The hall trembled under the weight of their battle. Damon rose again and again, refusing to fall — but Aethriona wasn't aiming to kill him.
She was dismantling him.
Piece by piece.
"Still standing?" she said with a calm that chilled the air. "Good. It means I haven't broken enough yet."
She flicked her wrist.
Damon's knees buckled.
A chain of pure soul-light wrapped around his throat, lifting him off the ground. His aura struggled, flickering like a dying flame.
Selene screamed, "Damon!"
Aethriona didn't look at her.
"You think strength makes you free?" she whispered. "I forged your soul. And I know what cracks you."
She pressed two fingers against Damon's forehead.
And pushed.
A soundless scream tore from his lungs. His body convulsed, limbs jerking violently as Aethriona reached inside him — not physically, but into the memory-bones of his being.
Selene felt it.
Everyone in the hall felt it.
Damon's spirit was unraveling.
Aethriona's voice softened, almost fond.
"You were human once. You loved once. You dreamed once. Let me remind you of what I took."
A vision exploded behind Damon's eyes — a girl, sunlight, laughter, the warmth of a touch he hadn't remembered in hundreds of years.
Then—
Aethriona crushed it.
The memory shattered into silver dust.
Damon's scream became a broken gasp.
His strength collapsed.
His aura extinguished.
The Firstborn fell to the ground like a lifeless shell.
Selene crawled to him instantly, her hands trembling as she pulled him into her arms.
He didn't respond.
He didn't blink.
He didn't breathe.
Aethriona had done what no blade or curse ever could.
She had broken his spirit.
Selene's vision blurred with tears, but she forced herself to stand between Damon and the witch.
"Give him back," she said. Her voice shook, but the words were steel.
Aethriona regarded her with mild curiosity.
"And what will you offer, little flame?"
Selene swallowed hard.
Her heart hammered with terror.
But she still said it:
"Anything."
Aethriona smiled.
There it was — what she had been waiting for.
She moved closer, her presence suffocating.
"Very well," the ancient witch said.
"I will return his void-core. I will wake him. I will restore the monstrous heart I crafted."
Selene's fists clenched.
"But…" Aethriona continued, leaning close enough that Selene could feel her cold breath on her cheek,
"…his first love is mine. Forever. I take the memory, the emotion, the piece of his soul tied to her."
Selene's stomach twisted.
"That part of him," Aethriona whispered, "will never return."
Damon made a faint sound — a broken, hollow exhale — as if Aethriona's words reached him even in his shattered state.
Selene looked at him.
He needed his void-core to live.
He needed his soul restored.
Even if it cost something unimaginable.
Selene nodded slowly.
"Do it."
Aethriona raised her hand.
The void-core — a black, pulsing sphere of energy — materialized, dripping with the same power used to create him. She pressed it into Damon's chest.
His body arched violently.
Dark light seeped through his veins.
The chamber shook with ancient force.
Aethriona stepped back, satisfaction gleaming in her eyes.
When the light faded, Damon lay still — breathing, alive…
…but empty.
Aethriona laughed softly.
"I leave you your monster," she said.
"But I take what he once was."
What he has.
And if history repeats again,I'll come for you again.
And with that she appeared before selene gripping her and disappeared.
The silence after the breach sealed was worse than any scream.
Damon lay on the cracked stone floor, his body shaking violently, the remnants of his shattered void-core flickering weakly in his veins. But the physical damage was nothing compared to the hollow agony swallowing his chest.
Selene was gone.
Taken.
His only anchor — ripped away in front of him.
He pushed himself up with trembling arms, fingers clawing at the floor as if he could still reach her.
As if she were only inches beyond his grasp.
"Selene…"
His voice cracked apart.
"Selene—come back—please…"
But nothing answered him.
The chamber was dead.
Slowly, he dragged himself toward the last place she stood. His fingers closed on the cold stone, finding a small scratch where her knee had scraped the ground before Aethriona tore her away.
He pressed his forehead to it.
And screamed.
A sound that cracked through the ruins like a wounded god — raw, broken, endless.
But no breach opened.
No magic sparked.
No miracle happened.
Selene's warmth was gone.
Aethriona had taken her into the void — not as a hostage, not as a bargaining chip…
…but as a possession.
A prize.
A piece Damon would never reclaim.
Damon curled in on himself, hands shaking against his ribs. The shattered void-core inside his chest pulsed irregularly, unable to stabilize without the emotional tether Selene once gave him.
Every beat hurt.
Every breath hurt.
Every second without her tore deeper into him.
And he knew — with the clarity of a soul being crushed — that Aethriona had done this intentionally.
To destroy him.
Not by killing him.
But by making him live.
With loss.
With longing.
With a wound that would never close.
Forever.
He lifted his head, eyes burning, voice a whisper of a man who had lost everything:
"She took my heart…
and now she took my soul."
There was no rage left to fight with.
No strength left to break free.
No hope left to chase.
Only silence.
Only pain.
And the eternity Aethriona had engineered for him — a fate far crueler than death:
**To exist without Selene,
with no path,
no cure,
no possibility of ever seeing her again.**
Aethriona had won.