Rheon
I won't break you
I saw her lips move.
"I love you. Now break me."
No.
No.
The mark on my chest flared, searing so violently I tasted iron. The bond burned like a brand beneath my ribs — rage, sorrow, desperation all crashing together into something primal. She was still chanting, still completing the ritual. She was going to die to save me.
Not like this.
Not like this.
My shadows erupted before I even realized I had summoned them, twisting like wrath-born flame through the battlefield. I pushed forward, slicing through the first demon in my path with my bare hands. His scream was an afterthought — a flicker of noise lost beneath the roar of my fury.
“GET OUT OF MY WAY!” I roared.
Jisoo was beside me in an instant, his blade drawn, wings unfurled.
“We’ve got you, brother.”
Taeyang followed — blood on his fists, his eyes ablaze with something more than war. He was no longer holding back. None of us were.
“She’s still up there,” I said, gasping. “She’s still… trying to finish it.”
“I know,” Taeyang growled. “Then let’s cut them all down.”
They came at us like a wave — demon soldiers, corrupted and feral, some of them even I recognized from the courts I once walked. But I didn’t care. Every one of them was between me and the only thing that mattered.
Seori.
The crown on her head glowed with a light too holy for this wretched realm. She was glowing. Sacred. Untouchable.
Mine.
“You’re not dying for me,” I snarled under my breath, ripping through another enemy. “You’re not.”
I reached the stairs to the obsidian dais, my lungs burning, my body screaming — but I didn’t stop. The bond pulsed louder now, louder than any war cry.
Behind me, Minji and Yuna were protecting the gate. Jisoo and Taeyang were taking wounds for me — bleeding for me — and I didn’t even look back. I couldn’t.
Because she was there.
She turned — and her eyes…
Gods, her eyes.
They held nothing but love.
And goodbye.
“No,” I gasped, stumbling up the final steps. “No, don’t do this.”
I was almost there. Just a few feet.
