a small rift of pure void.
Before stepping through, she looked back.
"Kael."
First time she ever said his name in this lifetime.
His heart stopped, then restarted twice as strong.
"If you lie to me," she said quietly, "I will erase you from every timeline that ever existed."
"I know," he answered.
She stepped through.
The rift closed.
Kael stood alone in the huge floating penthouse.
He touched the place on his chest where her head had rested.
<< Resonance holding at 14.8% >>
<< Hidden counter: 9,999,994 >>
Nyx's voice came, soft and almost human.
<< She will come back tomorrow night.
She always does when the memories start bleeding through. >>
Kael walked to the window and looked down at the city that would soon kneel.
Tomorrow the real war began.
Tonight, for the first time in ten billion years, he slept without nightmares.
Because her scent still lingered on his shirt, and the taste of her name was on his tongue.
He fell asleep standing, wings folded around himself like a blanket.
In his dream, a silver-haired empress smiled at him across a battlefield of dying gods and whispered,
"Welcome home, my Eternal Night."
To be continued…